A Garden View

There are many things which transpire on the farm.  There are cows to tend and chickens to feed.  There are pecan trees which also require a certain amount of attention.  Anyone shy about working should never have pecan trees for there are always limbs to pick up after a hint of wind.  And, of course, having cows means growing and baling hay which is a major endeavor in the hot days of summer.  There are always things to do like equipment repairs, mending fences, and bush hog work all around the farm.     

What I have discovered though is that the center of the farm around here is the garden.  We have heard folks sometimes say the kitchen is the center of their home and in a like manner the garden is the center of life around here.  Especially is this true this time of the year when there is dirt to plow, seeds to plant, weeds to pull, and plants to tend.   The garden is the place of hard ongoing work, the place of great hope, and the place where life is most connected to the creation.      

Being here has provided a different perspective for reading those early pages of Genesis which tell us that in the beginning there was a garden.  The focus of that first garden does not seem to be so much about work as it was a place for the keepers of the garden to encounter and know the Creator of the garden.  It seems that it was a common thing for the couple who tended to garden to be present in the evening when the Lord God walked among them.  Not everyone is blessed to live in a place where there is room for a garden and neither does everyone have an interest in tending a garden,  but it does not change our need to put our hands in the dirt, to get our knees soiled, and to smell and know the goodness of the creation which is all around us.  What is often forgotten is that the creation is not just around us, but it is in us.  We are connected to it even as we are connected to the Creator who still walks midst what He has make looking for us.