Sometime in the early 1970s garden centres began to grow. They became increasingly common as places to go, first for the obvious reasons of gardening equipment, seeds and plants, but then came the cafe, and the restaurant, and the food hall. The places grew in size, but so did their social importance. The garden centre became the place to meet for coffee, to have a meal, to spend time (and money) with family and friends.
Where I live, there are two signature Garden Centres within 15 minutes by car, with two more less than half an hour away. They are social hubs where folk meet up, bus trips arrive on the holiday trail, elderly parents are taken for lunch and a look around, retired folk build them in as a weekly rendezvous point. They employ significant numbers of casual and permanent workers, they sell everything from garden essentials to cosmetics, from delicatessen foods to scented candles, garden furniture to walking boots. And that's just the two nearest us!
I wrote earlier about Garden Centres as places of social intersection, places where beauty can be looked at whether or not we take home a rose, hibiscus, or tray of pansies.
You can catch up with it here,
Thinking some more about this since then, one other thought seems worth mentioning. The 'Garden Centre' is an important neutral space where conversations can take place, emotional support and encouragement can be spoken, and sometimes needs no words, just the tea or coffee, the 'fine piece', and a wander around a safe place.
The other day while walking around with a friend, in the covered outdoor area, I was aware we were walking in a place of visual therapy. There were the sparrows chirping in their own pub-level of shouted conversation; there was a robin staying near enough to be noticed, and distant enough to prevent those humans taking any liberties. There was bright sunlight highlighting the colours of pot plants, outdoor plants, mature acers in huge pots, roses and fuschia, geranium and hibiscus, summer cyclamen and alpines set in gravel - to mix a metaphor, a symphony of colour. He went his way, I went my way. We met, talked briefly and walked some more.
I've come to realise that sometimes it's the physical environment that enables those conversations when important words are said; and creates a fertile place for those conversations that require few words, if any. The beauty is what needs to be heard (that misapplied metaphor again), and the peace of a garden (centre) is a different kind of aromatherapy, which lowers those defences we've become used to holding up to obscure what we might be embarrassed for others to see.
Of course much of this happens and we aren't even aware of it. Many come and go, time after time, and may not even wonder why it is they keep coming. And, of course, many will come unreflectively and simply enjoy the meal, browsing the plants, or the in the food-hall, buying whatever meets the current requirements - for the garden or the dinner table. And why not, for many folk, blessings don't have to be spelled out to be enjoyed!
But friendship and conversations, beauty and safe space, coffee and time shared with a trusted other - these some of our inner life's important support systems, and garden centres facilitate these for millions of people living in a culture where such social exchange and mutual recognition are often hard to find. Or so it seems to me.
As a Christian, I'll take whatever comes as blessing at its face value. Not all spiritual practices have to look spiritual, or feel devotional. God has more ways to bless the human heart than we can begin to think of, and much of the time we enjoy them with no thought of how this happiness of the heart happened to to us! And perhaps, as one who is a recipients of a Love Eternal in its scope and reach, I must guard against becoming so used to God's surrounding goodness, that all is taken for granted. A garden centre is no return to Eden, but it is a good reminder of the Creator, and of ourselves as dependent creatures, and of a God-loved world eloquent in beauty, fragile and at times broken.
Which line of thought always brings me back to Julian of Norwich's parable of the hazelnut -
“And in this [sight], he showed a little thing the quantity of a hazelnut, lying in the palm of my hand as it seemed to me, and it was as round as any ball. I looked therein with the eye of my understanding, and thought: “What may this be?” And it was answered generally thus: “It is all that is made.” I marvelled how it might last, for it seemed to me it might suddenly have fallen into nought for its littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: “It lasteth and ever shall, because God loveth it. And so hath all things being by the love of God.”
And if a garden centre can evoke that kind of faith and faithfulness, then maybe, just maybe, going to the garden centre is a kind of spiritual discipline!
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