For the first time in my life, I have a garden.

Well, to be clear, my wife and I have one.  And our neighbors help out quite a bit.  And our friends – who know a lot more about gardening than we do – pass along the advice that keeps our plants alive and stop by to water our “little babies” when we’re out of town. Oh, and I should mention that we wouldn’t have a garden were it not for a group of Boston youth who came over and built our 8×4 box and filled it with fresh compost.

So it’s really not my garden, per se.  It’s our garden.  Nuestro jardín, as my Spanish-speaking neighbors say.  Beyond the peppers, tomatoes, lettuce, and melons, our garden exudes life to our entire neighborhood, from the older women who come out of their house to gently place fragile seeds into the earth to our working class neighbors who will undoubtedly taste of the overflow of our harvest this summer.

As I watched the five or so urban teens build our garden and fill it with soil, it occurred to me that gardens — as much as education reform or neighborhood watch or summer job programs — have the potential to dramatically change the lives of inner-city youth. As youth experience the joy of eating food they planted, work with their hands on rural farms, and expand the network of urban gardens in our city, they grow alongside the crops they sowed.

Gardening has also taught me important lessons about sharing. I recently heard an interview with a Mennonite farmer in which he was asked about his first reaction to the economic downturn. The farmer responded, “Our first thought was that we needed to have a bigger garden.” Though we’re several weeks from our first harvest, we’ve already shared seedlings with friends and neighbors. I am learning that beyond creating a cheaper source of good food for ourselves, gardening yields the opportunity to reach out and share with our neighbors.

All of this points to deep theological truths surrounding the practice of gardening.  I love the poem by William Lawson:

What was Paradise?
but a garden,
an orchard of trees
and herbs, full of pleasure,
and nothing there but delights.

The three major monotheistic religions trace their ancestry back to an almost unbelievable story in which the earth consists of two human beings living in communion with their Creator — in a garden. Our diminished connection to our earth and each other perhaps has its origins in our disconnect from the garden. We no longer know the origin of our food, if most of it can even be called that. Waiting for good food is seldom an option.  We rarely, if ever, venture into nature to marvel at, let alone smell the roses, as the well-worn cliché says.

Our garden — nuestro jardín – is reminding me that I am not the center of the universe.  Despite my best efforts in building, planting, and watering, it is the Giver of All Life who gives the increase and harvest.  I am but a mere tool — a trowel perhaps? — in God’s hand.

I am learning that to find a picture of what shalom looks like, we needn’t look farther than the garden.

Steve Holt seeks joy and justice in East Boston, MA. Steve enjoys gardening, being a husband, community life, and writing. He blogs about spirituality and his garden at http://harvestboston.wordpress.com.