Gardening as a metaphor for Soul-Work
Finding a deeper sense of soul among peas and pollinators
I started Cultivating Soul to explore a more vital spiritual life. I realized I could not clearly define the soul, so here I am on a writing journey! Traditional “churchy” definitions lack vibrancy or clarity and give me direction. Christianity has turned the soul into ghosts and angels. The eternal part of our being will live in Heaven if we play our cards right. If we slide into immorality, we might wander the earth in chains like Jacob Marley in the Christmas Carol or be tormented in some circle of Dante's Hell. Either way, the soul is a ghost that looks and talks like us but without the physical body. The soul's fate may rely on our morality, but the soul itself is rendered inert, needing protection from impurity. Much Christian teaching does not see the soul as a living, growing, creative process. We slid a long way from John Wesley, encouraging people with the question, "How is it with your soul?"
I am surprised how many Christians no longer believe they have a soul. As the grip of Hell and damnation has loosened (which is a good thing!), so has the belief in Heaven. I wonder if this is partly due to an anemic understanding of the soul. As non-Fundamentalist Christians embrace science, the soul is left without a home. We have split the atom in the micro-world and seen the far reaches of the universe with the Hubbell telescope. What realm is still home for the soul's dwelling? While some find comfort in the thought of the soul of our loved ones as an angel in Heaven, frozen in time as we remember them, more Christians are telling me, "When you are dead, you are dead!"
In contrast, people who aren't religious often understand the potency of the notion of the soul. I was explaining my blog about the quest for the soul to a diverse group of people. I asked if they found the idea of the soul meaningful, and they all nodded. One person said, "I think we are all doing our soul work." They each had a passion for serving the common good in some way, and this calling came from a source they could identify as a soul. It is a concept that can move across various spiritual persuasions.
Otto Rank tried to recapture the idea of the soul as the source of psychotherapy. He believed Freud had replaced the soul with the libido, reducing the human impulse to biology and destroying any possibility of meaning and growth. Rank thought the idea of the soul originated in our quest for immortality. In dreams, we talk with people we know are dead, experience being out of our bodies, see visions beyond our reality, and open the human imagination to the possibility that existence is more than living in these bodies. That's why early psychotherapy spends so much time on dream analysis. Rank believed psychology needed to return to the roots of the soul at the heart of its explorations, helping people navigate the human condition. His writing was agnostic about the reality of God but clear on the soul as the psychological essence of a human being.
Recovering the value of the soul can also help Christian spirituality grow deeper roots and a church with a flourishing, green presence. Church historian John T. McNeil defined the soul as "the essence of the personality" in his classic book, "The History of the Cure of Souls. Richard Rohr speaks about the soul as our true self, rooted in God. These definitions reveal a soul that isn't just hanging out waiting for Heaven, but a human essence that grows and bears fruit, gets hurt and heals, and exists as a co-creation between our will and divine inspiration. As the creation story of Genesis puts it, we are created in the image and likeness of God. And this God is busy making all that exists, light and darkness; land, sea, and sky; lilies and cacti, sparrows and penguins, and finally, humans. So, shouldn't the soul be a creative process if we are made in the image and likeness of a God?
The creation stories in Genesis play a crucial role in my faith experience. My most profound spiritual experiences related to nature. I grew up on a farm marveling at the green shoots of Spring. I saw calves being born, baby birds pecking out of eggs, and watched tadpoles morph legs and become frogs. I learned how to be a youth pastor raising pigs. Watching sunrises got me through my divorce. Nature has been like a spiritual director. Don't mistake my intention; I'm a Christian, not a Druid or pantheist. I don't worship nature, but it is a pathway to the divine.
Celtic mystic John Scotus Eriugena said God speaks through two books.
“There are two books through which God is speaking. The first is the small book, physically little, the book of scripture. The second is the big book, the living text of the universe, which includes the great luminaries of the heavens, the sun, moon and stars; the earth sea and sky, the creates of all these realms; and the multiplicity of life-forms that grow from the ground. We need to read both books. If we read only the little book, we will miss the vastness and wildness of the utterance, everything vibrating with the sound of the divine. If we read only the big book, we are in danger of missing the intimacy of the voice, for the book of scripture calls us to faithfulness in relationship, including faithfulness to strangers, widows, orphans and the poorest among us.” 1
I arrived at the idea of the soul as an interior garden by reading the book of nature while planting seeds in the ground and watching them grow. The first sprouts when the radishes spring up and the taste of an heirloom tomato in late July thrums with the glory of God! Gardening often shows me the truth of the scriptures in real-time. As a metaphor for the soul, the garden has ample support in the teachings of Jesus and Paul. Jesus compared God to a sower of seeds.
"Listen! A sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seeds fell on a path, and the birds came and ate them up. 5 Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly since they had no depth of soil. 6 But when the sun rose, they were scorched, and since they had no root, they withered away. 7 Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. 8 Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.
The soul is the inward soil that nourishes the seeds in its embrace; from the ground springs the fruits of life itself. In Genesis 2, God forms the first human from clay and breathes life into this creation. The Hebrew name “Adam” means "earth creature." Human is from the Latin "humus." We are creatures from the earth enlivened by Divine Breath. Our essence is to be earthy, soil, the creative matter from which life springs. So, it makes sense that gardening is an excellent metaphor for spiritual life! Gardeners can choose what to plant, water the seeds, weed, and feed what comes up. Through practice, we become more fruitful, but much is out of our control. We keep learning and never give up. We can find our way through droughts, pests, and days when we don't feel like doing the work. The harvest will come.
Jesus often described the "Kingdom of Heaven," the emerging community of God, in a way horticulturalists understand. God's community is like the tiny mustard seed that grows with abandon. (Mark 4:30) If you are anxious and want to trust God, look to the lilies of the field.
Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin,[e] yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 28 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, you of little faith! (Luke 12:27-28)
Jesus tells his disciples:
"I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. 2 He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes to make it bear more fruit. (John 15:1-2)
Both Jesus and Paul describe the life of a disciple as bearing fruit. Jesus councils his disciples to discern truth from falsehood by seeing the fruits of the speaker:
16 You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns or figs from thistles? 17 In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. Matthew 7:16-17
Paul describes the virtues of a disciple as the fruits of the Spirit:
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23)
When I read these verses, I imagine each of these virtues as a seedling in my soul garden. Nothing says love to me like the blood-red orb of a tomato ripening on the vine. Joy is when I find the treasure of a black raspberry hidden under a leaf. Patience is the garlic I planted in the Fall and harvested in the Summer. Generosity is the abundance of peas climbing a string to the sky and bursting with pods.
You may not be a gardener, but I bet you like to eat. Or you may prefer flowers to vegetables, or have some house plants. Or you may enjoy watching birds or walking in the woods or a park. The important thing I want to say is reading the “big book” of creation restores our souls, so the seeds from the “little book” of scriptures find more room to grow.
What new thoughts came to you reading about “garden as soul”?
What grows in your garden?
What plant is your soul most like?
Leave a comment; I will have more to say next week. Until then, thrive!
Todd
1. Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul by John Philip Newell, p. 88.