Garden Lessons

Good work finds the way between pride and despair.
It graces with health. It heals with grace.
It preserves the given so that it remains a gift
By it, we lose loneliness:
we clasp the hands of those who go before us, and the hands of those who come after us;
we enter the little circle of each other’s arms…

- Wendell Berry (excerpt from What are People For?)

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Late last year at the Catalyst Conference in Atlanta, while listening to Tri Robinson discuss his community’s willingness to think about the environment in a new way, I had a thought: what better way to engage a suburban church community in creation care than by starting a community garden? I was one of those kids that read 50 Ways to Save the Planet for Kids and then proceeded to force my family into sticking bricks into the toilet bowls, starting our own compost bin and riding bikes whenever possible. Hearing about Tri and his leadership inspired me to share my passion for all things green with our very suburban church community.

“Green” is finally hitting the mainstream, but there are still those out there who conjure up spotted-owl-loving-hippies whenever they hear about the environmental movement. Unfortunately, many Christians fall into this category. I’m not really sure how that happened, since God gave us the gift of creation way back in Genesis (and, therefore, the responsibility to care for it), but I thought an organic community garden would be an easy way to get people outside and thinking about our obligation as Christians to care for the creation around us.

When I returned home after the conference, we gathered some other individuals who were interested in the idea of a community garden and got to work putting together a proposal for the church leadership.

After numerous bumps in the road, we broke ground for the new garden around mid-May. Our plan was to plant a diverse range of crops organically, and then transport them down to a community center we sponsor on the eastside of Indianapolis. The garden has not been a tremendous success in the traditional sense. We started too late for much of the produce due largely to a very wet May and June in Indiana and the typical hoop-jumping involved in starting a new project. The corn is just now knee-high, it’s been difficult to gather organic compost so quickly, and transporting fresh produce downtown has been a little trickier than we originally thought.

If the garden hasn’t been successful in the world’s eyes, though, it has certainly been fruitful in God’s eyes. The garden has been teaching me about faithfulness and about good work. God has shown His faithfulness to this project from the beginning. We originally hoped to have enough volunteers for each to work one day for a few hours two times a month. I worried if we would even get that many, but on the day we announced our plans for the garden to the congregation, we had over 50 people sign up to help, which enabled us to have several volunteers for each day of the month. “Build it, and they will come,” I thought to myself.

Volunteers have come out of the woodwork to share their gardening expertise with those of us who aren’t as experienced with growing food. We build community, share stories and learn from one another when we’re out at the garden together. Countless volunteers have told me how they’ve dreamed about an organic, community garden behind the church for years. They were just waiting for someone to actually do something about it. God has turned a simple idea into a story of people finding their place in their community and in His Kingdom-coming plans.

My time at the garden has also been teaching me some more personal lessons about work. A few weeks ago, I went out to the garden by myself (which I highly recommend, by the way). My “day job” requires that I sit at a desk all day, in a cube-like “office” with no windows. I derisively call it my little cardboard box because that’s what it feels like to me. Most days, I’m not able to look back at what I’ve done for the day and see tangible results. The work lacks purpose and a sense of fulfillment.

Hours at the garden are so different. The same is true for the hours spent in the garden in our backyard, but the immensity and the purpose of the community garden give my hours there so much more meaning. I spent a few hours out at the garden by myself, tilling and shoveling and tilling some more. In all honesty, it’s pretty brainless work. As the sun began to set and I prepared to go home, I looked back on what I’d done. I’d tilled and raked six large garden beds that will eventually nourish and shelter squash, sweet pepper and watermelon plants. A few short hours and some sweat out at the garden produces very real and tangible results. Results that will help to feed families at the community center, and, eventually, hopefully, other families in need around our community as the garden grows and produces more.

Out at the garden, it isn’t about the amount of work that’s done, it’s about feeding hungry families with delicious homegrown food, about building community, about learning more about the creation God’s given us to nurture and protect…and, as I’m increasingly learning, it’s about giving the community that works the garden the opportunity to see very visible, very fruitful results for the time and energy we devote to it. These days, it seems like that’s harder and harder to come by.

As Wendell Berry writes, good work “preserves the given so that it remains a gift.” Since arriving in the working world, I’ve had trouble believing that God blesses us with work. Our garden has taught me that there is a vast difference between the good work that Berry and scripture talk about and the type of work to which many Americans devote most of their weeks. God is using the garden to challenge me to fill my days with more of the good work that He has given, so that I can take a part in one of His greatest gifts to us.

The Burnside Writers Collective fundraising campaign has begun. If you can donate a few bucks, we’d be grateful. Here are a few ways we want to say thank you:

Donations under $35: A Burnside sticker.

$35-$59: A copy of Donald Miller’s upcoming book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years and a Burnside sticker. The book is due out in 2009. We may or may not be able to get copies before they hit the stores. Regardless, you’ll get when we get it.

$60-$99: An autographed copy of A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, a book of your choice penned by one of our contributors* (list of options below) and a Burnside sticker.

$100-$199: An autographed copy of A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, two books penned by our contributors, a Burnside t-shirt and a Burnside sticker.

$200 or more: An autographed copy of A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, all five books penned by Burnside contributors, a Burnside t-shirt, a Burnside sticker and your name listed as a Burnside Patron on the new site.