Recovering Life #1- NATURE

Garden Rest in the Wastelands

Mount Congreve Gardens, Waterford

5 min read 

I’ve never appreciated our garden as much as in Spring 2020.  When Covid came our way and we entered lockdown in Ireland we were greeted with a sustained spell of dry weather.  In the days to come we discovered new walks and woods hidden within our 2km limits.  More than ever we needed to get out and breath the fresh air as the world closed in.  

As the traffic stopped and the world fell silent we heard the bird song like never before.  Had the birds come closer since our human hurry and hustle ceased? Or had they always been singing and falling on deaf ears, minds noisy with our own preoccupations?  The consciousness and connection with the beauty of nature in our neighbourhood were welcome refuge as covid waves surged.   

This movement back towards the land was well underway before Covid called.  The widespread growth of the Grow it Yourself movement- lessening the distance between food and fork. The abundance of Greenways, including Ireland’s longest at 46km in Waterford- offering a relaxing day cycling beside river, mountains, fields and beaches. The many who have plunged into ‘Vitamin Sea’- being reinvigorated and revived by sea swimming. We’ve been putting down roots and drawing freshness and life from the world around us. 

My appreciation of the great garden of the outdoors was cultivated even more from Summer 2020, as I began a period of rest and recovery following a sudden and unexpected bleed on my brain.  I had been knocked back off my feet and would spend most of the remainder of the year recovering my strength.  This journey began in the company of family in the fresh air of the majestic Mourne Moutains in Co. Down.  Whether it was the freshness that follows a major health event or just the slowness of my pace my senses were alive as I walked outdoors.  I was more conscious and more connected to nature.  I was traveling lighter and enjoying garden rest.  

     

What is it that draws us into the outdoors when we need to rest and relax? Why is a walk outside so good for us? What is it about the garden, or a day spent at a park, that brings us peace and happiness? Could it be an echo that sounds from our very origins? 

In his poem describing the vitality of Spring, Gerard Manley Hopkins writes, 

“What is all this juice and all this joy? 

A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning

In Eden garden- Have, get, before it cloy,…” 

The story of our origin we find in the bible places the first humans in the garden of Eden created by God.  It was abundant with life.  Trees laden with fruit- pleasing to the eye and to the taste. Rivers flowing with water.  As humans we were planted in the garden to flourish and be fruitful and to take care of it.  The garden was the place of work, rest and play.  The place we are to call home. 

Today, however, our lives are far from flourishing.  A recent survey showed over 50% of 18-34 year olds in Ireland claim to feel regularly stressed compared to 35% on average worldwide.  This is just the latest of warning signs of a culture of stress and burnout that is taking root.  Jefferson Bethke describes this as a culture of hustle, which is, 

“Lifeless.  Less human.  Because we’re busier. 

More frantic. More disconnected. Lonelier.”  

Whilst nature around us may be alive we are barely surviving never mind thriving. We may feel exhausted- the very life drained from us.  How can it be in an island with so many shades of verdant green we seem to be withering away, disconnected from nature?

Bethke suggests an origin story to our hustle, “If hustle needed a birthdate I’d say it was the day the assembly line was born.  It made efficiency a god.  It made time a god.  It created the ultimate pursuit of profit over everything.  It have us the operating principle of giving the least amount of energy for the highest return.”  Even if we haven’t worked a day in our lives in the factory, it seems the factory has worked it’s way into our rhythms and way of life. 

 

The results are far from pretty.  Walking a path determined by the fastest and easiest way to what we really want leads us into barren wasteland.  Litter lies across our path as the craving for food has been met and the waste discarded.  Ugly and uniform buildings are thrown up in car parks on the edge of town- fast and functional- the quickest route to sell us what we really want.  Zombies roam the streets, as we are exhausted from overspending our energy and time for what we seemingly want.  Life is drained of colour and joy.  Grim and grey.  

We have made a home in the wilderness.  

The wilderness has made its home in us.  

“…like a bush in the wastelands; 

they will not see when prosperity comes.

They will dwell in the parched places of the desert,

in a salt land where no one lives.”  

This is the poetic picture the prophet Jeremiah uses to describe those who, “…trust in man, who draws strength from mere flesh and whose heart turns away from the Lord.” We have become disconnected from the well of living waters.  

There is another way, though.  A way of living that flourishes even when we face the heat and encounter stress in life.

  

“…a tree planted by the water

that sends out its roots by the stream.

It does not fear when heat comes;

its leaves are always green. 

It has no worries in a year of drought

and never fails to bear fruit.” 

This flourishing comes from being connected to God- 
“…the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him.”  

Such language of flourishing when the heat is on is found on the lips of Jesus in John 15 as he describes those who are connected to Him- the true vine.  Their life is evident as they bear fruit.  The fruit of love- connected to Jesus and to others.  This is what it is to flourish in life. 

The life of the garden makes its way into us. 

The story of the scriptures sees it’s conclusion, as it’s origin, in the garden.  A place of flourishing in it’s richest sense, as God makes His home with us in a new heaven and new earth.  

We are made for the garden.

As we make our way along the paths of everyday life, the simple graces of the garden of nature are God’s invitation to us to rest and enjoy the life that comes from being rooted in Jesus. 

 

Come and be more conscious 

and more connected with Him.

  

Let's leave behind the wasteland of our hustle 

and rest in the garden.