Caught in the Devil's Bargain

"We are stardust, we are golden, and we are caught in the Devil's bargain, but we've got to get ourselves back to the garden." Joni Mitchell

I have been reading a book on loan from someone whose faith I admire, a book which attempts to wrestle with the problem of violence in the Old Testament and the stark contrast between the warrior God and the Savior of the New Testament.

I certainly appreciate the attempt to explain the unexplainable, to know the unknowable, to understand the incomprehensible. The author wonders - if we are created in the image of God, where does our fighting, war-like spirit come from? We are to subdue and have dominion over the earth (not over people, he notes) and this sounds like 'fighting words' to him. What, he asks, is supposed to be subdued, in what and over what do we have dominion? ( He is not of the mind-set that the earth is put here for us to use up and 'own'. ) What opposition would would be present from the beginning, that would necessitate any sort of fierce and warrior like spirit? My personal response to this question has been developing over the last few weeks. It is from the soul of a gardener which I answer.

The original context for humans is the garden. And, let me tell you, gardening is not for sissies. Anyone who has earnestly attempted to create order in a garden can tell you that it is a full time 'fight'. It is the most compelling sort of creativity; exhausting, totally absorbing and singularly rewarding. If you've never tried to move a tree into it's perfect place in your garden composition, or fashion a climbing rose bigger than your house into a graceful arch, then perhaps you'll have no idea what I'm talking about. But if you have, then maybe you can identify with me.

I have never felt more alive, more fierce, more strong and dominant, more feminine, than when I am covered with dirt, have a shovel in one hand and a pruner in the other, enjoying the work of my hands. Arranging, designing, composing, digging, smelling, seeing, discovering, creating. I've put into the ground a tiny black seed, smaller than the head of a pin, and watched it blossom into a huge orange poppy. I've planted a miniature red rose in the ground, and seen it return to its wild stock the very next year, old fashioned white flowers with inviting fuzzy orange stamens covering 6 foot stems. I've watched the ingenuity of tiny wrens building gentle birthing places for their little ones, singing arias worthy of Papageno. I've petted bumble bees as big as an acorn, breathed in the perfume which hints of amazing and passionate sensuality. There is love here, and THIS IS WORTH FIGHTING FOR.

I imagine the garden as it was created, perfect soil, perfect temperatures, perfect moisture. (No mosquitoes!) There is no fighting 'against' here. There is no inherent enemy. There is only the irresistible draw of creating, that powerful force that brings something out of nothing. The subduing that happens here is more of a 'gentling', a bringing into beautiful design. I experience something primitive and ferocious in the garden. Something in the garden aligns me with my creator warrior God in a way nothing else can. The Garden is God's 'pentimento', what I see when I look beneath all the ugly history of humans to the under drawing of God's intention for creation.

I think it's best for me to leave all the postulating and theologizing to those who find it energizing. I admire them, bless them and pray they will find what they seek. As for me, I find am becoming too happily simple to be useful in that sort of pursuit. I just want to pull some weeds and move some lilies. So, getting myself back to the garden...