Gardening for Hope

Spring is slowly coming to Ontario. Each day I stand in my very damp
garden and hope. I hope the peony that looks totally dead will come back and that the alliums won’t completely take over the front beds. I
hope the squirrels haven’t eaten all the tulip bulbs and that my hydrangeas come back. I am truly a terrible, lackadaisical gardener, and hope is all I have. 

Gardening, planting little seeds that look like rocks in dirt, is truly a hopeful act. We plan, but mostly we wait and see and hope.

 

All this hoping can be a religious act too. Recently I had the opportunity to attend a Baptist service in Harlem, New York for Easter Sunday. It was a tremendous experience with a rocking gospel choir, two organs, a contemporary dance performance and a lot of ‘ah-mens’ and ‘yesses.’ I was deeply moved by Reverend S. Raschaad Hoggard’s sermon. As a Jew I know very little about Jesus or Easter and the violence of the crucifixion has always worried me. Yet Reverend Hoggard explained that the resurrection is a message of hope because despite his death, Jesus rose again. Whether you believe in the resurrection or not, the idea that those who stand against injustice, hate and violence will always rise is tremendously powerful. As Reverend Hoggard said, “When the resurrection is alive in our hearts, hope and love have the last word.” 

My novel, Cleaning Up, which came out last week, is also about hope and gardening. Jess, the main character, learns to plant seeds at school from her beloved teacher, Mrs. M. To Jess, who struggles with poverty, so many things in life are disappointing, but plants – growing blossoming green things from hard little kernels in dirt – blows Jess’s mind. To Jess who struggles with food security, the ability to grow things that are beautiful and can be eaten is astonishing. 

Gardening is also a way for Jess to invest in her future. She plans to study landscape design, get a job creating beautiful spaces, and end the endemic poverty that surrounds her. Planting and growing things are a radical act of hope for Jess. 

Jess also loves the book The Secret Garden

by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I loved this book too as a child, and I was taken with it as an adult when I read it to my sons a few years ago. Young Mary, orphaned in India, is
sent to an uncle in Yorkshire to live in Misselthwaite Manor a large, unfriendly house. There she finds a secret garden that needs to be brought back to life. Through the garden she finds happiness and also heals her sick cousin Colin. 

Jess re-reads The Secret Garden when she’s stressed and when she doubts her future. She has her own imaginary secret garden that she retreats to in her head. Both the gardens are places of solace and transformation. They are a way to keep hope alive. 

And that’s what we all need – to to sit in our Easter Friday pain for awhile – but then not let despair take over. Just like Reverend Hoggard said, hope and love have to have the last word.