Latest article from Simon Swift… along the lines of ‘I have a dream’.
Generosity needs to be at the heart of our practice of faith. It holds in its scope the forms of goodness, hospitality, kindness and unselfishness. Giving is an action we can take, an antidote to the world of ‘take what I can’ that has infected our culture. Giving material things like food for the hungry, shelter for the homeless and a place for the refugee are important. However, most of the time, in our daily lives, it’s about sharing things like love, smiles & hugs. At other times sharing tears and sympathy or standing with someone in need. At other times it is to share the joy of living and encouragement to those struggling.
Paul said we do not wage war with the weapons of this world. We cannot win our war with bullets and bombs. Our way of demonstrating is not with marches and placards, with throwing eggs or bricks. Our war needs to be waged with deliberate, authentic love. The daily practice of love and kindness, of generosity and forgiveness. The absence of judgmentalism and vindictiveness. We then become the salt of the earth, the light of the world.
Salt can be used for good and bad. Like the Romans when they finally defeated Carthage, we can salt the earth so nothing can grow. That is the way of judgmentalism, of hate and tribalism. There is to much of that in our politics today. Instead we need to be salt that seasons and brings out the wonderful flavours of life in our diverse world. Where we go we are to turn waste lands into oases. Where there is darkness and chaos with prowling wolves looking to devour sheep; we are to be the shepherds that safeguard the weak, champions of God’s relational justice. We are to shine as the light that transforms the darkness of our post industrial world, the barren wilderness of the techno-consumer society, into a garden; a garden of colour and beauty.
In this garden Heaven intersects Earth and it becomes a place where the disabled are valued for who they are. Where regardless of ones sexuality, gender, or race, one is given the opportunity to contribute to the diversity of God’s creation without the curse of judgementalism. Transgender simply adds another colour that enhances the beauty of garden. Its is a place where both men and women have a sense of worth, with the freedom to be contributors to the flourishing of the garden. A place where our children have hope; a place to emerge into adulthood being able to bear the image in which we were created. In this garden eternal life is to be found and lived.
Perhaps then we should avoid the language of war or battling the forces of evil. After all evil has no place in the garden. Instead use the language of gardening, of tending the earth, of sowing and harvesting. The language of growth and transformation, of fruitfulness. Of trees that line the river who’s leaves heal nations. A question then: Do our alters have a river that flows out from them that is capable of feeding the land with such trees?
This caught my attention as I’m a life-long gardener approaching my 80th. year. Really wonderful-until, sadly, the garden path led off into some pernicious weeds, that, not dealt with, lead to overgrown thorns and thistles, and then into the ditch that runs to the Abyss, the way of the world I’m afraid, “…calling evil good”. The “regardless of sexuality”, must then, in all fairness to sexuality, include the other colours of, sodomites, adulterers, fornicators, child molesters, rapists and those having sex with animals. There is a huge difference between the “curse of judgementalism”, and the “righteous judging ALL things”!
I’m glad you found some of my article wonderful. One of the skills of gardening is deciding what is a weed. I was once advised that a weed is simply a plant that should not be there.
In the article I did not define exactly what I meant by sexuality. I had in mind the LGBTQIA community along with Heterosexual. I do not consider, for example, rape to be someones sexuality. It is after all a crime of violence and certainly has no place in the garden: definitely a weed. Indeed I think the list you gave has very little to do with sexuality since they could be committed by persons with different sexual identities.
I am a long time gardener. And I am current working on my Master Gardener certification.
I guess the key question is what kind of garden does one want? Gardens can be highly controlled often for the sake of aesthetics. Or on the other end of the spectrum, they can be naturalized and become havens for wildlife. How much control should a garden have? How much control is required for it to be a garden rather than a neglected patch of land, or a wilderness?
Over the years I’ve learned to allow more freedom to the garden. I allow it to speak to me about what belongs where. And try to listen closely to the lessons it has for me. I delight in the wildlife. And at the same time, I learned that I had to exercise enough control to edge my paths. When I did that, the garden suddenly emerged in all its fertile, naturalized glory. Funny that. My garden needed more control and less at the same time.
Applied to my relations with others, it means less judgement all round. A willingness to wait to see where someone new or different fits in. At the same time, it means certain behaviours are unacceptable – especially anything, including humour, that de-humanizes other people. I think the key to a garden is it should teach to be more human and to treat others as more human. A garden humanizes us. And it allows us to re-humanize others. That is, to bring them into relationship with ourselves. The alternative is de-humanization. The person who de-humanizes is often disconnected from others, other species, the land, and even themselves. Gardens as therapy help those who who have been de-humanized, learn to see themselves as whole and humanized again.
And of course, as the garden matures, less and less control and management is required. The gardener can rest and relax, watch and listen, and learn.
Certainly evil has no place in the ‘garden’, but it is certainly rampant in the world and it surely requires us to stand against it whether it is autocracy, genocide or just one country invading another. The way we do that is, of course, important but do it we must. Someone said that it only takes good people to turn a blind eye for evil to flourish (can’t quite remember the exact quote). Nothing wrong with peaceful marches and banners, and if it comes to it, as in 1939 etc, bombs and bullets. Sadly, may come to that again.
Hey Simon,
This is such a rich vision—thank you. I want to sit with it slowly.
But I also feel a nudge of caution—not against your words, but against what might happen to them when read through the cultural filter of reduction. Because in some spaces, “generosity” and “love” have been turned into soft-focus words—used to avoid confrontation, to smooth over injustice, to sidestep the ache of real transformation.
But the way you write it—this isn’t niceness.
This is rewilded presence.
This is costly re-seeding.
This is the kind of garden that tears up concrete.
It’s not sentimental. It’s seismic.
And I wonder if we also need to say that love must not be confused with passivity. That to plant oaks and tend rivers is a slow but disruptive act. It breaks up ground. It refuses performance. It says “you belong” in ways that disturb every architecture that said otherwise.
Because salt isn’t sugar. And gardens grow because someone labours in them.
What you’ve written isn’t just a call to kindness. It’s a re-patterning of what goodness can look like when it stays long enough to grow roots. You’re offering more than encouragement—you’re pointing toward a way of life that rebuilds what’s been flattened by disillusionment or spiritual performance. A way of tending the world that brings form where others have brought force.
And yes—like you, I’m cautious with the language of war. Not because harm isn’t real, but because too often, battle metaphors make us reach for the wrong weapons. And too often, love gets diluted into politeness.
But this kind of presence? It seasons. It names. It reveals. It stays.
You asked: do our altars have a river that can feed the trees of life?
That’s the question.
And in naming it, you’re doing more than writing a post. You’re offering a map for how things could be.
Thank you. I’d love to keep walking this garden path—there’s more soil to turn yet. Heidi