Your Spiritual Garden
Throughout our life, we hear many metaphors for “God”, as we each have our own unique relationship with “God”. A few common ways that people try to relate to ”God” are as “God the Father”, “God the friend”, “God the Creator”, “God the energy”, etc.
Another way that is also very inspirational to relate to God is as “God the gardener“. Some people feel that God can be seen as cultivating the world, giving it water of life, and nourishment from the soils. And so, as this caring gardener tends to all of his “seeds”, he watches them grow and unfold right before his eyes.
The gardener never forces his plants to grow a certain way, but gives them love and all the requirements for life and simply watches them “be”.
Hence when I came across this poem/prayer from Joyce Rupp, it eloquently demonstrated to me, how some people can envision, feel and relate to God as a gardener:
Gracious Gardener, How wondrously You care for me. You send Your waters of refreshment. Your wisdom inspires my spirit. You keep drawing us toward Your light.
New growth continually sprouts from the soil of my spiritual garden. Flowers of creativity bloom. Herbs of joy flavor my days. Vegetables of nourishment flourish.
Gracious gardener, I trust that You will continually water my soul and drench my life with Your abiding love.
You can find this and many other poems/prayers in Joyce Rupp’s book Prayers to Sophia.
Reflection
I feel these verses can be used for so many things in one’s life. You can use them as a reflection, especially as a beautiful summer reflection. You can apply them as a prayer. You can read them for inspiration or you can simply take the words as they are and enjoy the moment they bring you.
There are many lines in these verses that really resonate with my spirit. However, the line the spoke to me the most, was when Joyce writes “New growth continually sprouts from the soil of my spiritual garden.” Knowing that we are one and always connected to God, in this image we too can view ourselves as “gardeners”.
We each have our own “spiritual garden” whether we know it or not. Whether we choose to see it, there are many “plants” in this garden of “ours” that can bring new growth into our life. Let us therefore take an example from nature and be open and adaptable to allow new growth to come through us, however and which ever way God’s energy and light works within us.
If you have not pondered on or considered your own “spiritual garden”, I invite you to reflect upon that and see potential that awaits within you.
In your reflection, consider questions like:
- What is present in my spiritual garden?
- How do I nourish my spiritual garden?
- What can I do to stay in tune with my spiritual garden?
If your spirit has felt God’s presence and you have accessed your own spiritual garden, I invite you to share a story or two if you’d like below, from your own experience and the changing growth that it brought into your life.
6 Comments, Comment or Ping
Steve says:
God as Gardener is a nice metaphor and on a certain level it works.
It’s comforting, okay. But really, it’s just another version of the “Big Guy in the Sky”. And no offence to the writer. We all seacrh for meaning.
But God as Gardener is just a belief and it doesn’t really do more than make you believe in another story. The Mystery we have called God is not that.
If you drop all your beliefs, and just feel the Mystery; Real God appears without explanation or verification or any way to know It/Him/Her within the field or dimension of Qualities.
The Ego can not know God. But God Is.
Feel that…… For feeling is the most subtle dimension and it can, if you persist, lead you to what is Prior to all any any ideas or thoughts.
Love
Steve
Jun 30th, 2008
Evita says:
Hi Steve - ah yes you got it…God as a Gardener is still a story. That is why I was a little hesitant posting this piece, but I really like the idea of “a spiritual garden” and hence wanted to focus on that more and that fact that if one sees themselves created in the image and likeness of God then they too are a gardener and hence must be accountable for their own “spiritual garden”.
In the past I did used to view God as many of these metaphors today I simply know that God is “I am” and no words or metaphors can explain that as words are limited and God is limitless.
That is why perhaps just like I said what I like about the poem I should have also added what I disliked about it and that is the line ” Gracious gardener, I trust that You will continually water my soul and drench my life with Your abiding love.”
That line of course releases us of our accountability and responsibility to ourselves. Many people put their trust in God and sit by helplessly instead of doing something about a situation themselves. God did not make useless beings who are helpless without him. Indeed he did make us in his own image because we are just that a part of God and hence God - creators in our own essnece.
It is a tough idea for some to swallow - but if one can imagine that God is a mountain made of rock and we are the rocks that make it up, then when put back together are we not the mountain too?
Jul 2nd, 2008
Liara Covert says:
This insightful post reminds human beings they are are each the gardener of their own lives. They need to learn to nuture the soul, the visible and invisible, in order to grow and flourish.
Jul 3rd, 2008
Evita says:
Well said Liara - because without accountability we all just roam around looking for others to satisfy our needs and blaming others when things do not go how we wanted.
Jul 3rd, 2008
JJ Loch says:
How beautiful!!! I love the imagery that it is never too late to improve oneself and that it needs nourishment from God.
Hugs, JJ
Jul 6th, 2008
JJ Loch says:
And that new life needs nourishment to happen. Excuse me for not explaining that clearly.
Hugs, JJ
Jul 6th, 2008
Reply to “Your Spiritual Garden”