Garden as Church

Everything is growing.  I find this to be a magical thing, although it happens all the time. 

My mother asked me why I don’t go to church and after telling her that it gave me the heebie jeebies, she asked for clarification.  What is it about church that creeps me out?  It’s not the scripture.  I have no problem with the Bible, old, new, Jewish, Christian, Gnostic.  Even the Qu’ran fascinates me.  But I don’t like the sound of someone else’s voice reading it.  Very self-centered, I realize, but I don’t like hearing a voice of God.  If I read it to myself, I can pretend that voice has no sound, which makes sense to me.  Similarly, I don’t like other people in church with me.  Yes, I want to have the whole place to myself, and that just doesn’t happen on Sunday morning.  So I have found a chapel of my own, close by, and full of wonder.

My garden is a humble place, but there are growing things and dying things, and to me that is the clearest evidence of a great design.  The fact that bright flowers emerge from nubs, or that fruits and vegetables peek out, plump up, and, if left to go full cycle, deposit the seeds for the next generation, these are miracles that prove the existence of purpose.   And it is so peaceful.  There are no sounds of someone else’s interpretations.  There is only life, as natural and pure as it gets.  The birds are calling to each other, the chickens are muttering, the branches in the jacaranda are creaking in the wind, and the cars on the road below drive by.  This is real to me.  This place gives me the regeneration and perspective I need to carry on.