As we move into the growing season I have begun to spend more time in the garden doing the hard labor needed to get the garden ready, sometimes underneath the hot sun or even on the cold and windy days. I have spent many hours in the garden doing the work that simply needs to be done. Many of the people in the neighborhood that I have talked to have asked the simple question, “how can this be a church garden we you (me) are the only one working in it.” They, in a way are right, though I have had help from many other people in the garden, and help outside the garden. Many people only ever really see me, in their eyes this is not a church Garden, it is simple a private one. Yet there is more to the garden then the people active in it.
From the moment I stepped foot in the garden, I knew that it wasn’t meant to be for one person. It wasn’t meant to be kept to ones self, kept hidden, rather something needed to come out of it. In a way that garden cried to be used for a greater purpose. From working in it I know why – God is there. God is active, working in and through, seen and known, in the garden, not just simply with God’s presence, but in the interaction with the plant, the wild life, the soil, air, and sky. God is active through it all. In a way the Garden is filled with only one person, at all times, God. I am just helping out. God is always there. People just haven’t seen this, yet.
This, though, is much the same with our everyday lives. If we have dedicated, a time or place for God, do we truly see it as God’s place/time, or is it simply our time, another moment? Or is it still our place? Do we sense God’s presence there? Do we allow God’s presence to truly take over the place? When we make something God’s, we must fully give it over to God, never keeping anything for ourselves. Rather everything is God’s. We must do it so that when other people take the time to look at these places, these moment they see God. Never us, but God.
As time has gone on there has been some people, who have stopped to talk to me, and have said that they see the work that is coming out of the garden. They are seeing God’s work in the garden. It has only taken some time. Many have even stopped to say that they see great things coming out of it. God is working. Yet many have even said that there is a presence about it, a peace almost. God is there. Yet are we truly letting God be in every moment, ever place, because to truth of the fact is, that they all belong to God. No one else, always God.