First published in the Baptist Times - OUTSIDE EDGE column - 20 August 2010
In May I got on a coach with 16 strangers and a friend, for a long weekend away that turned out to be a profound spiritual experience.
I’ve been away before with an unknown group for a Christian retreat, conference or pilgrimage, hoping for a time of refreshment with God. The difference was that this wasn’t a Christian event but a garden-visiting tour.
The diverse group included avid gardeners who loved Latin names and subspecies, and non-gardeners who just loved visiting gardens. Two, who couldn’t tell a daffodil from a dandelion, had come along because they loved their wives.
One lady with Down’s syndrome, accompanying her floraholic mother, declared, “I don’t like gardens: I like people and food,” and enjoyed both with gusto.
They came from all over the globe. It was fascinating to hear, among the Brits’ tips on slug-deterrents, Canadians and Australians’ tips on surviving the garden ravages of coyotes, racoons, possums, earthquake, drought and tornado. I learned which plants attract hummingbirds, and that the invasive perennial geraniums I pull out by the handful are rare primadonnas that fail to thrive in Western Australia.
Apart from praying alone and with my friend, there was no prayer or worship or talk about God, yet I had to keep reminding myself it was not a retreat, because it felt like one.
Wandering round a plantation of golden azaleas set against copper beech trees, I came across a tour member gazing, rapt and motionless, into the heart of a crimson rhododendron flower and tiptoed past, not wanting to disturb the contemplation. And when a small group of us, coinciding in a woodland clearing and pausing for a chat, fell silent simultaneously as a chorus of birdsong arose from the tall pines, it felt like worship.
One 18th century garden had been hopelessly overgrown for decades till three men in a pub conceived an impossible dream. At first they hacked randomly at the neglected tangle, then when an old plan of the garden was found they began probing for ancient paths, plantations and waterways, knowing they were in there somewhere, though choked by vines and briars.
As a recent volunteer with lifers and death row inmates, the story touched me. I imagined Jesus painstakingly cutting a swathe through the twisted histories of arson, abduction, murder and rape, to reveal the Father’s original design for the soul and restore it to glory.
Each of the gardens we visited had its own character, born of somebody’s vision - seeing in scrubland, ravine and quarry the potential for kitchen gardens, rockeries, ponds, neat pathways and purposely wild woodlands.
The weekend was an experience of blurred boundaries - between cultivated land and wild, native plants and exotic, sacred and secular, prayer and wonder, normal and special.
I went swimming each morning with Lydia, the lady with Down’s, a little worried at first by the responsibility, especially when she disappeared. She hadn’t said she was going and I doubted whether she could find her way back to her room unaccompanied. Then she surfaced at the other end of the pool, having swum a whole length underwater: her mother had forgotten to tell me she competed in Special Olympics.
At the end of the holiday, Lydia had a special goodbye for the husband and wife who had shared our dinner table, as they disembarked from the coach at an early stop. Taking the woman’s face firmly in her hands, she kissed her in the middle of the forehead. “That’s a Ukrainian goodbye,” she said.
Seeing the lady look slightly shaken, the mother took Lydia aside and pointed out, “It’s more usual to shake hands or offer your cheek,” but she insisted, “It’s Ukrainian.”
I noticed she hadn’t given the husband the Ukrainian treatment, shaking his hand politely and saying, “It was nice meeting you.”
When we got off the coach, Lydia gave her mother a sideways glance then treated me to the Ukrainian version. I returned it - “I’m learning Ukrainian” - and she laughed and waved as the coach pulled away.
God seemed to be everywhere, that weekend, though no one mentioned his name.
Unless it was in Ukrainian.
Clare Nonhebel’s new book ‘Finding Oasis’ publ. Authentic Media is on sale in bookshops and online
