The Garden

Montreal, Canada

        I have seen some beautiful gardens in my day. A few years ago I had the privilege of seeing The Montreal Botanical Garden in Canada. It's one of the largest of it's kind and is filled with plants from the four corners of the earth, all living in harmony in this one spot. In 2009 I got to experience the un-manicured gardens in the lush forests of Malaysia. These gardens were wild, governed only by nature and provided sustience for the villagers. Even my mother in laws humble garden in her backyard has such a sweetness about it that draws me to spend hours just sitting in its dirt. I love me some gardens, and i can only imagine what the first Garden looked like. Eden. Ohhh Eden!!! It must have been a party for the senses...surrounded by the most amazing smells, colors, and textures. Eden was Adams home, and Eve's birthplace. everything man needed to survive was right there in that one spot and God himself was there, walking and talking with man in the cool of the day! There has never been and will never be another place on earth like Eden. 

         Mans history with God began there and He gave us some very important directions about what our relationship with the earth was to be. In Genesis 1:29 God said 'Look! I have given you every seed-bearing plant throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food." God carefully and intentionally crafted each herb, fruit, and vegetable with the perfect nutrients and medicinal properties to nourish us, give us energy, and keep us strong. Living in the 21st century it is obvious that we have strayed so far from Gods original design for food. He didn't say "Hey! check this out! I've given you this corn that has been genetically modified in a lab, bleached flour, and processed microwavable dinners that have been saturated with pesticides and injected with hormones! This will be your food...eat up!" The repercussions of this are HUGE! Not only for your health but for the earth that God asked us to steward.
        Genesis 2:15 says "and the Lord God took man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and keep it." The words "dress" and "keep" are translated in the original Hebrew as "to serve" and "protect" the land. This was the first job assigned to Adam, he was to be the master Gardner and a reciprocal relationship was established between man and earth...you serve me and I'll serve you. Our farming and agricultural practices are in direct opposition to what God had intended. There is no give and take in conventional farming, there is only take take take! Without crop rotation soil is striped naked and left with no minerals. Farmers then have to drench their crops with un-natural chemical fertilizers made up of 3 ingredients. That's 52 minerals short of what is needed for healthy soil. Soil is a lot like us, when it's deficient in something, it loses its defenses and becomes more prone to "bugs." So the bugs come and farmers are again forced to turn to toxic chemicals, this time in the form of herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides. You get the picture? Deficient soil = deficient food supply = deficient people. This method hasn't been working and it will never work. People are sick and our soil is eroding, Gods plan works!!  
       As consumers, we call the shots. Shop organic, and support sustainability!