St. Francis Community Garden, Greenville, SC
Gardening provides both wonderful metaphors for spiritual life and a rich opportunity for spiritual practice. It can be a solitary, meditative practice focusing on the feeling of the soil in your hands and the visual beauty you are helping to create. It can also be something done in community and can be an opportunity to provide service for others. The fresh produce of a garden can be a source of healthy nourishment for yourself or for many people who are finding it increasingly difficult to afford food.
A recent episode of Religion & Ethics Newsweekly included a segment on the community garden created by St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Bethesda, MD. All of the produce is donated to St. Luke’s House, the mental health facility next door. Cara Gonzalez describes her experience with the garden as she is interviewed by Deborah Potter of PBS:
POTTER: Cara Gonzalez worships at St. Luke’s and has brought the local youth organization she works with to help out in the garden.
CARA GONZALEZ (Parishioner): There’s definitely something spiritual about working with the earth and feeling a relationship with all of God’s creation, and then taking that and making it into a human relationship with those who benefit in the cooking program and with the youth who benefit. I think it’s all about that connectedness, and that’s very spiritual.
POTTER: This year’s harvest was such a success that St. Luke’s plans to keep the garden going next year and make it bigger, so it can feed even more people, body and spirit.
CARA GONZALEZ (holding out fresh basil): Amazing. Here, take a sniff. Tell me that’s not spiritual right there. Amazing.
The Community Ministries department of the St. Francis Health System created a community garden in partnership with Leadership Greenville's Class 35. Click on the photo above to go to the community garden project blog. You can find more community gardens in our area at the American Community Gardening website.
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