Garden Religion

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While gardening this morning I began to wonder what would happen if our culture mandated an hour of gardening in the middle of each work day. The purpose, so that no person could disconnect from and forget that they are part of nature. The result, greater care for nature by humanity. Simple enough right?

Then I wondered what people might think when looking back at this practice from 200 years in the future.  They might call it religion, "pagans," they'd say of us. Is this not what we do when we look back from our own time?

I remember again the root of the word religion in latin, re- large. It means reconnect. Wouldnt that be the meaning of an hour of gardening for every working person? To reconnect? I wonder how it is that we can not see this creativity when we look back at what other people created in order to reconnect. As a gardener who uses gardening as practice (to reconnect), I see that once one gets near (to nature) they want to get nearer still. Logically we invent more practices. After all humans are creative.  If only we could recognize this creativity in religion's archives we'd realize that the worlds religions contain a most marvelous treasure chest of gifts. How can we be anything but curious? People took notes!!!

Instead we use the diversity in spiritual practices to divide and claim that one way beats another. Or we determine that somehow what we're connecting to is different. How can it be?

There us one reality, DNA contains a blueprint of life. Nature is an example too: my breath filters the air for another life, one water supports this whole planet, new water can not be made;  the decay of my corpse feeds the next generation of plant life and deposits mineral back in the earth, the mineral is as old as the planet itself, and you are an extension of me, the same life differentiated slightly.

Everything said and done by the living (plant, animal, human etc) is a report direct from the universe, unfiltered. Just find me something more profound than this. Can you say it is any other way?

You can call this way of thinking religion if you wish. I will join the in argument and agree that religion has been the source of the worst turmoil on earth but this IS religion too. WE are the one's who determine the meaning and definition of things.  If we are going to survive on this planet we really must find a way to "see" life and reconnect to it because to do so is to quite naturally include all, make precious all of life and remove the barriers of separation between us.