The Lost Garden

There was a garden, a very extensive garden, in fact several different gardens in one area. It was begun and developed at the turn of the 20th Century. A large number of people worked there, creative people with different skills. They carefully tended the beautiful plants, trees and rhododendrons, pathways and rockery; there were greenhouses and potting sheds. The garden was greatly loved by many people, from the big house through to the young lads who did the weeding.

Then came a very disturbing time for the people when in 1914 the First World War began. The gardens were left when the workers went to fight, or to do important war work. Gradually the first weeds took over the gardens and year by year the whole area was overtaken by undergrowth. The pathways, so carefully tended, disappeared. The greenhouses decayed. Trees grew out of control. The gardens were lost to human sight.

In 1987 a young man and his family moved to the county from the pollution of London. A chain of events led him to these gardens. His name was Tim Smit and he was looking for a new meaning to his life. He asked advice from some experts, one of whom was a creative builder who loved a challenge. They decided, against all the odds, to bring the Gardens back to life. On the very first day of their work they found one of the completely derelict buildings, pushed what seemed to be the door and managed to get in. What they found was a sentence written on a wall followed by the names of what was assumed to be the workers of the gardens. The date was August 1914. "those who enter must neither slumber or sleep". Then the names written below. And so began years of work to bring back to life the Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall.

John Fowles the author wrote a Foreword in the book The Lost Gardens of Heligan by Tim Smit. In it John Fowles said "I asked Tim what had been the fuse for the superhuman energy he had found. His answer was surprisingly simple and Christian: "Redemption".

That somehow, for me, summed up the experience I felt on entering these Gardens. So often in our lives we seem to be asleep or not aware of what is possible. Everything is overgrown and there seems no way through the upsets of our lives. It may be unemployment, bereavement, loss, hurt - so many things. We worry, get stressed and yet there is a way through. We can be redeemed, brought back. God is there in the midst of our lives however tangled they may be.

We have Jesus, God's Son to help us. Jesus said "I am the way" and if we follow his way then we can recover our lives. Just as the people of Heligan recovered the Gardens, Jesus can redeem us through his life, death and resurrection. He can make us whole and we can become people of the Kingdom. Finally as I heard recently of Radio 4's 'Thought for the Day' "...it is never too late". It was not too late to redeem the Lost Garden and it is not too late for us.

Margaret Doggett