prayer for a community garden: planting the seed

My Garden

My thoughts are as a garden plot, that knows

No rain but of your giving, and no rose

Except your name.  I dedicate it yours,

My garden, full of fruits in harvest time.

~Mutamid, king of Seville (1040-1095), Spain

I am in the process of helping my church create a community garden.  My hope is that it will not become an “outreach” garden where we grow food to be distributed.  Rather, it shall be  a real community garden–a place where people work together, grow together, and harvest together.  There will be planning, but the Creator will be the facilitator, the one who teaches us how to tend to our crops and observe the seasons, how to cultivate the Earth and appreciate biodiversity.

My prayer is that this garden will bind us together in body and spirit–that we will develop an appreciation for our

neighbors who we once considered strangers, that we will open our hearts to changing the world, one planted seed at a time.

Look around you.  A garden awaits outside your front door.  It is fertile and waiting for your seeds.  Go there and plant and see what the Gardener creates in your community.