Photograph by Raychel
Along with many others, I’ve signed on with the Carbon Fast as part of my Lenten practice this year. It shows us ways to reduce our carbon footprint. You get a daily email with:
- A practical suggestion
- A relevant fact
- A prayer
Yesterday’s email said:
Compost. Put the nutrients from food waste back into the soil – not into a methane-emitting landfill.
Fact for the day: If global average temperatures increase by more than 2 degrees we will see permafrost melting. This will release tonnes of methane into the atmosphere. A tonne of methane is 23 times more warming than a tonne of c02. (Tearfund, ’2 degrees, One chance’)
Prayer: Not so much a prayer to repeat today, but one to experience: roll up your sleeves and plunge your hands into some soil, sand or water. Take your time and meditate on the cells and the microbes, the intricate wonder of what God has made.
What a wonderful prayer this is, because what a miracle soil is. A perfect, living environment, which in turn provides a perfect, living environment for us and other creatures. Until we start wrecking it, that is.
I’m a hypocrite of course. Although I try, I do not lead nearly as “light” a life as I could. But this email made me think again and I have restarted my compost heap, and taken a good look around my garden to see what I can do to help it.
And today I went out and bought a hoe. A good old-fashioned Dutch hoe with a steel blade and a wooden handle. More expensive than its tacky plastic cousin, and I’m lucky to be able to afford it. But if I keep it clean and sharp, and oil the blade and handle regularly, that hoe will still be in action years after I’m feeding the worms.
That little email made me rethink my relationship to my garden. It made me see I’ve thought of gardening as yet another chore. But it isn’t. It’s prayer.
Gardening is not a rational act. What matters is the immersion of the hands in the earth, that ancient ceremony of which the Pope kissing the tarmac is merely a pallid vestigial remnant.
Margaret Attwood
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Tess
You’re spot on about gardening as prayer – I posted about this on Sunday. Almost invariably an hour in the garden will restore my spirits and help me get life into an appropriate perspective.
i love the thought of gardening as prayer…and thoroughly enjoyed ER’s sunday post! almost makes me want to stay home and garden…Not!
Thank you for everything about this post — the photo, the link to the Carbon fast site and the email of the day, your own words and the quote.
For me, gardening is very irrational because I have so little space and make such mess anytime I do a little planting I spend more time cleaning than on anything else. I also have to carry everything — soil, plants, pots, watering can — through my living room to get to my balcony. But I still love gardening and am completely at peace when my hands are in the earth.
I keep being reminded about my promise to myself that I would start to grow my own vegetables. Thanks for the reminder
Thank you everyone. Yes ER, I enjoyed your post.
Elaine, I have this vision of you leaving a trail of soil behind you on your living room floor.
It’s surprising how little space you need to get that feeling of peace. I have two pots of scarlet geraniums on my kitchen windowsill that, with their colour and the scent and texture of the leaves when I touch them, give me almost as much pleasure as the rest of my (small) garden put together.
Sue, I don’t know how well runner beans grow in Oz, but they are so rewarding in terms of both flowers and end result, and only take up as much space as a wigwam of cane sticks.
I love this post, although I consider my thumbs irrevocably black! I will let my friends and my parish know about that website. Our theme this Lent has been interpreting the parables in the light of environmental issues.