A garden tour through the Bible
Several years ago I received a review copy of an unusual book: “God’s Word for Gardeners,” based on the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible. At the time, I took a casual look through it and then stowed it on a shelf. My apologies to Shelly Cramm, the general editor. The book arrived when I just didn’t have time for it.
Something inspired me to pick up the book a few weeks ago, and I’m glad I did. While I have some serious logistical problems with the book, which I’ll address later, there is much that I like about the garden focus and about the devotions that Cramm wrote to accompany the various points of scripture that she’s culled out.
She intrigued me from the beginning, reflecting on Genesis 2:8 — “The Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden” — observing that “This simple sentence invites us to be captivated by the idea that God is a gardener.” This is Cramm’s starting point for a full year’s worth of guided readings and devotionals, taking the reader through both the Old and New Testaments. The readings follow horticultural references and themes, and weave us in from a gardener’s perspective.
Cramm organizes her reflections/devotionals within three main categories: Garden Tour, Garden Work, Garden Stories. These are further broken down into sections that explore — in the Garden Tour — places like the Garden of Eden, the Sinai Desert, and the Mount of Olives. Garden Work topics include preparing the soil, pruning, composting, and Garden Tools that include Prayer, Humility, Thanksgiving, and Generosity. The Garden Stories include the many parables of Jesus that have a horticultural reference.
Some of the readings bring things to light I hadn’t noticed before. For example, one of the Garden Tool reflections on Humility takes us to Amos 7:14: “Amos answered Amaziah, ‘I was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees’.” From there, we learn how the fruits of this tree must be manually cut to hasten ripening and make them more sweet and palatable.
But now for the logistical challenges. It’s fine that Cramm skips around the Bible, following different threads. But while there is an index of readings “in canonical order” at the end of the book, no page numbers are given for them. Good luck in finding your way back to something!
Also, it would have been easier for readers if Cramm had written her daily entries and reflections as a stand-alone book, including the full text for each of the Bible references she cites. Instead, her work is imbedded within the entire NIV Bible, forcing the reader to flip back and forth through the thin, 1,500-plus pages with tiny type. Not impossible to navigate, but certainly challenging, and at sometimes annoying.
Despite the logistics, I’m finding inspiration and food for thought in this book; a lot that speaks to my gardener’s soul. If you are interested in taking a run through it, I suggest you do it with a separate copy of the Bible at your side to look up the references — along with bookmarks and sticky notes!
Is this a book strictly for believers? Not necessarily. I appreciate the reflections on the whole process of gardening, learning about the Middle East and some of its native plants, and also the many quotes that Cramm pulls from other books and authors. And I love Cramm’s personal reflections, for instance, this one about how gardening affects the gardener:
“Working the garden has joined us to [the land]...more than just the plants, we plant our hearts in the land of the garden, grounded in a way beyond description.”
That lovely idea, and much more, await in the pages of this book.