A place of counter-formation
In a moment when abundance can be a product we buy rather than a source of life cultivated from within, the garden reminds us that all things great and wonderful most often start counter-culturally--from small and simple beginnings. In the garden, like tending to the Lord’s presence, we learn how to pay attention to and cherish the mundane, the untidy, the unkept areas of our little corners of the world, as well as our own heart journeys. And with renewed minds and faithful hearts, we believe those areas are becoming something bright and beautiful as we learn to steward them well. In the garden, we see evidence of how the incarnation happens in real-time through principles of the Kingdom in the natural world around us---practices like slowing down, honoring time by cooperating with, not against, the rhythms of our days, weeks, seasons, and decades, learning to appreciate the wonder of something coming alive--the resurrection of a seed, the empowerment our bodies, souls, and spirit receive from the nourishment found in and around the garden, the non-negotiable work of preparing the soil, the power of using diversity in the garden to create a thriving ecosystem, how the garden embodies a posture of living generously and with radical hospitality through an invitation to come alongside, and finally, learning from our yield that it’s better to give than receive. Ultimately, the garden offers us a chance to touch Eden and “Eden is a place from which we started and a place where we seek to return.”*
*excerpt from Cultivate, Reynolda Magazine, Spring 2023