Jerusalem Cross Gardening: A Compass for Inner Transformation

The Jerusalem-cross-raised-bed outside my window, site for my gardening of soil and soul, promises to serve as a compass for a journey of inner transformation this year. 

The Jerusalem Cross Raised Bed
this Winter

Barren and cold at the moment, only dried out tomato vines on wire frames remain standing to shelter insects through winter. Yet even in this frigid death, signs of life show. Green garlic shoots poke bravely through the ice in defiance of winter, a sign that change will come, Spring is on its' way. 

My anticipation builds as the days grow longer. Soon the usual gardening of soil activities will begin - the making of compost, fertilizing of beds, watering of plants, and the harvesting of crops. But it is the gardening of soul that so excites me about the coming growing season - the experience of winter as a "womb of new beginnings" and Spring as an encounter with that which makes all things new. The Jerusalem-cross-raised-bed with its' four quadrants facing West, North, East and South - each representing one of Nature's four seasons (Fall, Winter, Spring, and Summer) and one of the four Christian Gospels (Matthew, Mark, John and Luke/Acts) - will serve as a compass for a journey of inner transformation (please see diagram).

Guided by the universal Four Path Journey of Quadratos as developed by Dr. Alexander John Shaia, each day I'll stand at the center of my Jerusalem-cross-raised-bed and alternately gaze West, North, East and South while contemplating each Path's question: "How do I face change?" (West, Path 1 of Fall and Matthew); "How do I move through suffering?" (North, Path 2 of Winter and Mark); "How do I receive joy and experience union?" (East, Path 3 of Spring and John); and "How do I mature into service?" (South, Path 4 of Summer and Luke/Acts).

The Jerusalem Cross Garden
in Summer

Change, and coping with it, is a part of life, which is what makes the Quadratos paradigm, its core premise being "that the four gospels were selected together to be used as a process for inner transformation," so helpful. Matthew, written for the early Messianic Jews in Antioch, their Temple destroyed, and the Chief Priests murdered by Empire, helps them cope with change. Mark, addressed to the early Christians of Rome, facing death if they didn't renounce the Christ, were helped to move through suffering with its chief metaphor being of Jesus and his disciples together in a small boat crossing a stormy sea. John, writing for the early Christians in Ephesus, a cosmopolitan city of many cultures and gods, all vying for attention, celebrated that in the Christ all were one. And for a brief moment in history Paul's "neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free" community triumphed over division.  Finally, Luke/Acts was written for all Christ followers, who, like those on the Road to Emmaus questioning ''all the things that have happened in Jerusalem during these last days," struggled to integrate it all into a life that matures into service. 

The Jerusalem Cross Raised bed
still under construction

This past Fall while harvesting squash from my garden as the leaves of the surrounding trees changed color, I wrestled with the changes facing me in my shift from pastoring a congregation to retirement from the institution in order to more intentionally engage nonviolence and earth care. The summons to change had simmered within me for many years, a real test of how to endure my long Winter of uncertainty.  But Spring arrived much as a garden grows to climax in blooms and fruit, offering a joyful union with life's fuller purpose. 

And ahead? Ahead lies the warm summertime of my personal "yes." "Yes" to life, to being a Christ follower at greater peace with a world of struggle and joy. Grounded in my garden, Quadratos' integration of Gospel with gardening with earth's seasons, enriches my gardening of soul. Daily it centers me ever deeper into The Christ, offering that compass of inner transformation for the journey, and frees me for a life of calmer engagement with a world birthed in, by, and for Love, and thirsting for more. 

                                                                                                                                                                                

Walden-at-Hudson - "In Undisturbed Solitude and Stillness."

I'm on the lookout for the perfect chair. To sit in. In my garden. For long periods of time. To contemplate life and the things of the world.

A, not the, chair, seen from the middle of the Jerusalem
cross raised beds the with the herb spiral on the right.

The more I read old Henry (Thoreau) the more I like him and would love to spend a day with him in his own garden around Walden Pond. I like him mostly because he blesses my choice just to sit, in my garden, even though there is much to do - complete fences, build Rublev's composter, plant fruit and nut trees, pick the abundant cucumbers and process them into pickles for winter. But more than the nod he extends to me sitting, he so eloquently describes the why. Sitting in my garden is:- a contemplative act; "the discipline of looking always at what is to be seen;" following an inner compulsion to "read your fate, see what is before you, and walk on into futurity."

His genius with words describes this sitting as something very deep, as contemplation. I like that and it's something I am striving to practice, especially as I read more of Richard Rohr and Thomas Keating. Here is Thoreau's description.

 I did not read books the first summer; I hoed beans. Nay, I often did better than this. There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of the head or hands. I love a broad margin to my life. Sometimes, in a summer morning,...I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in revery, amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sang around or flitted noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling in  at my west window, or the noise of some traveller's wagon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time. I grew in those seasons like corn in the night, and they were far better than any work of the hands would have been. They were not time subtracted from my life, but so much over and above my usual allowance. I realized what the Orientals mean by contemplation and the forsaking of works. For the most part I minded not how the hours went. The day advanced as if to light some work of mine; it was morning, and lo, now it is evening, and nothing memorable is accomplished. Instead of singing like the birds, I silently smiled at my incessant good fortune. As the sparrow had its trill, sitting on the hickory before my door, so had I my chuckle or suppressed warble which he might hear out of my nest. My days were not days of the week bearing the stamp of any heathen deity, nor were they minced into hours and fretted by the ticking of the clock; for I lived like the Puri Indians, of whom it is said that "for yesterday, to-day, and tomorrow they have only one word, and they express the variety of meaning by pointing backward for yesterday, forward for tomorrow, and overhead for the passing day." This was sheer idleness to my fellow-townsmen, no doubt; but if the birds and the flowers had tried me by their standard, I should not have been found wanting. A man must find his occasions in himself, it is true. The natural day is very calm, and hardly will reprove his indolence. 

- Walden, Henry David Thoreau

I think I'll be doing much sitting during this year of discernment. Sitting in my garden till winter comes, and contemplating this next season of my life. Contentedly so. For I've always seemed to know that it's in the garden, with all humanity, we'll read our fate, see what is before us, and walk into futurity.

Now to find that chair most suited to contemplation.

A Genius of Fertility

"An elderly dame ... dwells in my neighborhood, invisible to most persons, in whose odorous herb garden I love to stroll sometimes, gathering simples and listening to her fables; for she has a genius of unequalled fertility... 

- Walden, Solitude, Henry David Thoreau 

 

Visiting Henry David Thoreau's Walden this month as we travelled through New England has re-inspired me to the potential Walden of my own backyard. I long for that localized "genius of unequalled fertility" which he experienced in Nature around Walden Pond, the garden of his "friend" in whose herb garden he "loved to stroll sometimes, gathering simples." It was here he seemed to touch the Source of all that is, asking "Shall I not have intelligence with the earth?" as one who was "partly leaves and vegetable mould" himself. 

 

My own garden - which I propose to call Walden-on-Hudson - is starting to display faint glimmers of Nature's fertile genius - herbs, fruit trees, chickens, veggies, composting bins, a small pond. 

I find it thrilling to experience that all we need for healthy living is freely given and to be found right outside our doors. It remains only for me to do the meticulous work of system design, followed by the hard work of making the appropriate connections between the multiple design elements, domesticating the ways of fertile Nature into the abundance of a Walden in my own yard. 

And So it Begins....

And so it begins... Sunday was a bitter/sweet passage. Relationships forged over five years will be greatly missed, even as tomorrow comes, like a raincloud, full of promise and surprise. 

And so it begins...the end of my term as minister of Covenant United Methodist Church; my journey from the ordered round of predictable and worthy routines, institutional safe guards and retirement security; from a group think often afraid to risk, into a wilder rhythm of spontaneous adventures and encounters with creative gospel, gloriously grounded in the life giving routine of daily living WITH the earth - watering the alfalfa, harvesting a handful to feed the chickens, collecting their eggs with a grateful heart and enjoying breakfast as the gift of a mutual relationship of caring. To look each avian personality in the eye, welcoming them to shepherd me toward a lifestyle of domesticated wildness connected to the earth and the creativity of engaged fullness. That's my journey beyond Covenant.  

It starts today, with this blog entry typed to a chicken's "song" clucking the arrival of yet another gift outside my open window. Nature's eternal round of fullness in relationship.

"Weary with Absence, I Return to Earth"

Wendell Berry's poem tells it straight!

"I have again come home through miles of sky                                                                                            from hours of abstract talk in the way of modern times                                                                                when humans live in their minds and the world, forgotten, dies into explanations. 

Weary with absence, I return to earth.

...and sink into the ancient happiness of slow work in unhastenable                                                            days and years."                                                                                                                               

 - Wendell Berry, "This Day: Collected and New Sabbath Poems" 1992, VIII 

 My end as pastor of Covenant arrives in just a few weeks. And with Berry I wonder at my own preoccupation with hours and hours of abstract theology and preaching "in the way of modern times," while the "world, forgotten, dies into explanations." Just how effective, or ineffective, have I been to help meet the challenges of our day, never mind just to be? 

 I too am "weary with absence" and with this appointment to a year of discernment intend a "return to the earth." It's time for some intentional Jerusalem-cross-gardening of my own, that gardening "of soil" that promises the "ancient happiness of slow work in unhastenable days and years." 

 

 So it begins. Raised beds, in the shape of a Jerusalem cross, planted to annuals. A herb spiral as guild ("a group of plants harmoniously interwoven into a pattern of mutual support") of cullinary and medicinal plants. An apple tree, marvel of gardening craft with four varieties of apples grafted onto a common rootstock, the tree surrounded by multiple plants serving as bird attractors, insect attractors, grass suppressors, mulch providers, nutrient accumulators, and nitrogen fixers. And chickens. Everyone needs companions and participants for the journey who give and receive in the mutual flow of a caring relationship. 

 And all of it a glorious congregation-of-life in my own backyard wildly dancing with the Christ in the universal pattern of order, disorder, and reorder. 

Joining this dance is perhaps that "ancient happiness of slow work in unhastenable days and years" of which Wendell Berry writes, that "return to earth," arriving as my time of pastoring "in the way of modern times" ends.

Without Justice, Christianity Forgets Its' Founder

The four little planter-box-crosses are added to the Jerusalem
Cross raised beds. The fencing around the raised beds is temporary
until the boundary fences are complete.

Each one belonged in my emerging potager garden. And it felt good to see them there, encouraging me to better "talk the walk, and, walk the talk."

The four little planter-box-crosses symbolizing acts of devotion, acts of worship, acts of compassion, and acts of justice took their place on my Jerusalem cross raised bed yesterday.

Particularly rewarding was adding "acts of justice" in light of the recent marches against violent policing and racism in the USA and world. For without justice, Christianity forgets its' founder and enables the kingdoms of this world.

I need to get better about doing justice! And so Carla and I marched in Spokane last Saturday for non-violent policing and for justice. A well behaved, multi-racial crowd participated, until the disrupters and political stirrers, late in the day, did their distracting from the peaceful focus on justice.

Acts of justice. Acts of compassion. Acts of devotion. Acts of worship. If I would faithfully follow Jesus, all four are necessary - even if it costs because friends and congregation members fear and resist a Jesus-lifestyle of love in action.

Now it's time to plant. In the four little cross-shaped planter boxes, I'll be experimenting with some different herbs - lovage, caraway, cilantro and Persian mint. They'll flavor my dishes in new, creative ways. And, as I practice the four acts of devotion, worship, compassion and justice, my spiritual walk will be flavored too by the life and nation-building, world-shaping love of the man from Nazareth.

                                        ____________________________

This article touches on a shocking truth about white evangelical religion in the USA today that all Christians must honestly and non-defensively wrestle with. We have to recover justice to recover our souls! 

https://faithandleadership.com/william-h-lamar-iv-its-not-just-coronavirus-bad-theology-killing-us

Weep. Seed. Weed.

During this Great Pause gripping the world, people are weeping. Perhaps you are too. I know I am. So many good folk's health and livelihoods are affected.

But creation is not. 

Given a breather, it's showing signs of joyful and playful renewal - clearer skies; cleaner rivers, lakes and seas; thriving local farmers who are mostly committed to sustainable farming practices.

 Perhaps Pentecost this year is about the Spirit working in history to seed something new - the re-syncing of people with planet "as it was in the beginning," with the added liturgical promise of this being forever, "now and ever shall be, world without end." 

Jerusalem cross gardening, as a spiritual discipline, is grounding me in the promise found in this re-syncing, helping me to "be the re-synced," or, to "be the change" which our world so desperately needs yesterday.

Jerusalem Cross Gardening of Soil.

A tree that will bear Fuji, Gala, and Honeycrisp apples
prepares to be espaliered against the fence.

In my own life this seeding has begun. The fences of my potager garden are being completed to keep the deer and moose at bay. The raised beds (in the shape of a Jerusalem cross) will soon be filled with beautiful organic soil (just need to entice my son to help move it). The chicken cage/tractor has arrived and some laying hens soon will too. Newly planted apple trees and blueberry bushes are leafing out and flowering. The herb spiral is not far behind.

So much still waits to be done, but thanks to this bitter/sweet pandemic and its gift of slowed time, the elements of my permaculture design are steadily emerging to seed the garden I'm after - one that leans in to Original Sustainability through the permaculture ethic of caring for creation, caring for people, and giving away surplus.

In the process, I truly am being re-synced, drawn in to the unity at the heart of creation, found only when we learn to live as FRIENDS - with God, people and all of nature.

Jerusalem Cross Gardening of Soul

An interesting observation is emerging. I'm discovering that nonviolence and its' practice - something I know I can become so much better at - drives this re-syncing process.

Two quotes by Dominic Crossan focus my thoughts.

Three varieties of blueberry bushes
planted above a row of terracing rocks

"...the historical Jesus lived and died for nonviolent resistance to the violent normalcy of civilization then embodied in first-century Mediterranean place and incarnated in first-century Roman time."

I note as I read this sentence today that nothing has changed. In spite of 2000 years of Christians following Jesus, we still have not learned he was, and is, nonviolent in his embodiment of the divine. Yet violence is still a normal part of our civilization today, both in how we relate to people and creation, but in a way that is dangerously more powerful.

Crossan continues. 

"We take upon ourselves nonviolent resistance against violence to move the trajectory of human evolution toward justice and peace rather than injustice and violence."

Gardening Can Shape this Trajectory

The chicken cage/tractor being
prepared for residents

The good news is nonviolent resistance is happening in my garden. In it I am learning to lean in to Original Sustainability and to join the loving dance of mutuality - yes, with backyard chickens [see previous blog entry] and fruit trees, and herbs, a small alfalfa field, insect breeder boxes, table scraps, and the Spirit ever pulling the life in my gardening system into itself even as it becomes incarnate in seed, shoot, bud, flower and fruit.

Conclusion

The simple act of gardening is restoring my soul. In a small but important way, it is helping to non-violently "move human evolution towards justice and peace" and away from "injustice and violence" particularly towards the earth. 

Weeping, seeding and weeding. It's all about how the Spirit seems to be moving in my life this season as Pentecost approaches. I am grateful to be doing Jerusalem-Cross-Gardening in my own back yard again. The parts of myself are reconnecting, gardening of soil eliciting the gardening of soul to weave contemplation and action into the Trinitarian dance that unites all in the unity of the One.