Dirt. Icky bugs. Sweat. Broken, dirty fingernails.  Makes you wonder why anyone would want to spend six months of the year in a garden, doesn’t it?  Much less a garden that isn’t of direct benefit to yourself, but only adds to the work you have elsewhere.

Still, God’s Garden of Eatin’ of which I am founder and a director, is a special and sacred place for any number of people in the community.  It took twenty sometimes very discouraging years, but this regional parish food pantry community garden is featured in the spring 2012 issue ofCatholic Rural Life.   We are thrilled to get the message out nationally.

Why do we keep with it?  I’ve been asked that question many times over the years! (And asked it of myself!)  Certainly there is the delight of harvesting those gorgeous tomatoes, glossy cucumbers and perfectly snappy green beans, knowing they are going to the people who need them the most.  Even more than that, though, it is the Joy of working in the garden with companions who ALSO – despite heat, mud, creaky knees, and disgusting squash bugs – experience this kind of joy.  Joy shared in a charitable effort is joy multiplied a hundred times over.  God is found in that joy!

The garden is about the joy of putting the plants into the bounty of God.   It’s about the excitement of understanding that in gardening somehow you participate in very concrete ways with the grace of creation; it’s about knowing that you are a co-creator of the earth.

Read more HERE. . .