A Rocha USA Blog

by Robert Campbell

I walk in my garden in the cool of the day. When my work is complete, when the sun’s long shadows cause everything to appear strangely four dimensional, and the cool ocean breeze blows off the coastal range that borders my back fence, I walk out into my garden. It is a daily reminder of that time, however short, when our first parents shared a divine moment with a divine guest. Genesis records those evening walks in the garden—the three of them together. A daily routine. Just like mine. Perhaps it was after a nice supper that they would stroll where all things were good, where seeds bore fruit after their kind and where work and worship were united according to God’s intent.

But one night something was different. The man and the woman were different. They had decided that the goodness of the garden with God was not enough. They had decided that neither God nor His garden were actually good. They had decided they were better than God Himself at judging good and evil. So, on this night, when they heard His footsteps approaching, they hid themselves shamefully among the trees--trees that God had created for their joy.

Our relationship with God, with ourselves, with each other…and all of our walks in the garden have not been the same since.

I walk out into a different garden than that first one. I walk into a garden in a broken world because of that choice of Adam and Eve. A choice we repeat daily. I walk into a garden that is no longer as it was created to be and I know full well that we are responsible, not God. I walk into a broken garden as a broken man seeking to find God in and among the pathways, the seasons and the problems.

Graciously, God continues to walk with His people even after our rejection. It’s not the same certainly, but it is true nonetheless. He calls His people to walk according to His commands, to do what He has told us. God’s commands are like the pathways in my garden that I walk upon. They are not the garden. They bear no fruit, but I could not walk in the garden freely without them. Pathways take discipline to build before you want to walk. Obedience to God’s commands because I trust God teaches me to walk with Him in season and out of season.

Winter has just arrived in my garden, limiting the vegetables to a hardy few. They do not sport the vibrant colors of spring plantings, but they are beautiful in a wintery sort of way. This winter brought with it 10 inches of much-needed rain. My walk will be muddy this evening. The rain awakened seeds in the barley hay that give my garden beds warm winter cover and quickly turned it into a meadow of flourishing barley grass. The grass is nice but threatens to choke out the real garden. The “real garden”, isn’t that how we think? Winter reminds me that this IS the real garden. In some seasons the real garden has more weeds than fruit, more work than worship. In some seasons I cultivate more bugs after their kind than seed bearing plants after theirs. When I walk in my garden, I have to learn to be content with the season. Winter is a bare season. I have to take time to worship as well as work. Worship sees and values what is there, even in the winter, while work constantly seeks to improve what may not be wrong, just asleep.

Walking with God today has become possible because of Jesus. Death and the hard work of the garden is no longer the end of the story. Separation from God, each other and ourselves no longer needs to be the season that we live in. Now, because Jesus has lived a righteous life and died a sacrificial death I can walk into the same broken garden as a new creature myself, learning the seasons and learning to bring worship and work back together. Work and worship meet up when I walk in my garden.

One day God’s people, who walked with Him in a garden, will walk with Him again in a garden city. I long for that day. That day when there will be no more slugs and earwigs – or crying, or war, or death. That day when there will be no more weeds – or sin and its painful brokenness. That day when work and worship will be reunited as I walk in God’s garden, along the paths build for His repentant and restored people at the cost of His own innocent life. In that season, the garden will be watered by the river of life, the tree of life will yield its fruit in season and its leaves will be for the healing of the nations. When I walk, work and worship in my garden, I know that it is just a foretaste of the one that is to come.

This October marks A Rocha’s 10^th official anniversary in the USA. I say “official” because many a seed was sown long before that first board meeting October 16, 2000 in our living room in Arlington, Virginia. In his book, Kingfisher’s Fire, which I’ve been rereading of late, A Rocha Founder Peter Harris recalls some of that jet-lagged sowing—from meetings with kindred spirits like Au Sable Institute’s Cal Dewitt and A Rocha USA’s own future founder Ginny Vroblesky to debates with snarling critics like the man who declared, “The Reformation happened to stop people like you!”

Whether warm welcome or cold, however, Peter and his lovely wife Miranda kept coming back to the States, spurred on by the quixotic desire to tilt against American Christendom’s unholy exports of prosperity gospel and rampant consumerism that wreak havoc on people and planet alike by blessing and fueling “aspirations to the kind of wealth which can only be achieved by over-exploiting creation.” And with each return, they watered and weeded and waited, until at last those seeds began to sprout--A Rocha USA poked out.

To continue with the gardening metaphor, the 10 years since have seen yet more watering and weeding and waiting; a (budgetary) drought or two; and now, at last, the first fruits of harvest—projects in 8 communities across the nation with more on the way; education and training programs; and, most encouragingly, growing acceptance by the Church of the biblical mandate to care for the Earth.

In celebration of this milestone, A Rocha USA is having a party—a big party. In fact, we’re inviting 10,000 people to join in the celebration by becoming a fan of A Rocha. It’s simple. It’s quick. It’s free (though if you want to throw a couple of bucks in the hat by the door, who are we to object!) And it’s oh so clever: 10^th year, 10^th month, 10,000 fans. All you have to do is click here and “like” us on Facebook and then ask your friends, family and colleagues to do the same. And make sure to ask your crazy aunt that forwards every chain email to everyone in her address book.

Okay, I admit that it sounds a lot like high school; but just think what 10,000 people could do to help spread the word and build the movement to care for this amazing, yet increasingly damaged Earth! Community gardens planted. Streams cleaned. Forests protected. And more--much, much more. Here in the United States and around the world.

Just think.

And then act—please.

The Earth is hurting. Creation is groaning. We need all hands on deck.

So, please take a half a minute and help spread the word; help heal the planet.

As Peter Harris puts it, “No other context for A Rocha is changing faster than the USA one and maybe no other change is destined to have a greater impact on environmental conditions worldwide.”

Let’s do this.

By Flavio Sloat 

In the gospel of Matthew, we are told that “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure that a man discovered hidden in a field. In his excitement, he hid it again and sold everything he owned to get enough money to buy the field."

The discoverer of the treasure does not own the field nor, consequently, the treasure. On first reading, it seems he wants to own the field so that he can claim the treasure. To those around him who are ignorant of the treasure, his actions surely seemed strange--selling everything and spending his life savings on a field!

I submit that deeper down this story is about the idea of unexpectedly finding something of enormous value while at the same time the value of the find is not understood by most of the world.

My natural segue here would be to say the Parkway Tedder Community Garden & Food Forest is exactly this treasure and has always been apparent to those in the "know" including me...but it's not quite that easy.

I first visited the church property that now houses the garden 4 years ago. I didn't see a "field with secret treasure".  I arrived, looked around for about 10 seconds, saw only  an unused flat spot with weeds and overgrown trees, and went inside for the meeting I was there for.

A year later I visited again and saw the field as a construction site, gravel mounds, noisy earthmovers, big cement pipes--a local construction company was staging the neighborhood paving and betterment project from the rented field. The field had gone from unused to blighted, certainly a field with little value!  My eyes were still on the church building and its potential to serve the community from programs on the inside.

Fast forward to today, there is  plenty of value inside the church building, but today we are outside to celebrate the value of the treasure here in what was once a weedy field.

The process has been bumpy and unpredictable, it started with 5 garden plots and a celebration. Since then we have had a steady stream of twists and turns and marvelous characters unexpectedly jumping in with impossible dreams that somehow started growing. It leapfrogged with folks like Donna the master gardener, Miguel the permaculture expert, and Ginger the neighborhood watch coordinator.

Back to our story of treasure in the field. In the story of the treasure in the field it is natural to think that the 'value' of the treasure was probably at its 'finest' when used outside the field, buying a chariot or perhaps a house in a nice part of the city, but here the hidden treasure has appeared and is growing in the field through the dreams, work, and dripping sweat of the many different people working in the field ITSELF.  And it continues, and even though the millions of drivers out on Interstate 95 (right next to the property) have no idea what is happening  "the field" is steadily turning into a place of health (both physical and spiritual), community, education, restoration and hope.

Like the parable, it may seem crazy to those who don't see the hidden potential of this "fruitful field" in a poor neighborhood with a bad reputation.

But for us this is a a place where, just like today, sunshine and rainbows emerge right after torrential rains.

So, here in the middle of flowering trees, growing vegetables, and returning wildlife we invite you to be part of expanding and uncovering this hidden treasure. Your involvement can make a difference by speeding up the story of how a lowly, weed covered field becomes a place of rich treasure that enriches in ways both unexpected and grand.

*Sloat is a volunteer at the Parkway Tedder Community Garden--an A Rocha affiliated project in Deerfield Beach, FL. For more information on the Garden, see http://parkwayteddergarden.com