Gardening is one of the most fulfilling and mysterious things a person can do.  How so much grows from a tiny seed is incredible.  I was pulling weeds in the garden today, digging deep to the roots of the tangled mess of Bermuda grass that sprawled all over the flowerbed. 

I started thinking about our first ancestor, Adam.  He was a gardener too.  He was a naked gardener, well at least for the first part of his life.  My hands are all cut up from the roots of weeds and the thorns of roses.  His weren't.  I was digging and pulling and wiping sweat of my face which stung my eyes, plus I stunk.  None of that was his problem.  I wonder what it was like being a naked gardener, walking around naming any living thing you came across and eating anything you could pluck from a tree.  I imagine him juggling a bunch of oranges in front of a pair of zebras and giraffes beside a tropical waterfall.  He probably juggled.  He had enough time to learn.  The wind blowing the mist by as the sound of the falls barely covers the roar of his laugh because he finally perfected his trick.  The zebras, of course, don't care zebras are notoriously hard to entertain.  And the giraffes don't exatly understand what's going on.  God is right there laughing along.  He gets how neat of a trick juggling oranges is. 

It was all ruined though.  There are weeds and thorns.  Adam and Eve were deceived, and I feel more sorry for them than upset.  The hurt of sin and death now go as deep and are as tangled as Bermuda grass in a lovely garden.  It's tragic really.

We dug up all the weeds.  We set down mulch and built a small wall of stone between the grass and mulch so the weeds can't creep in again.  (Here you can draw your own analogies of rule making or spiritual practices or whatever really.)

I also realized that I'd like to live in a city, not a suburb with the manicured lawns.  I'd still have a garden in the city.  I'd grow vegetables in my window sill or on the roof.  I'd probably need to work harder to keep it.  But maybe there would be less weeds growing wild.  I'd like a community garden.  Where we all as neighbors in a building come together to take back our part of the city.  It's very adventurous, very Kingdom-like. 

I wonder some days lately if it's all just a dream.  It's certainly not the American dream.  It's too downwardly mobile: to love the outcast so much to become an outcast.  Maybe it is too romantic to believe in or work towards.

Or maybe it's worth it.  Bringing a little piece of heaven to earth.  Reclaiming a part of our world for Jesus like one reclaims a flower bed from weeds.  Your Kingdom come, and Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 

I'll hold onto that dream a little longer.  I'll work towards it.  Working hard like everything else in this (metaphorical and literal) weed-filled world.  Maybe I will have a community garden in a city.  Maybe it will bring back an echo of the Garden until we come to the City.