New Community Garden at University Presbyterian Church Austin

On Sunday, March 28, University Presbyterian Church of Austin dedicated its new community garden with speeches, prayers, and a poem written for the occasion.

The five raised beds, totalling 500 square feet of garden space, were built as an Eagle Scout project by UPC member Ethan Moorhead and a crew of volunteers. The church’s new “Garden Ministry Team” will care for the beds.

The new garden will provide fresh produce to be distributed through the Micah 6 food pantry, a multi-congregational assistance ministry housed at UPC.

UPC member Bobbie Sanders wrote an ode to the garden:

A Gardener’s Theology

A garden is an act of faith:
Unlikely seeds and spindly roots
We  bury in the earth and then await
A Resurrection Day in leaf and fruit and pod.
A garden is a place where understanding grows:
A tomato is a parable,
And peas a proclamation
That seven days were not enough
For God’s creating to be done.
In the making of a garden,
With spade and rake and hoe,
We enter into partnership with Him who gardened first,
And now bids us  (of earth ourselves),
To join him in Creation
And share with him his joy.

In dedicating the beds, UPC’s senior pastor Reverend San Williams offered the following prayer, highlighting the congregation’s hopes for the garden and for its role in the Austin community:

May this be a charitable garden, providing fresh produce for our Micah 6 ministry—to those in our community who are most in need of nutritious food.

May this be a justice garden, drawing us into reflection and action around issues of sustainable food production, equitable distribution of food, and the dangers of a food industry that pollutes the air and depletes the earth.

May this be a teaching garden, especially for our children and youth—teaching the joys and benefits of growing food locally, the importance of good nutrition, a closer relationship with the earth and our calling to be its stewards and care-takers.

May this garden spark our imaginations and give us a vision for developing this lot in the heart of Austin into a green place of beauty and rest.

May this garden inspire in us a closer relationship with our Creator who gave us the earth as a garden to be kept and tilled, and for us to take from it what we need, but not to exploit it for what we want.

May this garden be all these things and more. We bless it in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.