Growing Your Garden

Last week I wrote about developing a Rule of Life and the study series offered by the Society of St. John the Evangelist (SSJE) which is offered in video format and can be found at https://www.ssje.org/growrule/.  This series is using the garden and growing you garden as a metaphor for growing/developing a rule of life. 

The garden is a very good metaphor for this process as explained in the series.  You have to prepare the ground―which can represent the ground of your being to be open to God’s presence in your life.  You have to plant what ever you want to grow in your garden―which can represent the ways in which you are open to receive the grace which God offers you.  You have to care for the garden and what you have planted―doing those practices such as different forms of prayer and activities which connect you with God.  There are other analogies to the garden which are explored in the series such as pruning and watering.  I trust you can see how it is a very good metaphor.

That being said, I must confess that it is not one that resonates with me on an emotional or I could even say a spiritual level.  As my wife Lorna, who is an avid gardener can attest, I am not a gardener.  I do not have much if any interest in gardening.  I will, somewhat reluctantly take time away from the things that I enjoy and which resonate with me, to help Lorna with the heavy (but not too heavy) lifting.  Therefore, the metaphor of the garden does not resonate with me when considering my rule of life and spiritual practice(s).  I can understand it on an intellectual level and appreciate how it is a valid and even a very good metaphor for developing a rule of life.  However, to me meaningful to me a different metaphor would be better.

This is, I believe, a good metaphor for how our relationship to God works and doesn’t work.  God is always present in our lives in more ways than we can ever appreciate just as nature in all its aspects is there for a garden.  There is the soil, the rain, the sun, the daytime for growth and the night for rest.  There are also the storms and the times of drought and floods that will threaten those things that are growing in the garden.  Given our nature and our personalities and the fact that we are all different, we will be more open and in tune to some ways in which God is present in our lives.  Developing a Rule of Life will provide a template for us to become more aware and to deepen those ways.  It is also possible that in developing a Rule of Life we may become aware of different ways in which God is present in our lives and explore those.  Who knows, perhaps God is calling me to try gardening.  However, I don’t want Lorna to get her hopes up too much.

Blessings of your journey.