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Inheriting Paradise: Meditations on Gardening
The garden is a personal place of retreat and delight and labor for many people. Gardening helps us collect ourselves, much as praying does. For rich and poor - it makes no difference - a garden is a place where body and soul are in harmony. In Inheriting Paradise Vigen Guroian offers an abundant vision of the spiritual life found in the cultivation of God's good creation. Capturing the earthiness and sacramental character of the Christian faith, these uplifting meditations bring together the experience of space and time through the cycle of the seasons in the garden and relate this fundamental human experience to the cycle of the church year and the Christian seasons of grace. The tilling of fresh earth; the sowing of seeds; the harvesting of rhubarb and roses, dillweed and daffodils - Guroian finds in the garden our most concrete connection with life and God's gracious giving. His personal reflections on this connection, complemented here by delicate woodcut illustrations, offer a compelling entry into Christian spirituality.
112 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1999
18 people are currently reading
342 people want to read
About the author
Vigen Guroian
26 books55 followersVigen Guroian resides with his wife June Vranian in Culpeper, Virginia, where he mostly tends to his large perennial and vegetable gardens. June is an Interior Designer. Vigen and June have two children. Their son Rafi is 28 years of age, a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College, and employed at Cox Newspapers in Washington D.C. Their daughter Victoria is 24 years old, a graduate of Washington and Lee University, and employed at the NRA.
Dr. Guroian received his B.A. from the University of Virginia (1970) and his Ph. D. in Theology from Drew University (1978). He is presently Professor of Theology and Ethics at Loyola College in Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. Guroian was an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia from 1978-81 and held a post there as well in the Center for Russian and East European Studies. He has been a visiting lecturer at St. Nersess Armenian Seminary in New Rochelle, New York, and was the Seminary's Director of Academic Affairs from 1990-92. Dr. Guroian has served for many years as a member of and consultant to the Armenian Religious Education Council of the Prelacy of the Armenian Church of North America.
Since 1986 Dr. Guroian has been a member of the faculty of the Ecumenical Institute of Theology at St. Mary's Seminary and University teaching courses there regularly. For the academic year 1995-1996 he was named the Distinguished Lecturer in Moral and Religious Education at the Institute.
Dr. Guroian has been on numerous editorial boards including The Journal of Religious Ethics, Pro Ecclesia: A Journal of Catholic and Evangelical Theology, and Christian Bio-Ethics. He has served terms on the Board of Directors of the Society of Christian Ethics and the executive committees of the American Theological Society and Christians Associated for Relations with Eastern Europe. He has been active in both the National Council of Churches and in the World Council of Churches.
He is Senior Fellow of the Center on Law and Religion of Emory University; Permanent Senior Fellow of the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in Mecosta, Michigan; Senior Fellow of the Trinity Forum; and an ongoing Fellow of the Wilberforce Forum under the Prison Fellowship Ministries founded by the honorable Chuck Colson.
Recent significant consultations and projects on which Dr. Guroian has served include: "The Alonzo L. McDonald Family Project on Christian Jurisprudence," Emory University (2004-2009); "The Vocation of the Child," commissioned by the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Religion at Emory University (2005-2006); A Consultation: "American Orthodoxy or Orthodoxy in America," sponsored by the Institute on Religion and World Affairs, Boston University and Pew Charitable Trusts (2003-2004); Christian Jurisprudence Project on "Law and Human Nature: The Teaching of Modern Christianity," sponsored by Pew Charitable Trusts (2001-2004); and "Consultation on Ecclesiology and Ecumenism," sponsored by the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology (2000-2003).
Dr. Guroian has published more than 150 articles in books, journals, and encyclopedias on a range of subjects including Orthodox theology, liturgy and ethics, marriage and family, children's literature, ecology, genocide, and medical ethics. He has authored a monthly column entitled "Really Human Things" on the Prison Fellowship Ministries' BreakPoint site. Dr. Guroian's books, Inheriting Paradise: Meditations on Gardening (Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1999) and Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classic Stories Awaken a Child's Moral Imagination (Oxford University Press, 1998), received national press and media attention. Feature stories on his books have appeared in The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, The Richmond Times Dispatch, and more than a dozen other newspapers around the country. Dr. Guroian has been a guest on NPR's "Talk of the Nation," "T
Dr. Guroian received his B.A. from the University of Virginia (1970) and his Ph. D. in Theology from Drew University (1978). He is presently Professor of Theology and Ethics at Loyola College in Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. Guroian was an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia from 1978-81 and held a post there as well in the Center for Russian and East European Studies. He has been a visiting lecturer at St. Nersess Armenian Seminary in New Rochelle, New York, and was the Seminary's Director of Academic Affairs from 1990-92. Dr. Guroian has served for many years as a member of and consultant to the Armenian Religious Education Council of the Prelacy of the Armenian Church of North America.
Since 1986 Dr. Guroian has been a member of the faculty of the Ecumenical Institute of Theology at St. Mary's Seminary and University teaching courses there regularly. For the academic year 1995-1996 he was named the Distinguished Lecturer in Moral and Religious Education at the Institute.
Dr. Guroian has been on numerous editorial boards including The Journal of Religious Ethics, Pro Ecclesia: A Journal of Catholic and Evangelical Theology, and Christian Bio-Ethics. He has served terms on the Board of Directors of the Society of Christian Ethics and the executive committees of the American Theological Society and Christians Associated for Relations with Eastern Europe. He has been active in both the National Council of Churches and in the World Council of Churches.
He is Senior Fellow of the Center on Law and Religion of Emory University; Permanent Senior Fellow of the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in Mecosta, Michigan; Senior Fellow of the Trinity Forum; and an ongoing Fellow of the Wilberforce Forum under the Prison Fellowship Ministries founded by the honorable Chuck Colson.
Recent significant consultations and projects on which Dr. Guroian has served include: "The Alonzo L. McDonald Family Project on Christian Jurisprudence," Emory University (2004-2009); "The Vocation of the Child," commissioned by the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Religion at Emory University (2005-2006); A Consultation: "American Orthodoxy or Orthodoxy in America," sponsored by the Institute on Religion and World Affairs, Boston University and Pew Charitable Trusts (2003-2004); Christian Jurisprudence Project on "Law and Human Nature: The Teaching of Modern Christianity," sponsored by Pew Charitable Trusts (2001-2004); and "Consultation on Ecclesiology and Ecumenism," sponsored by the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology (2000-2003).
Dr. Guroian has published more than 150 articles in books, journals, and encyclopedias on a range of subjects including Orthodox theology, liturgy and ethics, marriage and family, children's literature, ecology, genocide, and medical ethics. He has authored a monthly column entitled "Really Human Things" on the Prison Fellowship Ministries' BreakPoint site. Dr. Guroian's books, Inheriting Paradise: Meditations on Gardening (Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1999) and Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classic Stories Awaken a Child's Moral Imagination (Oxford University Press, 1998), received national press and media attention. Feature stories on his books have appeared in The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, The Richmond Times Dispatch, and more than a dozen other newspapers around the country. Dr. Guroian has been a guest on NPR's "Talk of the Nation," "T
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February 6, 2022
I’m not a gardener, but this book has perhaps inspired me to become one. Using the liturgical calendar as a framework for the year, gardening is celebrated through stories, poems, and theological musings. A lovely little book.
June 21, 2015
The rain over the past several days has meant the plants in my meager garden have grow wild, chaotic, threatening to slip beyond the control of a weeding hand. It doesn’t help that I’m already a bit of a lazy gardener. It’s important for me to have growing things in the ground-- my ground-- every season, but I don’t spend time each day in the garden. I kind of let things-- cucumbers and tomatoes, mainly-- run riot.
I have two shallow raised beds in the backyard. This fall I may add a third. One of them is devoted to different varieties of cucumbers with basil plants holding down the corners. There’s a long trellis I made out of old chicken wire running down the middle. The cucumbers are gathering themselves right now in a slow green boil, like they’re gathering momentum to leap up and over it, as they will soon, burying it in a long leafy wave. I’ve always had good luck with cucumbers.
The second bed is more unruly. Half of it is devoted to a weedy onion patch, though the long fingers of the onions still have a comfortable lead on the grass growing up between them, for now. I dropped onion sets into this side of the garden haphazardly and without plan, so the onions have come up in bedraggled rows. The rest of the bed is split between four large tomato plants that have fountained up as bushes, spilling languid green arms in all directions, and a row of potato plants that I’m not sure what to do with. I’ve never grown potatoes before, and as lovely and thick as they look above the ground, I don’t know what that means beneath the soil.
In one corner of this bed I have an uneasy alliance with a bunch of mint. At one time this mint spread across the back of the house and my wife spent a long afternoon pulling it out of the flower bed where it had thrived for perhaps decades. I have a soft spot in my heart for the plant though, because I pull a leaf to chew every time I walk past the garden and I boil it to make mint tea for my kombucha. I have it walled off in its own corner of the raised bed, though my walls don’t go deep enough to actually do anything to hold it back. That’s just me, pulling out the constant runners that keep creeping into the tomatoes.
You’re supposed to be able to tell something about a man from his garden, and if this is true then my garden says I’m enthusiastic, overly optimistic, and naive. I know there are supposed to be growing things on my land, so I plant them, but I’m never quite sure I have the hang of what to do with them once they go crazy, as they do each season. I like to watch the garden come to life, but I lack artistry. Fortunately, there’s not a lot riding on my gardening. I don’t rely on it to provide a major source of my food. If Vigen Guroian is right though, I do need it to provide food for my soul.
The garden is the oldest analogy. As Guroian points out, man was placed in a garden at creation. Whether or not this is “historical” truth, consider what it means as literary truth. Man begins in some kind of order, as some kind of caretaker in relationship with ordered creation. Wildness and wilderness only come later.
For Guroian, an Armenian Orthodox theologian, gardening is more than a hobby or an ecological mission: it is theology, lived in the context of the soil. The annual death and rebirth of his garden is a reflection of the theological-- the cosmological, he would argue-- truths exemplified in the liturgical life of the Church. Indeed, in this slender volume the chapters are divided by Christian holidays, with Guroian reflecting on the beauty, significance, and meaning of what’s happening in the garden in time with what’s happening in the liturgical year. The garden is a way of participating with creation itself in worship, in bearing fruit joyfully before God. For Guroian, as he shares his own battle with depression, it’s also a means of healing.
The mirror for all this is the prayers and hymns of the Armenian Orthodox liturgy. Guroian pulls from this throughout the year-- as well as scripture and occasional quotes from the Fathers or other writers-- to draw the reader into an understanding of the cycles at work unseen beneath the turning of the seasons. This might be a central claim of anyone who gardens: for those of us who have lost touch with the land, the circle of the year turns largely unseen. We skim along the skin of it, but we don’t reach deeply and touch what it means.
For an Orthodox Christian gardener like Guroian, the claim might go deeper: most Christians today are like the non-gardeners, out of touch with the deeper turnings in the liturgical life of the Church. We see Easter and Christmas come and go like non-gardeners see certain fruits and vegetables appear and then disappear (though they don’t even really do that anymore) from the markets. But there’s a deep connection between the two, and Guroian believes-- in keeping with mystical Orthodox theologians-- that the story of the Church, the entire story of redemption and deification, is written in the soil. He would have you know this when you garden as well as when you sing or speak the liturgy.
For all that I agree with Guroian’s message here, I was disappointed with the book. It’s a slender volume that despite the richness of his prose and borrowed texts felt woodenly didactic. The cosmic significance of gardening was spelled out writ large, but what was lacking was the specificity that makes such sweeping analogies and metaphors truly powerful. I learned the significance of gardening, but what of the significance of tomatoes? What of cucumbers or mulch? What of the back bent in labor? They’re all here but passed over, unexplored. I was hoping for something more along the lines of Chet Raymo’s Soul of the Night; whereas Raymo’s theological claims are far vaguer, his treatment of natural (in this case astronomical) phenomena are compelling, concrete, and sublime. For all the truth Guroian is touching here, the execution came off a bit too trite.
I have two shallow raised beds in the backyard. This fall I may add a third. One of them is devoted to different varieties of cucumbers with basil plants holding down the corners. There’s a long trellis I made out of old chicken wire running down the middle. The cucumbers are gathering themselves right now in a slow green boil, like they’re gathering momentum to leap up and over it, as they will soon, burying it in a long leafy wave. I’ve always had good luck with cucumbers.
The second bed is more unruly. Half of it is devoted to a weedy onion patch, though the long fingers of the onions still have a comfortable lead on the grass growing up between them, for now. I dropped onion sets into this side of the garden haphazardly and without plan, so the onions have come up in bedraggled rows. The rest of the bed is split between four large tomato plants that have fountained up as bushes, spilling languid green arms in all directions, and a row of potato plants that I’m not sure what to do with. I’ve never grown potatoes before, and as lovely and thick as they look above the ground, I don’t know what that means beneath the soil.
In one corner of this bed I have an uneasy alliance with a bunch of mint. At one time this mint spread across the back of the house and my wife spent a long afternoon pulling it out of the flower bed where it had thrived for perhaps decades. I have a soft spot in my heart for the plant though, because I pull a leaf to chew every time I walk past the garden and I boil it to make mint tea for my kombucha. I have it walled off in its own corner of the raised bed, though my walls don’t go deep enough to actually do anything to hold it back. That’s just me, pulling out the constant runners that keep creeping into the tomatoes.
You’re supposed to be able to tell something about a man from his garden, and if this is true then my garden says I’m enthusiastic, overly optimistic, and naive. I know there are supposed to be growing things on my land, so I plant them, but I’m never quite sure I have the hang of what to do with them once they go crazy, as they do each season. I like to watch the garden come to life, but I lack artistry. Fortunately, there’s not a lot riding on my gardening. I don’t rely on it to provide a major source of my food. If Vigen Guroian is right though, I do need it to provide food for my soul.
The garden is the oldest analogy. As Guroian points out, man was placed in a garden at creation. Whether or not this is “historical” truth, consider what it means as literary truth. Man begins in some kind of order, as some kind of caretaker in relationship with ordered creation. Wildness and wilderness only come later.
For Guroian, an Armenian Orthodox theologian, gardening is more than a hobby or an ecological mission: it is theology, lived in the context of the soil. The annual death and rebirth of his garden is a reflection of the theological-- the cosmological, he would argue-- truths exemplified in the liturgical life of the Church. Indeed, in this slender volume the chapters are divided by Christian holidays, with Guroian reflecting on the beauty, significance, and meaning of what’s happening in the garden in time with what’s happening in the liturgical year. The garden is a way of participating with creation itself in worship, in bearing fruit joyfully before God. For Guroian, as he shares his own battle with depression, it’s also a means of healing.
The mirror for all this is the prayers and hymns of the Armenian Orthodox liturgy. Guroian pulls from this throughout the year-- as well as scripture and occasional quotes from the Fathers or other writers-- to draw the reader into an understanding of the cycles at work unseen beneath the turning of the seasons. This might be a central claim of anyone who gardens: for those of us who have lost touch with the land, the circle of the year turns largely unseen. We skim along the skin of it, but we don’t reach deeply and touch what it means.
For an Orthodox Christian gardener like Guroian, the claim might go deeper: most Christians today are like the non-gardeners, out of touch with the deeper turnings in the liturgical life of the Church. We see Easter and Christmas come and go like non-gardeners see certain fruits and vegetables appear and then disappear (though they don’t even really do that anymore) from the markets. But there’s a deep connection between the two, and Guroian believes-- in keeping with mystical Orthodox theologians-- that the story of the Church, the entire story of redemption and deification, is written in the soil. He would have you know this when you garden as well as when you sing or speak the liturgy.
For all that I agree with Guroian’s message here, I was disappointed with the book. It’s a slender volume that despite the richness of his prose and borrowed texts felt woodenly didactic. The cosmic significance of gardening was spelled out writ large, but what was lacking was the specificity that makes such sweeping analogies and metaphors truly powerful. I learned the significance of gardening, but what of the significance of tomatoes? What of cucumbers or mulch? What of the back bent in labor? They’re all here but passed over, unexplored. I was hoping for something more along the lines of Chet Raymo’s Soul of the Night; whereas Raymo’s theological claims are far vaguer, his treatment of natural (in this case astronomical) phenomena are compelling, concrete, and sublime. For all the truth Guroian is touching here, the execution came off a bit too trite.
June 1, 2023
This book was enough outside of my knowledge base, both with gardening and with the author's orthodox traditions that I had a harder time connecting with some of it.
October 16, 2022
A short but dense book of essays and mediations on gardening and Christian life. AS someone who has gardened I appreciate the author's thoughts. He is Orthodox so some of his reflections are not so automatic to me, but still appreciated. Thoughtful.
September 13, 2025
Over the years I've started this little devotional several times. But this afternoon, when deciding between gardening or *reading* about gardening, I chose to tolle lege.
I wanted to love it; but I didn't see the analogies he made between Pentecost, the Transfiguration, Mary's Assumption and gardening. Guroian is Armenian Orthodox. Not a tradition I know very well, and therefore tough sledding.
Poetry was sprinkled throughout: Kenyon, Frost, Rossetti, Berry and others. Lovely.
Quotes:
I think gardening is nearer to godliness than theology.
The beauty of a turnip garden may be more homely than the beauty of a tulip garden, but there is beauty in it nonetheless.
I wanted to love it; but I didn't see the analogies he made between Pentecost, the Transfiguration, Mary's Assumption and gardening. Guroian is Armenian Orthodox. Not a tradition I know very well, and therefore tough sledding.
Poetry was sprinkled throughout: Kenyon, Frost, Rossetti, Berry and others. Lovely.
Quotes:
I think gardening is nearer to godliness than theology.
The beauty of a turnip garden may be more homely than the beauty of a tulip garden, but there is beauty in it nonetheless.
January 28, 2025
I loved this book of short reflections in the garden. Especially in the middle of winter.
February 2, 2025
Finished & ready to begin again
February 6, 2025
It might be helpful to someone choosing this book to know that a better sub-title might have been, "Meditations on Gardening relative to the liturgical calendar." Not very creative but it would give a better understanding of the content of the book.
For me, I just couldn't finish the book because as I would get engaged with an analogy on some spiritual truth found in gardening, the liturgical calendar seemed to become the focus. That might be compelling to someone who follows the church calendar, but for me I just kept feeling disappointed that the author didn't linger longer over the doctrine manifested in gardening rather than the relationship to the "holiday" and gardening.
Clearly Guroian is a poet and loves poetry. But the teaching found in this book is so poetic that I found it challenging to glean the lesson. No doubt a failing on my part and my impoverished ability to benefit, as many others must, from poetry. I simply kept longing for straight forward observations on the lessons found in gardening - and that is simply not what this book contains. At least not in my estimation.
For me, I just couldn't finish the book because as I would get engaged with an analogy on some spiritual truth found in gardening, the liturgical calendar seemed to become the focus. That might be compelling to someone who follows the church calendar, but for me I just kept feeling disappointed that the author didn't linger longer over the doctrine manifested in gardening rather than the relationship to the "holiday" and gardening.
Clearly Guroian is a poet and loves poetry. But the teaching found in this book is so poetic that I found it challenging to glean the lesson. No doubt a failing on my part and my impoverished ability to benefit, as many others must, from poetry. I simply kept longing for straight forward observations on the lessons found in gardening - and that is simply not what this book contains. At least not in my estimation.
April 2, 2021
The author is an Eastern Orthodox Christian and a professor who writes meditations on gardening and faith.
Viven Guroian writes, “Through these meditations I have endeavored to capture the earthiness and sacramental character of the Christian faith.”
If you love gardening and embrace the Savior of the world, you’ll find much to smile at in these reflections that are meant to be savored.
“The Word himself was the first Gardener. In the beginning he planted a tree in the Garden of Eden that grew the fruit of immortal life. But the serpent came into the garden and claimed the tree as his own, until the Word took our flesh and reclaimed it. Nailed to that tree he made himself the antidote of sin and death. They who nailed our Lord to the Cross did not know that it was his from the beginning, that the selfsame dead instrument of execution was and is forever more a living tree, the Tree of Life that produces the food and drink of the Kingdom of Heaven.”
Viven Guroian writes, “Through these meditations I have endeavored to capture the earthiness and sacramental character of the Christian faith.”
If you love gardening and embrace the Savior of the world, you’ll find much to smile at in these reflections that are meant to be savored.
“The Word himself was the first Gardener. In the beginning he planted a tree in the Garden of Eden that grew the fruit of immortal life. But the serpent came into the garden and claimed the tree as his own, until the Word took our flesh and reclaimed it. Nailed to that tree he made himself the antidote of sin and death. They who nailed our Lord to the Cross did not know that it was his from the beginning, that the selfsame dead instrument of execution was and is forever more a living tree, the Tree of Life that produces the food and drink of the Kingdom of Heaven.”
December 29, 2021
This 92-page book of essays is a quick read, but I’d recommend to anyone to take it slow. Guroian writes so beautifully of the sacrament of gardening, and I plan to revisit each essay associated with each season throughout the next year.
April 1, 2023
Some good tidbits.
April 28, 2022
Theological differences aside, this book really encouraged me to pay better attention in my garden and to consider how it all points to the glory of God.
September 25, 2018
INHERITING PARADISE, Meditations on Gardening. Vigen Guroian. 1999
Dear Vera,
I sat down to read this book, which I did only because you gave it to me. Gardening, like fish, is [are?] alien to me for vastly different reasons. I kill anything green which comes near to me should the plant become dependent on me. But your sense of prayer led me to read this little book. It will not be among my favorites but every so often something struck me as God is wont to do with our realizing his presence in bits and snatches. So, herewith my being struck: [it took a while to get struck]
36 Henry Mitchell, in his book One Man’s Garden, observes that “it is not important for a garden to be beautiful” in everyone’s eyes. But “it is extremely important for the gardener to think it is a fair substitute for Eden.” Perhaps this is an overstatement, or perhaps it is a theological truth. It is important for threw Christian gardener to see beauty in the garden of his own self.
COMMENT: That touched me because if we cannot see any beauty in ourselves, we cannot see God. At the beginning of St. Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises, there are meditations which seem to trap us in the mire in which we are so often. That conclusion was not his but we do have see beauty in ourselves, beauty which is a gift.
38 Adam and Eve were cast out from Paradise, but the memory of Paradise remains. So gardeners try to recreate Paradise in their own yards. … “The world is charged with the grandeur of God./It will flame out, like shining from shook foil” …
COMMENT: That struck me because I had just sent that poem to a newly baptized member of the Chinese Cantonese Catholic community, of which I am chaplain. He is a very interesting individual, attracted to faith by Pascal’ wager, which I took pains to explain was not a great foundation. But we all are aimed at God by strange bowstrings. So at the end of an explanation to him of something or other which I cannot remember, I added this poem which I knew he would have a problem reading. Well, he got one of those aids to reading poetry of the web and got the point. We are meant to be God’s grandeur outside of God…
80 Where have all the flowers gone? The perennial beds have lost their raiment, no more wild summer gaiety of bright colors, the dancers are all undressed and their feet are frozen in the ground.
COMMENT: Great images. But it was the mention of dancers that struck me. In the days when I could hike outdoors, I would stand and watch the leaves dance with the wind. Signs of life…
83 We have tamed Christmas, and domesticated it. We have taken all of the terror and cold out of that night with our electrified lights; and real joy escapes us. We compensate, we cover our silent despair with gay Christmas wrapping. But we know all too well that at the appointed hour the wrappings will all be torn away and crumpled in piles, and our lives will be no different after the day is done. We want the joy of our life without the pain of his birth, or the agony of his crucifixion, or the judgment when he returns. But I ask you: “Why in this season does the holly bear its red berries?”
COMMENT: The first sentence got to me. When I was a young priest, just after I got here, I started with some lay friends a Christmas Eve Mass and celebrated it for some 35 years. Someone else does it now. But Mary, who was one of those with whom I joined would read some fitting poetry after communion. It was poetry which enlarges Guroian’s first sentence. See the poem which I attach, Christmas is Really for the Children.
And the use of Oscar Wilde’s story about the selfish giant is a marvelous ending. Or beginning.
Thank you.
Dear Vera,
I sat down to read this book, which I did only because you gave it to me. Gardening, like fish, is [are?] alien to me for vastly different reasons. I kill anything green which comes near to me should the plant become dependent on me. But your sense of prayer led me to read this little book. It will not be among my favorites but every so often something struck me as God is wont to do with our realizing his presence in bits and snatches. So, herewith my being struck: [it took a while to get struck]
36 Henry Mitchell, in his book One Man’s Garden, observes that “it is not important for a garden to be beautiful” in everyone’s eyes. But “it is extremely important for the gardener to think it is a fair substitute for Eden.” Perhaps this is an overstatement, or perhaps it is a theological truth. It is important for threw Christian gardener to see beauty in the garden of his own self.
COMMENT: That touched me because if we cannot see any beauty in ourselves, we cannot see God. At the beginning of St. Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises, there are meditations which seem to trap us in the mire in which we are so often. That conclusion was not his but we do have see beauty in ourselves, beauty which is a gift.
38 Adam and Eve were cast out from Paradise, but the memory of Paradise remains. So gardeners try to recreate Paradise in their own yards. … “The world is charged with the grandeur of God./It will flame out, like shining from shook foil” …
COMMENT: That struck me because I had just sent that poem to a newly baptized member of the Chinese Cantonese Catholic community, of which I am chaplain. He is a very interesting individual, attracted to faith by Pascal’ wager, which I took pains to explain was not a great foundation. But we all are aimed at God by strange bowstrings. So at the end of an explanation to him of something or other which I cannot remember, I added this poem which I knew he would have a problem reading. Well, he got one of those aids to reading poetry of the web and got the point. We are meant to be God’s grandeur outside of God…
80 Where have all the flowers gone? The perennial beds have lost their raiment, no more wild summer gaiety of bright colors, the dancers are all undressed and their feet are frozen in the ground.
COMMENT: Great images. But it was the mention of dancers that struck me. In the days when I could hike outdoors, I would stand and watch the leaves dance with the wind. Signs of life…
83 We have tamed Christmas, and domesticated it. We have taken all of the terror and cold out of that night with our electrified lights; and real joy escapes us. We compensate, we cover our silent despair with gay Christmas wrapping. But we know all too well that at the appointed hour the wrappings will all be torn away and crumpled in piles, and our lives will be no different after the day is done. We want the joy of our life without the pain of his birth, or the agony of his crucifixion, or the judgment when he returns. But I ask you: “Why in this season does the holly bear its red berries?”
COMMENT: The first sentence got to me. When I was a young priest, just after I got here, I started with some lay friends a Christmas Eve Mass and celebrated it for some 35 years. Someone else does it now. But Mary, who was one of those with whom I joined would read some fitting poetry after communion. It was poetry which enlarges Guroian’s first sentence. See the poem which I attach, Christmas is Really for the Children.
And the use of Oscar Wilde’s story about the selfish giant is a marvelous ending. Or beginning.
Thank you.
Read
May 14, 2021Vigen Guroian is my new favorite Orthodox author. I find his insights wnriching.
"The fruit of the garden is not restricted to what we eat. Every garden lends something
more to the imagination - beauty. The beauty of a turnip garden maybe more homely
than the beauty of a tulip garden, but there is beauty in it none the less. Every garden
holds the potential of giving us a taste of paradise. Sometimes this comes as a grace that
does not exact one’s personal labor, but somewhere someone has labored with the sweat
of the brow to make the garden grow. There is no ecstasy without first agony. Jesus
prayed in a garden and agonized there, watering it with his tears. His body, which was
torn on the cross, was also buried in a garden. And three days after his crucifixion, the
women who wept as he hung on the cross and anointed our Lord’s body returned to that
garden to find that the seed which they had loving prepared for planting had already
born a sweet and fragrant fruit. Every garden is an imitation of the garden which is
Christ’s, that he himself tends in the hearts of those who welcome him in." (p. 15,
Inheriting)
Guroian’s reflections on gardening and life are woven from his family’s history of cottage
gardening, his sense of communion with earth, plants, and sky, and his deep appreciation of
beauty, poetry, and Church. He lives in a rhythm marked by the seasons and the complimentary
fasts and feasts of the Church year. He clearly knows that we are each placed in our own
gardens, where God gives us for tending both ourselves and one another.
" We garden because we are created in the image of the Master Gardener … When
we garden in humility, with love of truth and beauty, love of the Beloved One himself,
Paradise grows up around us." (p. 48, Fragrance)
These books will bless anyone who wants to live with his face turned toward the Light, to
grow deep roots, and to bear fruit in the Spirit that benefits all God’s creatures great and small.
"The fruit of the garden is not restricted to what we eat. Every garden lends something
more to the imagination - beauty. The beauty of a turnip garden maybe more homely
than the beauty of a tulip garden, but there is beauty in it none the less. Every garden
holds the potential of giving us a taste of paradise. Sometimes this comes as a grace that
does not exact one’s personal labor, but somewhere someone has labored with the sweat
of the brow to make the garden grow. There is no ecstasy without first agony. Jesus
prayed in a garden and agonized there, watering it with his tears. His body, which was
torn on the cross, was also buried in a garden. And three days after his crucifixion, the
women who wept as he hung on the cross and anointed our Lord’s body returned to that
garden to find that the seed which they had loving prepared for planting had already
born a sweet and fragrant fruit. Every garden is an imitation of the garden which is
Christ’s, that he himself tends in the hearts of those who welcome him in." (p. 15,
Inheriting)
Guroian’s reflections on gardening and life are woven from his family’s history of cottage
gardening, his sense of communion with earth, plants, and sky, and his deep appreciation of
beauty, poetry, and Church. He lives in a rhythm marked by the seasons and the complimentary
fasts and feasts of the Church year. He clearly knows that we are each placed in our own
gardens, where God gives us for tending both ourselves and one another.
" We garden because we are created in the image of the Master Gardener … When
we garden in humility, with love of truth and beauty, love of the Beloved One himself,
Paradise grows up around us." (p. 48, Fragrance)
These books will bless anyone who wants to live with his face turned toward the Light, to
grow deep roots, and to bear fruit in the Spirit that benefits all God’s creatures great and small.
June 30, 2020
The gospel is evident in gardening and agriculture in so many ways, so it's a shame pastors and Christian authors don't write about it more, other than the basic "the world is beautiful and stuff..so God must exist." When I saw this book, I was hoping for a little deeper exploration of Christian spirituality as experienced in gardening and nature.
This 90 page book ended up exceeded my expectations by a long shot. Written by an Orthodox theology professor, Inheriting Paradise is a collection of short reflections that go through the growing season in the author's backyard garden. He parallels the growing season with the church calendar and ties that into the spiritual life of the believer. He starts with Lent, reflecting on how as we do the hard work of preparing the soil for the arrival of spring, so the Christian during Lent does the hard work of fasting and penance to prepare for the joy of Easter. Likewise, as a garden grows almost miraculously during late spring by God's free gifts of sunlight and rain, so the Christian freely receives the Spirit during Pentecost and miraculously grows into Christ. The book continues like this through the growing season and the Christian year, in what I found to be a deep marriage of rich sacramental theology with beautiful poetic writing. Guroian's inclusion of Armenian Orthodox liturgy also gave a unique perspective, as I've never read or heard anything from anyone from that church tradition before.
I would definitely recommend this short book to any Christian who is interested in gardening, growing things, or even just nature in general.
This 90 page book ended up exceeded my expectations by a long shot. Written by an Orthodox theology professor, Inheriting Paradise is a collection of short reflections that go through the growing season in the author's backyard garden. He parallels the growing season with the church calendar and ties that into the spiritual life of the believer. He starts with Lent, reflecting on how as we do the hard work of preparing the soil for the arrival of spring, so the Christian during Lent does the hard work of fasting and penance to prepare for the joy of Easter. Likewise, as a garden grows almost miraculously during late spring by God's free gifts of sunlight and rain, so the Christian freely receives the Spirit during Pentecost and miraculously grows into Christ. The book continues like this through the growing season and the Christian year, in what I found to be a deep marriage of rich sacramental theology with beautiful poetic writing. Guroian's inclusion of Armenian Orthodox liturgy also gave a unique perspective, as I've never read or heard anything from anyone from that church tradition before.
I would definitely recommend this short book to any Christian who is interested in gardening, growing things, or even just nature in general.
March 26, 2023
5*****Stars
My priest recommended this book to me when we were preparing a gardening event for the younger children of our church. It’s perfect reading for Lent and timely as my husband and I prepare for our spring gardening efforts.
As I get older, I want to be outside more and more. Maybe that’s because the world can be so awful or maybe because we perceive the world so often through the prism of filters not of our own design (hello, media!), cutting that away makes nature a more powerful palliative. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s the beginning of wisdom?
Either way, this slim little book spoke to me and soothed me as we began the long slog of Lent. Lent is supposed to be hard. We are supposed to engage in deep prayer and prepare the garden of our souls for growth. Mr. Guroian’s reflections on his garden tied to the liturgical calendar certainly got me started.
This book is the perfect balance of beauty and acknowledgment of the struggles we face in the concrete and ordinary of our daily lives. Winter is long, Lent is difficult. But the joys of spring and the abundance of summer are gifts. Tying the meditations on the seasons to Lent, Pentecost, the Transfiguration, the Feast of the Assumption of Mary, the Exaltation of the Cross, and Advent, makes this a serious theological work. It deepened my understanding of these Liturgical events by tying them to something I know.
As the year rolls on, I want to remember at Pentecost that “beauty makes us beautiful on the inside.” And during Advent I too want to visit our winter dormant garden “lest I forget the dying in Christ’s birth and the birth in his dying.”
My priest recommended this book to me when we were preparing a gardening event for the younger children of our church. It’s perfect reading for Lent and timely as my husband and I prepare for our spring gardening efforts.
As I get older, I want to be outside more and more. Maybe that’s because the world can be so awful or maybe because we perceive the world so often through the prism of filters not of our own design (hello, media!), cutting that away makes nature a more powerful palliative. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s the beginning of wisdom?
Either way, this slim little book spoke to me and soothed me as we began the long slog of Lent. Lent is supposed to be hard. We are supposed to engage in deep prayer and prepare the garden of our souls for growth. Mr. Guroian’s reflections on his garden tied to the liturgical calendar certainly got me started.
This book is the perfect balance of beauty and acknowledgment of the struggles we face in the concrete and ordinary of our daily lives. Winter is long, Lent is difficult. But the joys of spring and the abundance of summer are gifts. Tying the meditations on the seasons to Lent, Pentecost, the Transfiguration, the Feast of the Assumption of Mary, the Exaltation of the Cross, and Advent, makes this a serious theological work. It deepened my understanding of these Liturgical events by tying them to something I know.
As the year rolls on, I want to remember at Pentecost that “beauty makes us beautiful on the inside.” And during Advent I too want to visit our winter dormant garden “lest I forget the dying in Christ’s birth and the birth in his dying.”
September 18, 2017
I did not realize the author was a theology professor and so this book was not the gardening book I thought it was but more one of spiritual (or religious) thoughts on gardening. I was disappointed....wanted something more secular.
March 11, 2019
read it. i love this book.
April 12, 2021
A wonderful read for Lent and Holy Week.
December 23, 2024
Vigen takes us on a walk through his garden. Each season is a window into true reality of our lives.
May 24, 2020
Guroian's meditations on gardening are charmingly well written, warm and often heartfelt. This was a pleasant read but very much a missed opportunity.
I thought there'd be a lot more flesh on the bare bones of what is a welcome thesis.
I was expecting something more substantial and theologically rigorous, which I know regrettably that Vigen is capable of.
There are better works out there around this and similar topics- Wendell Berry's and Norman Wirzba's for example- so I'll rate this against those comparable works.
So, whilst it's well written and has the charm of it's author, indeed whilst it doesn't set out to be anything more than simple personal reflections on gardening as it relates to Christian Truth and Life; it could've, should've been more.
I thought there'd be a lot more flesh on the bare bones of what is a welcome thesis.
I was expecting something more substantial and theologically rigorous, which I know regrettably that Vigen is capable of.
There are better works out there around this and similar topics- Wendell Berry's and Norman Wirzba's for example- so I'll rate this against those comparable works.
So, whilst it's well written and has the charm of it's author, indeed whilst it doesn't set out to be anything more than simple personal reflections on gardening as it relates to Christian Truth and Life; it could've, should've been more.
May 21, 2012
I did find his thinking through faith within a year of a life of a garden to be refreshing and poetically appealing. I've enjoyed other things Guroian has written. Truth can be expressed in the mundane life of a garden - or perhaps like at the Transfiguration of Christ, we can see eternal truths revealed through the garden because God intended it that way from the beginning.
February 26, 2012
This book has some really great sections that grabbed me. I now have a better appreciation in my understanding of why gardening mirrors the seasons of life. I hope to experience this in practice the coming spring, summer, fall and winter.
February 18, 2016
This is a relatively brief, but entirely beautiful book of meditations, a book that even non-gardeners should read. spiritual meditations through the metaphor of the garden, and deeply moving at times.
First read.
First read.
January 13, 2010
I read this book in about an hour's time. It was an interesting concept: putting gardening within a parallel spiritual analogy.
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