By Ryan LeBlanc

Our eternal destiny is the Garden of Delight. So, what are we doing here, then?

Take a moment to think of where and when you are right now.

When I do this, I see that my spot in this universe is just a tiny little speck.

If it were a garden (instead of a laptop at my kitchen table) it would be a patch of dirt equal to the length of my arms in every direction from a kneeling position. Not much.

Let us imagine these words I write, or whatever it is that you are doing here and now, as this tiny plot of earth. We have tools at hand, and a certain amount of limited stuff to rearrange in the limited time we have under the sun.

If we wish, we can tend this little garden. We can shift dirt, and gather fruit, and pull weeds, and plant seeds. Right now, I’m doing this with words and electrons. Sometimes I do this with laundry, or children learning, or appointments, or many other things.

Can you see your work today as tending a garden?

If we can see this moment in this way, we might open ourselves to God’s vision for us.

This blessing, to tend the garden, connects us to everything created, and becomes a part of God’s Infinite Life and Creative Mercy.

Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (Genesis 2:9)

Delight without freedom is prison

When I take delight in tending the garden, God creates a new spirit in me, broader and deeper. My heart discovers that he loves me even more than I thought he did a moment ago. My hands make a part of his universe more beautiful, for him and with him.

All the trees, all the tiny plots, are available to me – I am allowed and protected to choose which to delight in. By doing this, I obey the proto-commandment  to keep the garden, till it, and eat freely. I am so free, in fact, I can choose the destruction of my own delight.

While teaching about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and Original Sin, I realize we almost always read this story as about punishment and demands. After much wrestling with it, I see in this story the key to freedom.

The forbidden fruit is simply the key to leave the garden.

In our present generation, we know that an election without an option, a subscription that cannot be cancelled, a pleasure that cannot be denied – none of these are freedom.

The “free trials” that enslave our time and attention are so ubiquitous in our culture that we struggle to recognize in the story of our first parents what true freedom looks like.

If there is no Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, then the Garden of Delight is a prison.

God loves us and our freedom so much, he even creates a way out of his love, if we want it.

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.  And the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” (Genesis 2:15-17)

The Uninvited Guest

So here I am, in my little garden patch, my delight in participating in lively growth so complete, that I have zero thoughts of ever wanting to leave.

The voice of the tempter intrudes without waiting for my permission.

It gets my attention with the most outrageous click-bait of a lie: “Why is God preventing you from tasting every fruit, gathering every fruit there is, ever?” Genesis 3:1.

Huh. When I perceive my little garden plot in this way, comparing my little speck with the boundless glory of all creation, I do, in fact, compare.

In my head, I do the math and calculate that what I have in the present moment is in fact less than the eternal grandeur that is God’s realm. Wait a second! Is God ripping me off?

This is the thinnest edge of the wedge the tempter needs, this first twisting of awe at God’s largesse, into the first crumb of selfishness.

“Why can’t I have it all?”

The comparison poisons how I look on the delight in which I was until then enraptured with, delighted with, grateful for. Now that I fixate on how small it is, my awe for God also becomes a “meh” for myself and my small experience of my small plot of delight.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” (Genesis 3:1)

Engaging with the lie

But at least I’m wise enough to counter the tempter.

“No, not all trees are forbidden. Just the one tree, the one experience of disobedience to the God of Life. That’s for a good reason, because without God I am nothing.”

Now, this is all true, but was it wise to respond?

No, it was not wise to respond to the tempter with so much evidence and justification.

A simple “No,” and returning to tend the garden – that is the wiser response.

Any engagement with the tempter, he will twist. My own defensiveness, to try to argue that I am not restricted, simply gives a victory to the one who wants me destroyed.

It doesn’t matter that I’ve made the logical case that I do in fact have access to the Father’s whole kingdom. My own assertion to that, my need to counter the tempter, already witnesses to my need to justify my own existence by asserting my own understanding.

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.  (Genesis 3:6)

I lean not on my own understanding

When I defend my role and place in God’s garden-kingdom, I am not tending my plot, I am not doing what God asks of me, I am not actually receiving and rejoicing in his delight.

And not receiving God’s immortal love for me is a bad place from which to make decisions.

Trying to rationalize our response to the tempter’s prompting actually might not be sinful at all. But, we do observe that the natural response to use our own logic to not just refute but defeat the deception, seems to lead us into a place of deeper temptation and doubt.

Remember what you are doing right now.

For myself in my little garden plot, I ask, “Am I tending the garden, or am I doing something else?”

Am I doing the laundry, or am I resenting my family?

Am I teaching truth, or am I puffing up my magisterial persona?

Am I making appointments, or am I filling my calendar with anxieties?

In all of these cases, I stop delighting when I stop trusting, when I attempt to box up the Divine Plan in my own weak and small understanding.

Where and when we are right now, you and I, we have the same choice to make. We can trust God and tend our little patch of garden, or we can engage our attention in the tempter’s words to elude the love of our Creator. Which shall we choose now?

… therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. (Genesis 3:23)

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Ryan LeBlanc is a teacher with Greater Saskatoon Catholic Schools and a parishioner at the Cathedral of the Holy Family. His writing is available on his blog at ryanleblanc.podia.com

Catholic Saskatoon News is supported by gifts to the Bishop’s Annual Appeal: dscf.ca/baa.