By Julie Marshall
Camera Staff Writer

Arthur Simmons stands beside a ½-acre garden along the south side of St. Andrew Presbyterian Church in Boulder. The corn is ready to pick, peppers are ripe and tomatoes are fattening on the vine.

When the founding fathers built this church on Baseline 40 years ago, they dug an irrigation system that draws water from Boulder Creek, says Simmons, a church sexton. The founders wanted to make room for more than a paved parking lot.

"I find that working the soil and having things grow is getting back to nature," says Simmons, a gardener and the person in charge of assigning roughly 20 plots. "And since God and nature are one, the whole process is getting closer to the creator."

The link between faith communities and gardens dates to the Middle Ages in Europe, when St. Augustine assembled his brethren in the garden before building his church and monastery. Christian monks devoted their lives to prayer and labor, which included gardening to grow their food. Monastery gardens flourished during the Renaissance to the point of garden art. And in the East, gardening has strong roots in Buddhism. Zen monastery gardens continue to be used for reading and meditation.

The Bible is filled with references to plants, flowers and agrarian life, including the book of Genesis recounting man's expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Before the fall, man was charged to "dress and keep" God's paradise. Many Christians believe gardening is a way to reconnect with God in the purest sense, theologians say.

At St. Andrew, 15 gardeners — both church members and neighbors — asked for a plot this season. The gardens run along the south and southwest side of the church, and plot sizes vary. Some grow sunflowers; others planted lettuce, squash and raspberries. Every St. Andrew gardener must give 10 percent of the produce to the Emergency Family Assistance Association, a local nonprofit that helps low-income families meet basic needs.

"The church garden reminds people about their connection to the Earth, growth and the provisions God makes for us," St. Andrew Rev. Stan Adamson says. "There is nothing more basic than food and taking care of the Earth. (Gardening) sustains our lives both physically and spiritually."

Jesus' parables often centered on planting seeds and growth and stewardship of a garden or vineyard, Adamson says. But, Adamson says, many people have lost touch with the agrarian way of life and need to rediscover their earthly connection.

"So the garden is a place of solace, beauty and all sorts of reminders of God's love."

St. Andrew's garden also has a memorial rose garden with benches and a meditation path that extends to Boulder Creek.

Larry Woods, a member of the church's Creation Stewardship Team, pulls together liturgy and songs for services in the spring and fall that celebrate planting and harvesting. The focus is on man's relationship to the Earth, says Woods, an agronomist with a doctorate in soil chemistry.

As a scientist and a man of faith, Woods turns to his understanding of Earth cycles to explain the spirituality he finds in gardening.

"I believe that the religious experience is an attempt to find the root of our existence. I believe the Earth is a holy thing."

At the molecular level, there is no clear difference between the soil and the root of a plant, Woods says. A lot of the processes that are key for plant growth, then, occur in the soil.

"The soil breathes, it inhales and exhales," he says, commenting on the microscopic organisms in common dirt. The vital link between soil, plants and humans makes us a part of the Earth in the most literal sense, he says.

Woods extends the connection to the cosmos. The heavy elements that collect on the planet because of gravity — carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, phosphorus — are formed in the stars and supernovae.

"It's true that we are stardust. We are made by it, and I find that very meaningful."

St. Andrew isn't the only faith community to have a garden in Boulder. Beginning in the 1930s, Boulder was home to the Benedictine nuns of the Abbey of St. Walburga. In 1997, the abbey moved to donated land on 240 acres in Virginia Dale, north of Fort Collins. Growing food for the monastery has been part of the Benedictine monastic order for centuries.

Today, Sister Hildegard Dubnick, who is in charge of landscaping, must cope with invasive weeds and road construction before a vegetable garden can be established, she says.

Landscaping can be a meaningful experience, she says.

"I'm trying not to use words like battle, eliminate or destroy," Dubnick says. "I don't like violent language. God made weeds, too."

The massive project has changed her way of thinking about humans' relationship with the Earth, she says. She sees her role as one of stewardship and finding balance.

Water-intensive Kentucky bluegrass is out, she says. Buffalo grass and plants that don't need a lot of water are in.

"There's nothing wrong with dry-land vegetation," Dubnick says. "God made these plants so they can grow here. If you can look and see beauty in it, the problem is solved."

Part of the abbey's economy will eventually depend on gardening, she says. When you grow your own food and depend on the weather, she says, "that's a strict lesson in Christian humility and our ultimate dependence on God."

She also loves to get her hands dirty.

"I'm not always having a metaphysical experience when I am planting," she says. "But sometimes, when I am kneeling in my flower bed and especially if my hands are in sun-warmed earth, I think about how I am holding onto the planet that everyone else is attached to. I think of the whole creation."

September 1, 2001

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