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                                              Intro Mary Garden

Church Bible Gardens

John S. Stokes Jr.


There are two types of Bible Gardens: 1) botanical collections of
Holy Land plants specifically mentioned in the Bible; and 2) gardens
of plants from various lands, where the plant forms, colors or other
characteristics have been named as symbols of persons, objects and
events of the Biblical texts.

Bible Gardens are distinct from Mary Gardens of "Flowers of Our
Lady", whose medieval plant symbolism is much broader, referring
both to specific biblical texts and also to envisaged related
details, such as of the birth of Jesus, the Flight into Egypt, the
life of the Holy Family in Nazareth, and the Passion and Crucifixion
of Jesus.

Other Flowers of Our Lady are symbols of Mary's virtues, excellences
and glories - quickening us to their emulation, for our spiritual
perfection.  Still others symbolize Mary's unique divinely bestowed
privileges and prerogatives of spiritual motherhood: of her
co-redemption and her universal spiritual protection, nurturing,
advocacy, intercession and mediation, and distribution of grace, in
intimate union and close cooperation with Christ - in sublime
personal fulfillment, through her response to her call to the divine
maternity, of the divine desire for Creation of the fullest sharing
of the divine being and action with humans, created to this end in
the divine image and likeness.  These flower symbols serve to
quicken our recourse to Mary in prayer for these needed acts of her
merciful spiritual motherhood, as we, with Mary, in accordance with
God's will, share in the furtherance of the divine plan of the
Trinity for the world, of Creation, Redemption, Sanctification,
Renewal, Resurrection and Eternal Kingdom.

Paralleling, and sometimes inspired by Mary Gardens, Bible Gardens
of symbolic Plants of the Bible are being planted at Protestant
churches, often composed of flower beds integrated into the general
church landscaping, with the church building itself as focus - as
distinct from free standing gardens planted around a focal figure.
To distinguish the Bible plantings from conventional landscaping,
each bed of plants, as in Mary Gardens, is provided with plant
markers giving the religious names and symbolism of the plants, for
the instruction and reflection of beholders.

One such church bible garden in Missouri is described in the
Internet article, "The Babbtown Church Garden" at,

     www.ultraweb.net/~jarvis/article.htm

 with photos of the various beds, with their plant markers. at,

     www.ultraweb.net/~jarvis/bible.htm

A major contribution to the contemporary Bible Garden movement is
being made by Kirk Johnson, Contributing Editor of the Garden Design
Section of the Suite 101 Internet website (1), whose March 19, 1999
article, "Bible Gardens" (2), on Jewish Bible Gardens inspired the April,
1999 Mary's Gardens website article, "Bible Gardens Revisited" (3);
and whose March 31, 2000 article, "Bible Gardens for Christians" (4)
has (by advance copy) occasioned the present article.

Also of special interest to Mary Gardeners is Kirk's December 11,
1998 article, "Mary Gardens" (5); his November 27, 1998 "Medieval
Gardens" (6); his September 3, 1999 "Paradise Gardens" (6); and also his
January 7, 2000 article, "Venus in Pompeian Gardens" (7) - in
which he writes, accompanying a photo of a Marian statue in his
garden:

     "I am not a Christian, but I was brought up to be one; and
     while I wasn't brought up to be Catholic, I am very comfortable
     with having a small shrine containing this statuette in my
     garden. I don't regard this image in the same way that a
     practicing Roman Catholic would, but it is more than just a
     decoration; it is a link to the past, to my Medieval
     ancestors."

While a sculpture of the Virgin - or Virgin and Child - is the
customary focal figure around which the beds of free-standing Mary
Gardens are organized, various ideas have been brought forward for
a suitable visible focus for free-standing Bible Gardens.

In Synagogue Bible Gardens, the prohibition of graven images
suggests the appropriateness of a focal planting of Edenic
symbolism or of an altar.  In Protestant Bible Gardens a focal
figure of a large wooden cross in the medieval tradition of field
crosses, or a focal cross-shaped bed, may be appropriate.  Kirk
Johnson explores the suitability of a focal cave-like grotto for
such gardens, saying:

     "I feel that a naturalistic grotto would be more appropriate
     for a Christian Bible garden. It should remind Christians of
     the tomb that Jesus was buried in, but it may also remind them
     of the stable that Jesus was born in.  A tradition going back
     to the second century has identified a cave in Bethlehem as
     that stable.

     "Grottos dedicated to the Virgin Mary are very popular among
     Roman Catholics.  I am not sure if there is a theological
     reason for these grottos or if they are just a natural
     expression of the sense of sacred mystery which humans have
     always connected with caves. . . .

     "I think that it would be best if a grotto in a Bible garden
     did not contain any sculpture.  A statue of the Virgin Mary
     might be very meaningful to Roman Catholics, but an empty
     grotto would be more likely to inspire meditations on both
     the birth of Jesus and his resurrection.  It would probably
     be best for the grotto to just contain a simple stone bench
     and nothing else."

The renowned estate Christian Bible Garden at Magnolia Plantation,
South Carolina contains dual focal figures: of David and of the
Blessed Virgin - the latter in a cross-shaped focal garden bed.

A primary purpose for Bible Gardens, as for Mary Gardens, is a
general heightening of the religious sense of flowers, gardens and
all nature - for the quickening of prayer and meditation.  In the
earliest published developmental Mary Garden articles - "Gardening
For Our Lady" (America, March 8, 1952) and "Man in God's Garden (The
Catholic World, April, 1953), the restoration of a Christian
religious view of nature, and, thereby, of the world, was expressed
as a primary founding purpose of Mary's Gardens - our garden
devotion and prayerful recourse to Mary, to this end, developing
through the years as a consequence of our reflecting on the
preponderance, the "galaxy", of Marian religious flower symbols, and
on their comprehensive theological content.

In accordance with Kirk Johnson's celebration of universal religious
values - Jewish, Catholic, Protestant and other - as found in Bible
and Mary Gardens and in gardens of the other religious traditions,
we propose that Mary Gardeners will learn from the exchange of
seeds, plants and ideas with gardeners of other religious traditions
- and will come thereby to a fuller appreciation of the uniqueness
of Christian truths and of the providentially created symbolic
signatures in nature, mirroring them.


Notes

(1) - http://www.suite101.com/welcome.cfm/garden_design/
(2) - http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/garden_design/17063/
(3) - http://www.mgardens.org/JS-BGR-MG.htm
(4) - http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/668/35613/
(5) - http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/garden_design/13044/
(6) - http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/garden_design/23917/
(7) - http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/garden_design/31002/



Copyright 2000, Mary's Gardens