Tilling the Garden

Last updated on: August 30, 2008 at 8:27 am by David Hayward

Tilling the Garden 2008-08-30T08:27:10-04:00 David Hayward

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I had a dream last night. I’ll post it exactly how I wrote in my journal when I was drinking my first coffee: I am talking with two other men and we’re discussing some deep theological and philosophical issue. It is specifically the problem with time… that it is a creature that will also pass away with all things, so that even though it seems permanent, it is impermanent and is like a ghost… thin and fleeting because it is fallen and corrupted… but how we are to humble ourselves to it, submit to it while not becoming its slave… that it has something to do with the stewardship of it, obedience under it and our fallenness along with it. We must be willing to work within it while not being governed by it.

When I was writing this in my journal I thought of the title, Tilling the Garden and Other Things To Do When You Fall. In other words, even though the story of Adam and Eve teaches that, due to the fall, we and the land and all of creation are fallen and corrupted, we are to till the garden and with effort fight the weeds, thorns and stones in order for the land to be fruitful. This applies to all of life. We are called to be responsible stewards of our environment in spite of its condition. This is the call to our prophetic task. We are to challenge the weeds and thorns, not only in the physical earth (which would include agriculture, pollution, natural disasters, etc.), but the spiritual world also (which would include such things as politics, religion, environmental ethics, medicine, poverty, etc.). So, like a garden where we are neither to surrender to the weeds nor dominate the soil, but to work and nurture it towards fruitfulness; also in the world, we don’t surrender to the evil that would prevail if left unchallenged, nor do we dominate and crush the created order, but call it and challenge it towards humility, love and service in this world. We are to live free, responsibly and prophetically within the created and fallen order.

Heady dream!

thought

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