Church Enjoys Its Garden of Biblical Delights

The Bible begins and ends in a garden, from Genesis, where Adam and Eve sewed the seeds for life among leafy green groves, to the book of Revelation where mankind ends amid a flickering vision of fruit-bearing trees.

So it comes as little surprise that many Christians, seeking to root their belief in some of the book’s physical vestiges, would turn to a quiet grove. And that is just what members of Oak Park’s Church of the Epiphany have done.

In a small plot nestled at the foot of a steep hill, church members have carved a niche for spiritual contemplation and packed it full of botanicals that have a symbolic significance in Christian theology.

“So many of the Bible’s important events happened in a garden, and so many of its lessons were learned there,” said Helen Sargent, one of the church members who helped put the garden together. “These plants are a good way to remember those lessons and are very important for Christians.”

Laid out in the shape of a crucifix overlooking the mountains and rocky ridges east of Thousand Oaks, the church’s Memorial Biblical Garden burgeons with a bounty of plants that not only provide parishioners with a quiet place to pray but also a link to a time more than 2,000 years ago when the Bible’s stories were alive and evolving.

At the head of the garden, clustered around a 10-foot copper cross, is a bushy acacia tree, referred to in Exodus 27:1, in which God commanded the Israelites to build an altar made of its wood. Near it sits a broad-leafed olive tree, similar to the kind mentioned in the book of Genesis 8:11, where a distressed Noah, wondering if the flood had subsided, saw a dove with an olive branch clasped in its beak.

Planted around the edge of the cross is French lavender, irises, sage plants and a fig tree, all referred to in books of the Old Testament as plants that God commanded the faithful to use for food or to decorate altars.

There is also a small herb garden with everything from coriander, written about in the book of Numbers 11:7 as a manna miraculously provided by God to the desperate Israelites as food; rosemary, which legend says earned its delicate blue flowers from the color of Mary’s robes; and garlic, which the Hebrew slaves ate while imprisoned by the Pharoah in Egypt.

Standing in the center of the garden is a gurgling, three-tiered fountain that symbolizes not only the bond between all living things, but also the waters that God created to feed the life He created on Earth.

The idea for the church’s garden began more than a decade ago, before parishioners even had a church. A group of women began holding sales where they peddled everything from cookies to home-spun crafts to raise the money for the spot.

“Originally, we just wanted to decorate the church with some plants, but we did so well with the sales that we decided on this,” Sargent said.

Completed a little more than a year ago, the garden has since grown at an almost miraculous speed--the rosebushes have gone through three blooms this year and are now budding with a fourth.

While Sargent spends most of her time in the garden manicuring the silky wormwood bushes and pruning the bay and orange trees, she knows that others are putting it to a more spiritual use.

Before church services begin on Sundays, many make their way to the brick benches for individual prayer among the churring birds that occasionally bathe in the fountain and the squirrels who make the garden their home.

“The best part is seeing people make the connection between the plants and the Bible,” Sargent said.

The garden has even been used for sacred church rituals such as baptisms, and parishioners plan to one day create a small columbarium under the pomegranate and apricot trees to house the ashes of deceased congregants.

But until then, it will continue to be used by the faithful as a place to strengthen their spiritual bonds to the Biblical world.

Says the Rev. Hank Mitchel, vicar of the Church of the Epiphany: “Some people, myself included, feel closer to God in a garden.”

FYI

The garden, located at the Church of the Epiphany, 5450 Churchwood Drive in Oak Park, is open to all who want to visit at any hour. Call (818) 991-4797 for more information.