Gables garden is worthy of preservation

Re Bea Hines’ June 19 Neighbors article, “A leafy Gables garden full of history will be felled as a new condo rises: Look at what we’ll lose:” I commend Bonnie Bolton for her relentless and selfless advocacy on behalf of the preservation of the Garden of Our Lord. I agree with Hines when she says, “Some things are worthy of preserving.”

This Gables garden is worthy. It is no ordinary piece of land. It holds as much emotional aura as it does historical flora. Entering the walled enclave, one feels the spirit. As Sergio Pino says, it should “be handled with the utmost respect.”

A garden sitting on con- secrated ground should not only be respected, but also revered. Founded in 1951 by parishioners as a biblical garden, seeds brought back from the Garden of Gethsemane in Jerusalem germinated into plants that included date palms and clumps of bulrushes. Plants also included hyssop and cypress, cassia, red sandalwood, apple, camphor and cedar of Lebanon, oleander, mulberry, fig, myrtle, the balm tree and the spikenard shrub. Walking among the trees and shrubs native to the Holy Land, one is transported to another world, an experience hard to explain.

More than 70 years ago, the Garden of Our Lord was one of only three biblical gardens in the United States, created as a sanctuary for prayer and meditation. Grieving fam- ilies carved out a garden as a place of spiritual comfort. It is fitting that it should stand in perpetuity, not fall to indifference or a multi-story condo.

The understanding is that the parcel where the garden sits still remains designated as Religious/ Institutional land until a zoning change is approved. Some things are worthy of a miraculous intervention.