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Our Community Garden |
Reading When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don’t blame the lettuce. You look into the reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like lettuce. from Peace Is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hahn Sermon
I
love to garden! Thanks to my maternal grandmother and my mother,
gardening is in my blood. Although most of my gardens have been
solitary endeavors, I’m a big fan of community gardens. I
don’t participate in any of the local community gardens that
you can find in Blacksburg, but I have been involved in community
gardens in the past. I’m also a community garden spectator,
and this hobby of sorts has allowed me to watch the seasonal
evolution and activities of community gardens in several communities
from New York City to Fort Worth, Texas.
My first experience of community gardening was
in the family backyard. My mother loved to garden — as did her
mother, and one year she gave me and my two younger sisters small
plots of her precious garden to grow whatever we wanted. She told
us that if we planted something in our own garden, then it was our
responsibility to take care of it. We all grew flowers. I chose
zinnias, and we started with seeds, not plants. Our first test as
new gardeners was learning to be patient! This was tough, and I
recall that one of my sisters dug up her seeds to check on them with
disastrous results. I’m sure that there was plenty of
grumbling and whining about weeding, but I also recall the thrill of
seeing my zinnias bloom. One day I even had enough flowers to cut
some for the dining room table, which made me feel very proud.
I was an adult the next time I joined a
community garden. My husband, our two-year old son, and I had moved
to Ann Arbor, Michigan. We lived in an apartment complex on the edge
of the city. Some of us went to the manager of the complex and asked
if we might use some of the land behind our building for a garden.
He agreed and even had the land cultivated for us so that we didn’t
have to do this heavy work ourselves.
I learned a lot about the joys and pitfalls of
community gardening in the two years that we lived in Ann Arbor.
There were strong differences of opinion about all sorts of things:
the use of organic vs. chemical fertilizers; controlling weeds —
some gardeners did and some didn’t; and some tricky territorial
issues — such as, if your rambling zucchini vine crosses into
my garden and produces a squash, is it mine? It was fun to see what
everyone planted, each according to his or her preferences, family
traditions, and heritage. Ann Arbor, like Blacksburg, is a
university town with many foreign students and faculty. This meant
that some of the plots were filled with exotic items from other
lands. I recall the joy of a young man when a long-awaited box of
seeds arrived from his mother. Now he could eat the foods he really
loved!
Despite our differences, there was a strong
sense of camaraderie amongst the gardeners. We rejoiced together at
first tomatoes, and we mourned our losses after a fierce summer
hailstorm. Experienced gardeners would give advice to those who were
trying their hand at growing their own food for the first time. We
hauled water together and shared hoes, weeders and shovels. Our
children made friends, even if they didn’t always speak the
same language. Friendships bloomed and bore fruit. Things weren’t
always rosy, but I think that for most of us this was a happy
experience. Our lives were nourished and filled with simple
pleasures that we would not have known had we been tending isolated
plots on our own, day after day.
It strikes me that our Congregation is much like
a community garden. I’ve always resonated with the words of
Unitarian minister, A Powell Davies, who said that life is a chance
to grow a soul. My take on these words is that our essential human
task is to grow beyond the small self-centered focus of individualism
into a more expansive sense of connection and compassion.
Our beloved Congregation provides the rich soil
and the good companions that we require for this work. Each of us
has our own needs and desires, our hungers and our preferences, our
hopes and dreams for our lives. We carry these precious seeds with
us each Sunday when we gather together. Each of us longs to plant
whatever seeds we can in order to produce the fruits that will
strengthen us as we grow our souls, our minds, and our relationships.
Our individual plots will be unique. Some will
contain the seeds of social justice, a rational take on human life
and experience. Others may focus more on music, art, and that very
fuzzy thing we call “Spirituality.” Sometimes our plots
overflow with good fruits, and we feel that our community garden
meets our needs. Other times the seeds we sow fail to take root.
Our vision, our desires, and our hopes seem to shrivel up for a lack
of attention. Now we view our small plot with a sense of frustration
and failure. Is all this hard work worth it? Will our precious
seeds fail?
As Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hahn reminds us,
the lettuce doesn’t always grow as well as we would like. The
garden doesn’t always bring forth abundant fruits. Sometimes
the cause is beyond our control: too much rain, not enough sun, too
much heat, a late frost. There’s not much we can do except
remain devoted to our plot, and prepare as best we can for better
times ahead. This is true for our Congregation as well: There are
times of abundance and growth. There are times of pulling back,
reflecting, waiting. But
often we can
affect the conditions in the garden. We can
respond to our problems with renewed efforts to improve the soil that
is fundamental to the garden’s ability to produce nourishing
food and lovely flowers — or in the case of the Congregation,
healthy relationship and a shared commitment to the mission and
vision of the Congregation. We may decide that we don’t have
some basic knowledge about the needs of particular plants. The same
may be true of our understanding of our way of the spirit. No one
hands our faith to us through creeds and doctrines in a tidy package
like one of those “salad garden kits” you can buy that
provide an assortment of three kinds of lettuce and other veggies for
a summer salad. We have to figure out what will best feed us, and
then we can till the soil and plant the seeds and watch over their
development with patience and mindfulness.
At times we may work alone, but always with an
awareness of the whole; reminding ourselves that whatever we
cultivate will affect the other gardeners. If I enrich the soil in
my little plot, then surely the rain will carry some of the nutrients
to the plots around me. If our covenant is to promote a healthy
garden through organic methods of right relations, and someone
ignores this decision and shares rumors, or fails to address the
weeds of conflict, then the whole is inevitably affected and may be
damaged. When a generous gift of time, talent, or treasure is poured
out upon us, we are all strengthened.
Today we celebrate our special community garden
— our Congregation. As you select your flower, consider it as
a token of esteem from someone who is a fellow gardener, working side
by side with you to make this beloved community a source of
nourishment for your soul, your heart, your mind, and a place of
beauty for all who come through our doors. |