Recently, I was listening to a podcast of an episode of "On
Being", Krista Tippett's radio show that she describes as "...a
spacious conversation — and an evolving media space — about the big questions
at the center of human life, from the boldest new science of the human brain to
the most ancient traditions of the human spirit." She was talking
with Vigen Guroian, who is a professor of religious studies in Orthodox
Christianity at the University of Virginia. In the course of the show, Krista
described Mr. Guroian's background further and discussed some of his published
works. From one on of them, she shared the following story about gardening and
resurrection that I found to be both touching and enlightening:
"Several summers ago, my children found two turtles and put them in
the vegetable garden. During a thaw the next February, as I was digging up the
soggy soil where the peas go, I lifted a heavy mound with my shovel, and then
another. The two turtles had burrowed down for winter sleep, and I had rudely
awakened them too soon. So I carried them to a corner of the garden where I
would not disturb them and dug them in again. When my wife said that she feared
the turtles might be dead, I said I did not think so (though I wasn't as sure
as I sounded). I insisted that in spring, they would come up. And they did in
Easter week.
Lilies and hyacinths signify the
resurrection, and I can understand why. But I have a pair of turtles that plant
themselves in my garden each fall like two gigantic seeds and rise on Easter
with earthen crowns upon their humbled heads. With the women at the tomb, I
marvel."
From "Inheriting Paradise" by Vigen Guroian.
