Lent is widely recognized as “a period of penitential preparation for Easter,” often marked by fasting and somber contemplation intended to focus our thoughts on Jesus’ impending death—and our own mortality. Gardening offers supporting images for this: the garden of Gethsemane, for example, or the reminder that our lives originated from the earth and will return to it.
But Lent also invites us to wait and prepare for resurrection and rebirth, and gardening offers rich imagery here: seeds placed into the earth emerging as new life … John 12:24 reminding us that “if the [kernel of wheat] falls to the ground and dies … it produces many seeds”—the plants which returned to dust in the fall return to life in the spring … and, as Hannah Brown notes in an article for Living Lent, Jesus was even mistaken for a gardener, in the garden by the tomb.
Brown links our climate crisis to the “lament-and-Gethsemane” aspect of Lent, but she also links it to rebirth and new life. And she observes that “Since the middle ages, it has been tradition for church communities to create an ‘Easter garden’ during Holy Week.” Hmmm… sounds a bit like Union Gardens!
Three final items to mention:
Don’t forget the Bill Gates-Anderson Cooper conversation on climate change, Thursday night, February 18th
You might enjoy this reflection on The Vegetable Garden and Lent (thosecatholicmen.com)
· Stay tuned for more news on Union Gardens in the coming weeks!