Nature Needs Gardeners

The Romantics adored nature to a fault. Consider Henry David Thoreau: “All good things are wild and free.” Really? Natural, yes. Wild, no.

In Scripture, wilderness is a place of trial, waiting, and even of curse. Nature, even its untarnished goodness, was never meant to be left alone. God was the first gardener, creating a garden in Eden. And then he created man to be a gardener to tend His creation. After the fall, the gardener’s job is harder, sometimes fruitless, but even more crucial. We look forward to the garden-city God establishes.

Gardeners are never guaranteed a harvest of any individual seed, but sow enough seeds over enough years with proper tending and what is sown will be ready to reap. Sow secularism, reap secularism. Sow child-centeredness, reap self-centeredness. Romanticize wildness and let nature to its own and we’ll forage for morsels in a vast wilderness.

If we would reap Christian culture, we must sow and tend with Christian education. Education is like the gardening of a child’s nature. A child’s education will teach them how to relate to God, their neighbor, and the world. The how, who, and what of education all affect the child’s development. Classical Christian education acknowledges a child’s full nature - God’s good design and sin’s marring. It cultivates the child’s natural wonder and imitation with wisdom, virtue, and careful weeding.

Nature left unchecked will sting, bite, devour. Nature stewarded will sustain and delight.

“He turns rivers into a desert,

springs of water into thirsty ground,

a fruitful land into a salty waste,

because of the evil of its inhabitants.

He turns a desert into pools of water,

a parched land into springs of water.

And there he lets the hungry dwell,

and they establish a city to live in;

they sow fields and plant vineyards

and get a fruitful yield.”

Psalm 107:33-37