Community Garden

Community gardens are plots of land dedicated to planting and cultivating fruits and vegetables. Often, these gardens are not set up in individual plots; rather, everyone contributes to the cultivation and work. Then everyone is able to benefit from the shared work—the literal fruits of their shared labor (For a wonderful story about the joy found in this enterprise, see Hannah Yang, “‘Something Sacred’: Southern Minn. Community Garden Expands to Community Farm, Gathering Place,” MPR News, May 21, 2021, https://www.mprnews.org/story/2021/05/21/something-sacred-southern-minn-community-garden-expands-to-community-farm-gathering-place). Sometimes we see reading our Bibles as a private enterprise, or we think the community bears no importance in how we see or use them. But the Scriptures themselves, along with the tradition of the church, see their reading as a communal exercise. As with a community garden, there are unexpected blessings and fruit in sharing the Word.