The Return of Light Lenten Reflections

I haven't written for either of my blogs in a very long time, the reasons real, but too boring to mention. But I felt the writing urge coming back and with Lent upon us, thought a return of Light Lenten Reflections may be a good way of getting back into the swing of things. Again, I'll post something once a week, probably on a Wednesday, and each posting will include something to ponder and something to pray. Feel free to read, ponder and pray away, or just read. (If once a week is not enough for you, I guess you could always go back to my first series of Light Lenten Reflections starting on February 10, 2016, and reread, reponder and repray...)

Light Lenten Reflections

Week 1

Back to the Garden

The fiftieth anniversary of the musical festival Woodstock coincided with a road trip up north to visit our kids. I asked my husband to make a playlist appropriate for the occasion and he, being the King of Freegal*, outdid himself. My ipod now had over six hours of Woodstock-related music on it for us to listen to in the car - some live recordings from the concert, some rerecordings of iconic songs, and three different versions of the song “Woodstock”. Joni Mitchell was not at Woodstock herself but in a New York City hotel room when she wrote that song, watching reports of the event on television. (Her manager thought her appearance on The Dick Cavett Show that weekend would be better for her career than some outdoor concert in upstate New York.) Between the extensive news coverage and descriptions of the festival from her then-boyfriend, Graham Nash, who was at Woodstock, Joni Mitchell was able to write the song most associated with that event.

During our trip, listening to Joni's version of the song, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's version, and the UK's mega-hit version by Britain's Matthews Southern Comfort, I had many opportunities to ponder the reoccurring lyric that inspired this series of Lenten reflections:

We are stardust

We are golden

And we've got to get ourselves

Back to the garden

In these words Joni expresses two things I think all of us, in our heart of hearts, consciously or unconsciously feel. Like stardust and gold, we are precious and valuable, and there is a place, a garden, somewhere we know we are supposed to be, but we are not, and so we long for it, long to get back to it. And why shouldn't we feel that way? We are precious and valuable to our Creator, and we were created for a garden. In fact, we were created to walk with that Creator in a garden.

The book of Genesis gives us some glimpses of the place we long for, the garden we were made for.

So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them..

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. +

“It was very good”...and it gets better. This garden not only has green growing things, it had a river to water it, water that divided to flow out of the garden and watered other lands as well:

A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.++

And the best:

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day...

Green, growing things, water to refresh it, and the living God, walking in the garden in the cool of the day. No wonder we long for such a place. It is why we garden, go hiking in forest preserves, buy homes on rivers and atop mountains. I suspect it is why some of us fish, maybe hunt, run ultra marathons and even golf to enjoy being out in the growing things of the larger garden we live in. Some may prefer to sit indoors, yet surround themselves with houseplants, while others perhaps choose city living only to have rooftop gardens and lofts of hydroponic vegetables. We long for the garden and our lives reflect that longing.

But we were made to navigate this garden with Someone, created to walk it with Another. Imagine hearing “the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day”. Of course, at this point in the biblical garden story, Adam and Eve have already blown it and are hiding from the very Person they were meant to enjoy the garden with. Things deteriorate rapidly and the couple are removed from the perfect place designed for them. And so begins the longing of their descendants to get back to the garden.

So Joni Mitchell got it right. We long to get back to the garden. But she also got it wrong. No matter what we do or how hard we try, we can't “get ourselves back to the garden”. We can't recreate the perfect, walking relationship with the living God in the created beauty of His garden. Fortunately, from the first moment of the disintegration of that Eden, the God who walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day put in motion a plan to get us back to the garden, back to walking it with Him. Every week during Lent, usually on Wednesday, we'll look at scripture and spend some time in our present garden with God. We can't get ourselves back to the garden, but He can, and He has spent Himself lavishly on our behalf in order for us to get there. And it's way better than Max Yasgur's farm...

Something to Ponder:

What is your “garden”, the place where you can glimpse God's creative beauty and power on your behalf? Gardening, walking in the woods, etc. or surrounding yourself with potted plants, maybe urban gardens? If you live somewhere weather permits, step into that place and talk to God there. Or talk to Him and thank Him for the places He can meet you amidst His creation and commit to meeting Him there whenever possible, especially during this Lenten season.

Something to Pray:

Grab a Bible or biblegateway.com and read Genesis 1:26-31, 2:10-17. If all this had been made specifically for you, how would would you view the God who made it all? Tell Him. How would you feel if He wanted to share it with you, spend time with you in it? Tell Him. Then read Genesis 3:1-13. Are there any areas in your life that make you feel like hiding from God at the moment? Again, tell Him. (He already knows anyway!)

I came upon a child of God

He was walking along the road

And I asked him, where are you going

And this he told me...

-from Woodstock by Joni Mitchell

+Genesis 1:27-31

++Genesis 2:10-14

+++Genesis 3:8a

*Freegal is a free music service one can access through their public library. Each library card holder is entitled to five free downloads per week. My husband takes full advantage of the privilege, getting his five songs and usually more depending on how many other people in the house are not using their full quota of songs for the week.