A move to Spokane, Washington, in the summer of 2004 brought many expected changes to our young family of four. There was a new call to pastor a congregation, new schools, a new house. But our home’s ready-to-harvest vegetable garden came as one of our biggest surprises. Little did we know, as we tentatively plucked tomatoes and snapped green beans off the vine for the first time in our lives, that this little inherited garden would bring the most change.
Before then, I had never seen homeowners mow their lawn or trim their trees, let alone harvest a backyard bounty of zucchini. For my husband, Craig, a lowly rhubarb plant provided his lone agrarian experience growing up in the Seattle suburbs. Like many in our Gen X generation, we grew up far removed from farming and agriculture, but since our first accidental harvest, we have joined a growing movement of backyard farmers.
A combination of recession economics and interest in “green” living has led to unprecedented growth in vegetable garden seed sales in recent years. Home Depot has named “Growing Your Own Food” one of its three gardening trends for 2011. “Edible landscaping” is a new catchphrase as we enter the heat of a new growing season. As a pastor and a Christian, I’ve come to see this move toward gardening as not only a step toward health and sustainability, but also as fertile ground for spiritual formation.
Craig has been the driving force behind our growing garden through the years. He added a greenhouse and turned every bare patch of earth in our yard into productive land. I have focused on weeding and cooking the harvest. I didn’t think we could expand the garden further until 2008, when our family committed to limit purchasing items that were local, used, homegrown, or homemade. Craig took the homegrown part to heart and proposed a plan: “Let’s take out the lawn and turn it into a vegetable garden labyrinth!”
Skeptical, I replied, “That’s nice.” It wasn’t until Craig showed up with a sod cutter in the back of his car that I realized he fully intended to tear out 2,000 square feet of grass and replace it with a maze modeled after the floor of the Chartes Cathedral.
We knew little about labyrinths at the beginning of this adventure, but as our plan emerged from the freshly revealed dirt we learned how they served as alternatives to long and risky pilgrimages to Jerusalem in the medieval church. Labyrinths were prayerful pathways meant to foster attentiveness and patience in their travelers, with each twist and turn leading closer to God at the center. Each turn the traveler takes is an occasion for reflection: am I turning away, or am I getting closer? And how could these questions help me pay attention to God’s voice in my life?
Our family established a rule early on: you have to walk on the path. No shortcuts. This helped nurture the growth of the plants, and also caused me to slow down and be careful. This was often an inconvenience, especially when running into the garden to grab some basil or chives for dinner. But every time I was tempted to skip, hop, and jump over the rows, I was forced to slow down and ask, Why am I in such a hurry? It forced me to pause and to remember to give thanks for all the beauty and new growth along the path.
Along with slowing me down, my work tending to the garden has helped me pay attention to the soil of my life. It is a way of daily living out the parable of the soils that Jesus teaches about. I especially relate to the soil Jesus describes as choked by thorns (Luke 8:7). That’s the weedy soil, and believe it or not I’ve come to be grateful for the weeds in our labyrinth.
How I used to hate to weed! I used to be so overwhelmed by the weeds that I’d turn in my gardening gloves for coffee and a magazine on the front porch. But I’ve learned to take one patch of earth at a time and I’ve learned the value of preparing the soil. When you’re pulling weeds, you’re not making something grandiose happen. All you are doing is preparing the soil for something to happen. The result is largely out of our control—it is God who makes the garden grow. But what we can do is prepare the soil as best as we can.
And often I came to realize it’s not just the soil that needed tending.
One day while weeding the designated patch for the day, I became aware of an awfully loud noise. It wasn’t the neighbor’s obnoxious leaf blower. It was the noise of all the things I was anxious about, people I was angry with, an argument left unresolved. There were a lot of fat, weedy thorns taking up space in my mind and soul. My time in the garden helped prepare the soil of my life, inviting God into the noise and unrest inside. It was God’s turn to do the weeding and gently lead me toward the center again.
The garden lessons in paying attention led Nancy Goodwin, mom of Noel (11) and Lily (8), and Presbyterian pastor with husband Craig, into a year-long experiment in consumption, choosing to consume only things that were locally produced, used, homegrown or homemade. The Goodwins’ family adventure is chronicled in Craig Goodwin’s book, ‘Year of Plenty: One Suburban Family, Four Rules and 365 Days of Homegrown Adventure in Pursuit of Christian Living (Sparkhouse Press)’.
