Order Out of Chaos

I faced a sea of riotous tomato vines, and I mean vines. They grew low to the ground unsupported and untrimmed, rooting wherever there was a hole in the plastic, weaving between branches of other tomato plants and looking all the while more like a thousand plants than just a few score. I would carefully wade in and begin pulling out the leggy branches tracing back to the root, knife in hand almost like a savage. After pounding in a post with many loud clangs of a post driver, I'd stretch the long, heavy branches up tying them with cotton thread. One plant could have at least a dozen offshoots that had grown taller than I, radiating out from the base in all the directions, and then more equally thick and healthy offshoots off that; too many to tie up to one post. In most cases, I'd cut out more mass than I left behind tied up, ripping or slashing out the unnecessary branches heaping the broken stems in a pile to the side. The air smelled like crisp, tomato flesh. My hands turned green from the sap. 

My hand after a long morning in the garden. Note my finger that I cut with my knife. 

I can clean up one plant in about a half hour; I have worked on tomatoes for two hours each day for the last six days of work. When I close my eyes I see vibrant green vines in need of cutting. The work is hard, but I like it, the making of order from chaos, the quietness. Order comes at a price though. When I pick up the cumbersome piles of broken, rejected stems I marvel at how this mass is the equivalent of whole other plants. Perhaps I've cut too much of this one. I could have tied that up there, if only it hadn't broken, if only I had strung them up before they had grown so out of hand. Much of the growth I cut is just as good as the rest, there's just too much, and some has to be sacrificed for the good of the whole. Still, it feels harsh. 

This daily exercise of pruning often calls to mind a passage that we studied in one of our host churches on one of our first Sundays. 

If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.” Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but tremble. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.

Romans 11: 17-21

Paul speaks about the privilege of the Gentiles (us) - to be part of the ancient tree that is Judaism. God works for the sake of the tree, grafting in fruitful branches, but not hesitating to cut out those who do not benefit the whole. The study group discussed how we view the church in this light, being accepting of people grafted in, being grateful of the ancient Israelite history, and wrestling with the near paradox of a God both stern and merciful. 

It reminds me how God is a gardener too. He created the Garden of Eden first, and imagine a garden, clean of corruption designed by God, the smells, the richness, the kaleidoscopic colors, how it must have been ultimate order and also ultimate jungle. His tomatoes wouldn't need stakes. And there would be God, grafting in and cutting out of his plants somehow merciful but just. 

I like thinking of my work as a divine occupation, and in my job I see other aspects of God. 

A beautiful tomato harvest accompanied by one of the cats.

When Rachel drives down her gravel driveway, she hunches over her steering wheel looking from side to side. Her eyes trace the fence line; they stop at every goat. She might comment about the growth of the goldenrod or her observations of the hawk circling in the locust trees. She watches. 

When I'm up on the hill feeding chickens on my own, a big part of my job is just watching, that's how a farmer has to work. I look at the chickens, count the ducklings, check the enclosures, observe the infinite interactions. God also took walks through his garden (see Genesis) probably not because he was unable to see the whole garden without walking through, but because he loved being among the creation and observing every part. There's also a difference between just seeing and observing. Observing connotes care and interest, more of an active sharing of experience. 

God is watching his garden now, not necessarily from above as we generally are taught, but surely watching us, having interest in us lesser beings, loving us as our life unfolds. This idea may lead dangerously towards concepts of deism, the idea that God doesn't interfere with life, and on a certain level that holds some truth though the complexity of all the factors that balance between the paradox of a God who both allows the world to play out and who works in all things with miracles and power would be too much to delineate in this blog post (and yes, the paradox is reconcilable though difficult to grasp and apply). 

Though perhaps out of this I can see another likeness in the farmer who may not to an animal eyes be interfering directly during a perceived hardship, but also be in control the whole time. Does a goat understand why shots must be given? Do ducks still trust in a benevolent master when their ducklings are removed from them? Do steers know it's in their best interests to have their horns cut off? In all of this, do they see the line between human inflicted suffering and natural? What do they believe about us and our intentions? Do they know that they have experienced nothing outside of our realm of influence for in fact, we designed their very living quarters and provide all their subsistence? Perhaps God the farmer asks the same of us, for we live in his farm and have known no real removal from him (much as we say humans are like fish asked what water is. How can we know since it is all we have ever known?). But as a human in the Garden of God, can we separate rightly the acts of natural evil and the acts intended by God's plan? Is the pain we feel so acutely for our own good? And added to that, we find that this world was designed for our habitation, the resources set within our reach, the systems meant to run perfectly with the shalom, right living and practices, of the original Garden. 

The view from up on the hill looking over the town of Johnstown and the laying chickens enclosure.

Also, if we view the world as a garden, how much more beautiful it becomes with the realization of the intention of the Creator. We live in a masterpiece, order pulled out of the entropy-driven chaos of nothing. And if we consider this world and its laws ordered (for one could also consider them random if looking for an argument for nihilism) either by natural conclusion or a chosen belief in an intentional Creator then isn't everything to be considered miraculous and beautifully designed? Even the very laws of Physics were hand crafted and installed by a purposeful Machinist. Even the mundane, crawling seasons are great innovations, every tree planted in every perfect place, every beautiful person living in a paradise (however corrupted).

My own feelings towards the little farm, love and amusement towards the comical ducks and dogs, my pride at a weeded garden bed, or my frustration with the struggles of keeping the chaos at bay, God must also feel too as he watches and creates and loves us all. 

I think about all of this as I go about my chores, pulling order out of chaos in the silence of the garden remembering how God did the same eons ago, and as I work, I can not help but fill the silence and begin to sing.