Beauty is the creator of the universe...

"For the world is not painted, or adorned, but is from the beginning beautiful; and God has not made some beautiful things, but Beauty is the creator of the universe." -Ralph W. Emerson

With the teasings of Spring being felt around here, I thought I would spark some fresh imaginings of gardening. We have a wonderful church community garden that is going to burst with life this year. Here are a few resources to get the enthusiasm flowing.

To Garden with God Manual

Spirituality of Gardening Seminar

And here is one of my favorite little books on how a garden can help nurture community in urban life.

The evolution of the garden...

"May the LORD bless his land with the precious dew from heaven above and with the deep waters that lie below; with the best the sun brings forth and the finest the moon can yield; with the choicest gifts of the ancient mountains and the fruitfulness of the everlasting hills; with the best gifts of the earth and its fullness and the favor of him who dwelt in the burning bush." -Deut. 33:13-16LeeElla and I spent some of the evening working in the church garden. We were able to connect with 3 neighborhood families as we worked. We shared food, planned watering, reconnected with someone we have not seen for awhile and prepared the harvests for sharing tomorrow. It's a gentle but renewing activity that brings people together.

Jacob's Well Church Community Garden: Before...

Jacob's Well Church Community Garden: Now...

Today's pickin's for Sunday distribution: Squash, Onions, Potatoes, Carrots, Cucumbers, Tomatoes, some kind of cabbage root, hot peppers, strawberries

Fence and Dirt....

The work on the fence is taking place in our Church/Community Garden...here is Daniel working on it.
We had the dirt delivered yesterday and it looks fine...as Ed can attest to...
It's coming along, we just need to finish the whole designated area around the garden and treat the wood. All in all its happened pretty fast. We have some of the seedlings growing indoors and this Sunday we will put out a sign up sheet for all who want to grow some more indoors in preparations to plant in the garden.

Garden dirt money....all $800 raised!

Thanks peeps...we will purchase the dirt this week!

30 People...$20 bucks each....

Our beds are nearing completion and we need to purchase 30 square yards of good dirt...it comes out to almost $20 per yard to purchase and deliver. If we can get 30 people to purchase one square yard per family...we can have this next part of the project taken care of. Any takers?

Phase Two...church garden project

Here is the composting area under construction in the church garden. We have salvaged, found and received used wood for various parts of this project, some from the neighborhood and some from donations. We always seek to reuse and recycle materials if we can get a hold of stuff that is quality.
The first of the perimeter planting beds going into the garden plot. We hope the grape vine will revive and grow up and over the entry gate and arbor we are constructing.

Church Garden Work Day...

Today, we had a church garden work day and thanks to a number of volunteers, we were able to get the garden fence posts set in concrete and the plot of ground raked and ready for the beds to be built.
One of the great things about doing church stuff is the ability to utilize everyones talents, skills and equipment. More hands and tools make for easier and faster work! Here is Dave (aka: Sir Mix-a-lot) making the whole cement mixing job a lot easier for the guys.
Working together creates lots of opportunity to talk, share, get to know each other and see projects go from desire, to dream, to vision, to work and then into reality. Together we discover that with God all things are possible. Working together is a witness to our culture that is fractured along so many relational lines...race, gender, age, economics, education, political and religious etc...seeing people accomplish good works together is a testimony of God among us. I saw this today, when a neighbor asked me how the community garden was coming along. As far as I know nobody in our church has relationship with this woman...but she knew about the garden. I am becoming more and more aware of how a church can become a witnessing community, simply by being a working community and that leads...to the worshipping community growing.
Seeing multiple generations working side by side; shows that church isn't built on faddish style or just being relevant. Growing genuine community is rooted in learning to work, worship and witness together. When I hear of people who have "ministries to people" but have not figured out how to share life with people among a church body...I get concerned. Ministry should be carved out of a communal witness. Gifts are seen, heard and discovered among a shared life. Ministries are like babies that are born out of a loving relationship....the relationship comes first...the children come from that.

This is a healthy context that safe guards us from individualism, ego building and short sighted actions that dont have the circumspection of multiple perspectives. A family matrix is a God designed support and scaffolding to build lives and ministries. It's harder to live together than alone, that is for sure. Community is the anvil that God uses to fashion and form His image in us. He uses the hammer of relationships to pound this out...plenty of sparks and bruises take place in this process but over time...a smooth and sharp edge emerges, and a exquisite creation is produced.

Jesus is glorified in simple people, doing simple things, with a lot of love.

Church Garden Phase One....

This Saturday we were able to get the fencing post holes dug, the cement and rocks removed from the garden plot and the ground leveled out, thanks to Zandtco Irrigation & Landscaping's generous use of their heavy equipment.
With the perimeter lined out and the fencing post holes dug; we are ready to set into place the fence posts and begin the construction of the planting beds. There was a lot of garbage, old cement and rocks in the plot of ground we are using, so they had to be hauled away.
"We're part of nature...and if we separate ourselves from that, we're separating ourselves from our history, from the the things that tie us together. We don't want to live in a world where there are no recreational fishermen, where we've lost touch with the seasons, the tides, the things that connect us to ten thousand generations of human beings that were here before there were laptops, and ultimately connect us to God." We shouldn't be worshipping nature as God, he said, but nature is the way that God communicates to us..."with such texture and forcefulness in detail and grace and joy...and when we destroy large resources...by polluting so that people can't fish, or by making so many rules that people can't get out on the water, it's the moral equivalent of tearing the last pages out of the last Bible on Earth." -Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., as quoted in Last Child in the Woods.