New Year, New Gardens

Brightwood Garden Site

 They will say, “This land that was laid waste has become like the garden of Eden; the cities that were lying in ruins, desolate and destroyed, are now fortified and inhabited.” (Ezekiel 36:35)

I know it's been awhile since I've blogged anything, but Happy New Year and here's to more regular blogposts as a resolution!

Last year, I helped lead a project to plant one school garden in Alhambra School District. This year, we'll be starting three more!

The planting of gardens was the primary reason I started working for Kingdom Causes. In the prophetic books, it stood as a metaphor: for Eden, for beauty and abundance and also as a foil to the desert of destruction of Israel's cities as they became subject to the nations around them.

Working in the city you realize that prosperity is often measured by economic development and increasing revenues; after all, you can't have good property values, good businesses, police, fire, schools, etc. if you have a city struggling to keep itself running. And while I'm all for good economic development, I also see that beauty and abundance cannot only be measured by that one factor.

Seeking the shalom of a city should also mean that questions of beauty and access to natural beauty are not just afterthoughts. Cities have a way of creating desolation in the name of prosperity. My goals with these gardens is to help create pockets of Eden to remind our urban selves that we are also part of a Kingdom that has beauty and abundance that sustains the body and soul.

Repetto Garden Site