This growing season celebrates the 15th Anniversary of the Compassion Garden at our Meetinghouse. This garden project will not last forever at Winchester Friends, but I am thankful for the years I’ve had and the lessons I’ve learned from urban gardening in the middle of Winchester, Indiana. This summer during my hours and hours of watering, weeding, and harvesting I’ve had time to ponder several important lessons and how they relate to our faith community.
The garden started as a way for the youth in our meeting to help raise money to support a Compassion child in Uganda. An empty patch of useless land between two parking lots across from the Meetinghouse was turned and nurtured and planted, and for 15 years has produced tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers to be shared at the Meetinghouse, at the local farmers market, the local jail, and at the local food pantry. Over the years, the generation of youth who began the garden graduated and left for college and a new generation of youth uses the proceeds from the garden to purchase animals from Heifer International each year. Winchester Friends has a historical connection with Heifer International: in1945 the Meeting provided a heifer to be sent to Poland to help farmers recover after World War II’s devastation.
Growing Deeper
Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root.
[Matthew 13: 5-6]
Earlier this summer I pulled a weed next to a beautiful flower. The entire flower came out with the weed. I saw that this large, productive flower was attached to the soil with a small, weak root that broke quickly and easily and destroyed the plant. In that moment I realized the value of deep, healthy roots and was reminded of the teachings of Jesus in the parable of the sower from Matthew 13. It matters where we plant and it matters how we nurture our gardens and faith communities.
We live in a world where many unproductive things grow in our gardens and we spend much time and energy working to separate, divide, and clear out weeds with little thought or care of nurturing our roots. As I think about our faith community in this day and age, I too, find it tempting to focus on weeds—that which is visible and unproductive and unwanted—rather than to spend time and energy nurturing healthy community, deeper commitments within our faith communities, and deeper spiritual relationships with Christ. Healthy plants with deep roots make no space for weeds to flourish.
Bearing Fruit
Deep roots and healthy plants bear fruit. For many years I only planted tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers in the Compassion Garden. There were summers when I harvested 15 gallons of cucumbers every other day. In spite of all the places I distributed garden produce, I still found it difficult to use all those cucumbers. In recent years, I’ve diversified the produce in the garden—adding winter vegetables like Brussel sprouts and butternut squash; spring produce like bok choy, swiss chard, peas and beans; and vegetables to make ratatouille like eggplant and zucchini to go with the tomatoes and peppers. I still seem to have enough produce to go around, but now over a longer period of time. In addition, the wider variety of vegetables diversifies our diets and adds better nutrition to my community.
I am a Quaker Christian who looks at life through the Quaker lenses of simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality, stewardship and service. My Christian witness to the world is limited if I or my faith community practice only one or two of these important testimonies to the world. It makes our influence and witness shallow in a world longing to witness the full working of Christ’s spirit. Diversity nurtures the world, nourishes our communities, and makes visible the work and presence of Christ within our monthly meetings.
The Blessing of Harvest
I am learning the greatest gift of the Compassion Garden is not always fruit. It is also the privilege of being present in my community, feeding others, and being a visible witness of stewardship of the earth. I love every opportunity I have to speak with neighbors as they walk by while I’m out watering, weeding, or harvesting. This has nurtured community for me and helped build relationships. I believe growing plants and flowers outside of a Meetinghouse witnesses to an alive and growing faith community inside the Meetinghouse. The work of nurturing deep and healthy roots in the Compassion Garden matters to the harvest. Nurturing deeper spirituality and nurturing community within our Meetinghouses matters to the Kingdom of God.
How are we, as Quaker Christian faith communities, nurturing deeper roots into the presence of the Living Christ and making the Kingdom of God visible in our world today?
Pam Ferguson, with her husband Ron, is released for ministry at Winchester Friends Meeting in Winchester, Indiana. Winchester Friends is a Quaker faith community since 1873 and a consistent supporter of Friends United Meeting since its beginnings in 1902.
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