The Garden of Life

• Annual Meeting May 17th after Services; your voice and vote matters to the continued future of CCNOT. Pot Luck to follow.
• Upcoming Membership Service on May 17th: if you have been considering becoming a member and would like more information, please reach out to Charlotte.                                                
• Discussion Circle is on the last Sunday after Church; this month we will look at the Sermon on the Mount. These discussions are here to to inspire, teach, guide, and challenge us–all are welcome to join us (this is an exploration of sacred passages, poetry, and words to inspire us toward freshness, surprise, and wonder).

Visit our Calendar of Events to explore our upcoming dates and times

Our Sunday Reflection is recorded and can be found HERE (posts each Sunday late morning or early afternoon). These words are written to be spoken aloud; please forgive grammatical and other written errors.

All are Welcome. If you are uncomfortable with the word God, please feel welcome to insert your own word for the divine or Mystery in your life (Universe/Grace/Spirit/Divine).

As I was preparing for this Sunday, I came across so many beautiful themes around gardens and grace that I don’t even know where to begin.  

As spring unfolds before our eyes, we celebrate May Day, full moons, light, and life itself.  As we dig into our own dirt and land, I thought maybe I would share some of those themes and see what inspiration comes.

The natural world and our souls are intricately connected.  The natural world, the Garden, is an extension of Grace that nourishes the grace seated in our own souls.  

In the natural world, the Garden, we can better hear the voice of the divine.  

God sends us little Love Notes, blessings, in the beauty of the earth and those blessings surround us, calling us back toward Love.

The natural world, the Garden, was entrusted to us to tend.  This tells us that God has faith in us and in return, we have faith in God.

In nature we find God’s healing touch.  

Notice the deeply reciprocal relationships that are enfolded into these themes.  Notice how it speaks to the heart.  There is nothing here that you don’t already know.  It speaks to the soul.  In the dirt.  In the quiet.  In the listening.  The spirit moves through like a flowing river from the source.  Through us.  Around us.  Returning.  Like living water.  

We are a part of a great interconnected web that we might call the Garden.  Bigger than us.  Bigger than our part of this world.  Bigger than perhaps the Earth itself.  We tend to that bigger by tending to what is right before us.  Our land.  Our back yard.  Our balcony.  That is our role in the relationship of reciprocity.  That we tend and trust, have faith, that others are tending as well.  

We also tend to the beings that are right before us.  Including our fellow human beings.  We too need tending.  We too are in relationships of reciprocity.  

Although there is nothing here we do not know, it is quite easy to forget, for things to get distorted, or muddy, or to be led astray.  Perhaps, this is one reason we return here together each Sunday…to remember and to come back from where we may have strayed.  

This Earth is entrusted to us, but there are so many ways for us to fall off the path and misunderstand what that means.  We’ve been trained away from tending and care.  So, while there is nothing here that we do not know, we might (wisely) check in to see if what we think and do aligns with our Path…perhaps the path of Jesus.  That would be: love, connection, caring, compassion…kindness and tenderness.  

Aligning our truths with a moral compass helps to keep us from straying too far from what is true and aligned with Grace.  Our Compass is our anchor to be sure that we are guided not by man or society, but by deep Wisdom.  We might choose a compass in Jesus or Mary, a Way, Love/Kindness, Universal Spirit, or words of wisdom.  Is our “truth” aligned with a bigger Truth?  

We must not forget to to pull out our compasses often. It’s easy to think we are going in the right direction, but if we forget to consult with our compasses, we can quickly find ourselves lost.  

Writer, poet, mystic, healer, composer Hildegard of Bingen carried a compass of nature and God in what she called “greening”.  “Greening” is the act of healing and tending.  Greening the earth.  Greening our souls.  Greening our bodies and minds.  It takes time and patience to heal.  To shed the entangling weeds and pests to allow the green parts of ourselves to thrive and grow. To find that sometimes the “weeds” and “pests” are allies (love notes) and not to be thrown aside so quickly after all.  

As we watch the earth unfolding into spring, it all seems so easy.  But our part of this work (of the earth, of ourselves, of one another) takes personal growth, tending, patience, and…humor.  Tending takes patience and humor.  

I just planted one of my garden beds with flowers from Easter so they can grow up all summer long.  Some critter came by and dug everything up and tossed it around.  I think just to vex me.  

Growing, tending, and healing takes patience and laughter.  And, more often than not, an understanding of others.  The critter didn’t dig up the garden just to vex me.  Ahh, so easy to be led astray.  To think the world revolves around us and is out to get us.  

With a little patience and knowledge…I remember that there’s probably some tasty morsels under my plants for a hungry critter.  That little critter isn’t there to get me.  That little critter cares little about me (except, perhaps, that I am the giver of seeds).  

How easy it is to disconnect, distort, and get lost from care and tending and kindness.  Here’s where that compass comes in handy.  We do our work in what’s in front of us, but wisdom reminds me of those who came before (perhaps leading back to Jesus) who know that tending includes the wild and small creatures (all life).  

Tending a garden (and life) teaches us gifts of slowing down, of listening, of seeing.  Of quieting our minds, to open our souls.  It helps us to learn to navigate the chaos and the curveballs (and to remember that others may not have the same plan as we do).  

Holding our compass can perhaps remind us to meet the chaos, clutter, and differing agendas with humor and human grace.  Our compass can echo to the source of that grace…God’s Grace (Universal Grace).  

The source that flows on in a great plan that we are a part of but that we do not control.  We were never meant to be in control.  We are washed by the nourishing waters and when we slow down and listen we are fed by the spirit flowing through, but we are not the ones who control the great stream or the source or where it all leads.  

But we are gifted love notes and blessings in our gardens.  We are given tests of patience that can lead us toward remembering love.  We are given tests of temper that can lead us toward forgiveness.  We are given company that eats our seeds and steals our crops that can lead us toward a bigger understanding that leads to the work of tending not just to the garden, but to all beings and all creation within the Garden of Life.