(I wrote this piece last fall, after a three-day writing seminar with gardening thelogian Donna Schaper. I offer it here as an entrance meditation into Holy Week.)

I would have a garden. It would be a magical garden, with no weeds, and tanbark that stays dark and fragrant. It would have water -- moving water, singing water -- and in the water, waving grasses, cattails and lilies. Beside the pond, a plot shaped like the crescent moon would sparkle at night with dusty miller, cascading silvery petunias and white mums. Over there, a circle of herbs: rosemary and sage, parsley and mint. The shade of an old walnut tree would dapple the grass that is free of stones and sharp twigs, so that one could walk barefoot with neither caution nor fear. Around the tree, daffodils and ivy. It would always be cool enough for comfort, with light enough to read, and write.

I would have a garden without work. I would bring it forth from my imagination, fully formed and ready, without sweat, without tears, without shoots and tendrils and things that don’t quite belong and so must be dug out or pruned away. I would create as God creates.

I walk in my garden today and look at the ivy invading the lawn, the false sunflower gone leggy and dry. The herb patch, dug and raked but never planted, lies spotted with crabgrass. I dreamed this garden whole and perfect, but now I do not love it as it is, and I loathe what it appears to be.

God created me whole and perfect, I am told, and loves me as I am. Then why am I not perfect? Why do I sprout so many weeds? Why do I loathe what I appear to be?

I can feel in the breeze his hand on my shoulder, and when he speaks, close by my ear, his voice is infinitely gentle and patient.

My dear, you still don’t understand. I have created you as I have created these plants, to grow and die back, to falter and fail, to change your colors, to redraw your plans and remake the bed before you rest in me. You are not a mirror, Mull, silver and exact. You are moving water.

I kneel beside the spent petunias. One thrust of my trowel returns a handful of moist, crumbly earth. I see the garden, and myself, as we will be next spring.

(Note: "Mull" is the name by which God calls me when he speaks to me, and when I listen. The story of how I received this name is a piece for another day.)