Life, Truth, and Love for All

Working in a garden is a spiritual adventure. Harmony is at work there. Always something new in the garden,  something that appears unexpected.  New tasks, old tasks, maintaining and preparing the compost, moving the earth to allow oxygen to enter, pulling out grass and weeds that do not belong, cultivating, managing the plants as they grow, keeping the soil well contained with oxygen by periodically moving the soil around the plants, watering, eliminating plant pests, adding more compost, and reaping a well deserved harvest. All of these are activities in my garden that I am so grateful to participate in.  A garden is a harmonious place to be in.

Then there is the surprise in the appearance of the vegetables, or fruits. Shapes, colors, and sizes do not always come as expected. This is all part of the adventure of gardening.

Gardening is a harmonious process. A garden reflects so much beauty, harmony, order, design, consistency, naturalness, simplicity, and for those of us who start the garden from scratch, and pick the produce during harvest, are filled with the joy and reward that comes with gardening. My wife, son, and I, have experienced this joy and reward for years now. We have picked our tomatos, peppers, herbs, onions, squash, and so much more.

The garden is a display of what is going on in a much bigger scale: the universe of Principle. Now Principle is one of the seven names for God, that Mary Baker Eddy explains in her textbook of scientific metaphysics, Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures. In it, she says that God is “Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love.”  These seven terms are the seven characteristics of Deity. Each name or characteristic has qualities. Principle is harmony, harmonious, order, ordering, law, governing, government, consistency. A garden has these qualities. I contemplate the order and harmony of Principle when I am in my garden. I recognize the work of God’s hand always ordering, working, providing, sustaining, blessing, governing, harmoniously.

Maybe that is why we have always had a successful garden enriching us with so much produce. Enough to even share with friends, neighbors and family. We feel good out in our garden, and when bringing in the organic produce our garden yields up to us, harmoniously.

Mary Baker Eddy talks about gardening, beauty, nature, harmony, right activity, in Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures. That book is for me a garden of spiritual wealth. That garden I take with me everywhere I go.  It even helps me in my backyard organic garden.