Priests in Garden Clogs

Photo Credit: Minh Tran on Unsplash

For nearly thirty years, my Ethiopian mother-in-law, Kaki, has cultivated a small garden. She guards her marigolds and fuchsia against unholy infestations of pests and weeds. She sluices sun-shimmered water over the roots, holding the blooms in her watchful eyes. She prays as she labors, breathing in the incense of rosemary and rue. Amidst the ever-densening crush of Addis Ababa, Kaki’s garden is a sanctuary.

Perhaps it is the quiet that draws Kaki and me to this sacred haven. Haloed in sunrays, hemmed in by blooms like fireworks unfurling in slow motion, I cannot help but feel I am in some remnant of Eden. 

The first earthly dwelling place of God, the Garden of Eden, was enchanted with divine presence. Here Adam and Eve walked with God in the evening breezes, as near to each other as Kaki and me. I wonder what it would be like to talk with God as I am talking with Kaki. To talk as God and Eve talked, gently unfolding their hearts to each other. To be near enough—body to body—to see the laughter ready at any moment to bubble from her mouth. To hear the rhythm of her breath. To be close enough to breathe her fragrance (Kaki favors Coco Chanel). 

In Genesis, God gives Adam and Eve the burden of keeping the garden. As biblical scholar G.K. Beale notes, abad and shamar, the Hebrew words used in Genesis to describe the call to “cultivate” and “keep” the Garden of Eden, are the same words used to describe the priests’ call to “serve” and “guard” the Old Testament tabernacle: the second earthly dwelling place of God. Adam and Eve, it seems then, were the first priests, the Garden of Eden their sanctuary. 

Imagine this airy cathedral: window-less, door-less, wall-less. Skies curving in an azure cupola. Poppy and daisy and bellflower and chicory embroidered over the earth like the red and gold and purple and blue of the tabernacle’s veils. Lilacs and roses, hyacinths and hostas offering incense. A sanctuary lit, not with a lampstand of gold, but with sunlight by day and galaxies by night. Did the ceaseless presence of God tremor every bud and blade, endlessly?

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This essay is part of a series called “Dwell,” which meditates on the spaces where God dwells with us.