When frontliners go into gardening… An essay on spiritual path to God

“Frontliners” used to refer to soldiers in the frontlines of battle. The word now refers to physicians or medical doctors fighting to save people from deadly Covid-19. Why do they go into gardening? Why is gardening a spiritual path to God?

Because it is an essay, what I’m writing is something tentative, an attempt at something I’m unsure of its fulfillment. It is at most a hesitant desire on my part but full of expectant hope.

I hesitate because I don’t know much about gardening and medical practice. But I know some Catholic and Muslim physicians. I too am a seeker of a path to God, one who believes the Creator has decided to remain somehow in His creatures after creating them. He can be sought and found here through contemplative prayer. This is the basis of my hope.

God is Beauty Himself. We call actions, activities, and persons beautiful and are reflective of divine beauty because of the combined elements of proportion, harmony, unity and order. With these elements objects attract; without them, they distract.

Frontliners who turn gardeners show an inborn sense of beauty when, often unaware, they observe proportion in the choice of plant location and distance, harmony in the choice of colors of plant vases, of unity in the arrangement of every garden object, in freshness of new life that is symbolized by the color green, and the order of importance in the scheduling of gardening and other post-hospital engagements.

So frequent awareness of the sense of beauty through observance of the art of proportion, harmony, unity and order in all the processes of garden management can give the physician a new and fresh look at the patient’s body and person as a green growing plant where new cells are being born. This attitude, feeling and outlook in the process of gardening can only be the result of what is commonly called Creation Spirituality or, more symbolically, Shades of Green Spirituality. Whether this is actually happening among present-day physicians I am not absolutely sure. I can only hope and pray that it is.

We are informed that mystics and IP shamans and those engaged in the promotion of Creation Spirituality believe and experience God’s presence in the physical environment which includes the process and art of horticulture or the beauty of gardening. This can be a spiritual path to God who as Creator is mysteriously present in His creature who suffers. Medical attention to the suffering patient characterized by the artful combination of personal and human sense of proportion, harmony, unity and order can strengthen the transforming power of the soul and spirit in physical coordination with the body.

This tentative, hesitant essay graced by expectant faith is based hopefully on some words of the German mystic Angelus Silesius, priest, physician, poet and convert (formerly Johann Sheffler 1624-1677).