Quiet Places - issue no 25

We've only just begun!
 

Philip D. Roderick, Director of The Quiet Garden Movement, writes: 

Just like a strawberry runner, once the DNA coding of the organism is established and, in the case of a Christ-centred ministry such as The Quiet Garden Movement, when the values, norms and guiding principles are incorporated, the plant and its fruit-bearing extensions can flourish! The beauty about the primary, scriptural vision for this simple ministry of hospitality and prayer is that, from the very outset, people in so many different contexts found resonance with the compelling invitation from Jesus to ‘come away by yourselves to a quiet place’.

Digging the ground, sowing and nurturing, harvesting and eating home-grown vegetables, weeding and then delighting in fulsome flower-beds – these are joys that incur both the sweat of the brow and the lifting of the heart. Many of our Quiet Gardens encourage only the peaceful watching and the hidden sitting, and that is wonderful.

It is being suggested to us by a number of people, however, that, in addition, there may well be amongst those hundreds of thousands of people who love to be physically engaged in the earthy process of gardening, many thousands who long to be stretched into a deeper contemplative appreciation of their labour even as they pause for breath or to take stock.

It has long been one of my catch phrases that the attraction of the Quiet Garden Movement is predicated upon the fact that in one’s own home and garden, we tend to be chore-conscious. When visiting someone else’s home, you don’t mind about the dust or the weeds, because they’re someone else’s! While this of course is true, we realise that there is enormous scope also in asking others to come and share in the meditative engagement with the heavy duty or very delicate work of constructing, clearing, nurturing, watering and harvesting a garden. Go to it contemplative activists!

Organisational contexts have for a long time been on my heart as we attempt to discern the scope for the Quiet Garden initiative. In the past 12 months, I’m delighted to report clear signs that the time is now right for Quiet Gardeners in different areas to be watching for opportunities to speak to the vision for Quiet Gardens taking shape in many different organisational settings. A new seeding season may well be upon us.

This is a dispersed movement where the strength is always in the local. Please be encouraged to have Quiet Garden-flavoured conversations with staff and volunteers in hospitals, schools and prisons. Then do report back to us when it looks as if a warm or interested response is forthcoming.

A Place of Trees

Moving On
\News on how two established Quiet Gardens have adapted to changing circumstances.