garden musings

Good work finds the way between pride and despair.
It graces with health. It heals with grace.
It preserves the given so that it remains a gift
By it, we lose loneliness:
we clasp the hands of those who go before us, and the hands of those who come after us;
we enter the little circle of each other’s arms…

Wendell Berry (Excerpt from What are People For?)

I went out to the garden by myself tonight (which I highly recommend, by the way). I don’t know about many of you, but my “day job” requires that I sit at a desk all day, in a cube-like “office” with no windows. I derisively call it my little cardboard box because that’s what it feels like to me. Most days, I’m not able to look back at what I’ve done for the day and see tangible results.

Hours at the garden are so different. The same is true for the hours spent in the garden in our backyard, but the immensity and the purpose of the Grace Garden give my hours there so much more meaning. I spent a few hours out at the garden tonight, tilling and shoveling and tilling some more. In all honesty, it’s pretty brainless work. As the sun begin to set and I prepared to go home, I looked back on what I’d done. A few short hours and some sweat out at the garden produces very real and tangible results. Results that will help to feed Shepherd families, and, eventually, other families in need around Hamilton County. 

Out at the garden, it isn’t about the amount of work that’s done, it’s about feeding hungry families with delicious homegrown food, about building community, about learning more about the creation God’s given us to nurture and protect…and, as I’m increasingly learning, it’s about giving the community that works the garden the opportunity to see very visible, very fruitful results for the time and energy we devote to it. These days, it seems like that’s harder and harder to come by.

Thanks for listening to my ramblings…hope to see you out at the garden enjoying the fruits of your labor soon!

Sara