Beginning in Genesis 3, the entire rest of the Bible is the story of humanity’s journey through the chaos, suffering, and scarcity of the wilderness, back to the order, rest, and abundance of Eden. Two chapters of bliss, followed by 1,185 chapters in the wilderness before we finally return to the Garden in Revelation 20.
“Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away…then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse.” (Revelation 21:1; 22:1-3)
One of the lessons the reader should draw from this journey is that the goodness of the Garden of God requires patience and work. The formation of the Garden itself came at the end of the creation week and the return to the Garden comes at the end of the story. It shouldn’t come as a surprise then that it took me over forty years wandering in my own wilderness to find my way back to a garden.
When I was a little boy, both sides of my grandparents had gardens. My Big Mama and Grandaddy Sam had a nice little lot in back of their house where they put out beans and tomatoes and okra. My Memaw and Grandaddy Richard partnered with his uncle Thomas Gunter in a garden that was really more of a micro farm. My memories of these places are a mixture of fondness and frustrations. Once a year our whole family would spend the day on Gunter Ridge working the garden. I recall gathering corn and digging up potatoes and complaining. I wasn’t much older than five or six and the fun of the whole endeavor passed quickly. It was hot, itchy, and taxing and I didn’t care much for it at all, at least until afternoon came and my great aunt Mary Ann cooked a huge meal with all of the food we had harvested.
At my Big Mama and Grandaddy Sam’s it was a little more low key. They were older, the garden was smaller and the main memory I have is of sitting on the front porch with Big Mama helping her break beans. I always enjoyed spending time with her, but I hated breaking beans. For an eight year old with boundless energy sitting still for hours was practically torture.
As best I can tell, until about five years ago, I never really, seriously thought about wanting to be involved in a garden again. I can admit, even when this whole endeavor started, I wasn’t “all in”, but it was obvious to me that this was very important to Honey. During the second half of our marriage I’ve tried to learn to live by the mentality, “I don’t like this, but I love you, so if you love this, then I will learn to love it too.” I wish someone had taught me that when I was nineteen. We probably could have spent a lot less time in the “wilder-ness” of marriage and gotten right to the goodness that is the Garden in marriage — that whole “two become one” thing we read about on page one. I can’t say that I was excited to do all this work and spend all this money, but Honey was thriving and there is nothing I wouldn’t do to see that, so I started gardening. For the past year most of my role in this has been the heavier manual labor, while Honey has tended to the plants and the planning. This season, I’ve come to realize that Honey was harboring a secret: the work she was doing is where the real medicine lies.
For me, the change came when I got to the “weed entire garden” column of the never-ending “To Do” list we share in our phone notes. I’m going to do an entire post on the lessons I’ve learned from weeding the garden, but let me share a little here. My approach to this massive undertaking was to just do as much as I had time to do every morning until it was done. The first few days were rough. All of the kneeling down, crouching, standing up, digging, pulling, repeat ad infinitum, was taking its toll on this fluffy fifty year old body, but then something magical happened: I started to love it. More than just love it, I started to look forward to it. I started getting up early to do it and continuing later in the evening after I finished other more urgent chores. My body still doesn’t love it, but it’s adapting and I’m beginning to experience what Honey talks about all the time: there is just something about getting in the dirt with the plants that is healing.
The garden is my classroom and God is my teacher. I go there to study and to learn the ways of creation, of being human. I go there to learn the ways of God, a creator and selfless provider, giving of Himself so that there is more of Himself to be experienced. Having read the story of creation, of manna in the wilderness, of the gift of the land of milk and honey with clusters of grapes so bountiful they had to be carried on a pole by two men, it should come as no surprise to the reader by the time they reach the resurrection stories to see Jesus being mistaken for a gardener. On the resurrection morning, Mary “turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. He asked her, ‘Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?’ Thinking he was the gardener, she said, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Mary.’ She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, ‘Rabboni!’ (which means ‘Teacher’”; John 20:14-16). He was a gardener, cultivating all of creation, and Eden especially. “All things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made.” (John 1:3). Mary even encountered Him in a garden. “At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid.” (John 19:41) He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
The garden is my medicine and His Spirit is my healer, restoring my spirit to its original form and returning it to its created purpose. The prophet Ezekiel spoke of a day when, “Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear fruit, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.” (Ezekiel 47:12) What John saw in the New Jerusalem coming down from above was a garden, and “on each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse.”
In many ways, I’m convinced that this time in the garden is merely the fulfilling of my purpose for existing; not just me specifically, but we, as human beings and image bearers of God collectively. “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” (Genesis 2:15) The author of Genesis uses wordplay throughout the story; in the Hebrew creation story, Adam is both a proper noun referring to the name of the first human specifically and a common noun referring to humanity generically. The word “adam” is also a play on the word adamah, which is the Hebrew word for dirt/earth, as in the stuff that Adam/adam is made from. This correlation is still seen in our English word human, which is a derivative of the Latin ‘humus’, meaning “ground/earth”. Forgive me for the selective editing, but the point remains true, I am taking quite literally the call to “return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” (Genesis 3:19).
Even when I’m feeling less than motivated, I “return to the ground” and I am reminded that I have been invited to participate in an Eden restoration project; getting back to my roots if you will. Our ancestor Adam was tasked with continuing the work that God perfected in the Garden; he was to venture out, taming the wilderness as he went, bringing order where there is chaos, abundance where there is scarcity, fruitfulness where there is only barrenness. Everything in the Bible revolves around a central theme of disorder vs order, chaos vs creation, life vs death, garden vs wilderness. Disorder/chaos is associated with evil, suffering, foolishness, scarcity. Order/creation is associated with good, thriving, wisdom, abundance. The story begins with chaos that is quickly remedied and tamed by God who creates order, structure, pattern. In your life, you are either actively creating or else you are inviting chaos; weeds don’t wait, they are always creeping just beneath the surface, working to take over and destroy all you’ve created. There is either intentional order or unpredictable disorder. My efforts in this little spot of land are my feeble attempt to replant Eden in my life and hope it spreads to those around me.
If you show up unannounced one morning, and you are welcome to show up unanounced, there’s a good chance you’ll find my hands in the dirt, removing weeds from the garden, working and taking care of it, and probably singing Trevor Hall hymns to myself as if they were a prayer.
Who am I, but the dust of the most high
drifting like a leaf in the summer sky.
Hoping one day you will see
that whats inside of you is whats inside of me.
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