There are gardens waiting
There are gardens waiting to be planted.
And green hearts longing to be born.
There are healings yet to be imagined.
And wild fields waiting to return.
Words and music by Bret Hesla.
© 2017 Bret Hesla. All rights reserved. Use with permission, please.
Licensed via OneLicense.net, Contact: Bret.hesla@gmail.com
This refrain was written and recorded as part of a 2017 earth-care song cycle, “Singing Prayers for the Earth.” Sometimes the message feels like a word of hope, sometimes encouragement, and sometimes just feels like a deep fact. It’s nice to sing this song all by itself, usually done twice. It also works as a gateway to reflection, doing it several times and bracketed with space for silence. It works well as a closing song to a gathering. Some communities have sung it after serving communion. The song obviously strikes a new chord today in 2020 with the pandemic.
The recording intersperses singing with readings of earth-healing (below). I’d encourage you to use the earth-care readings, or find new ones to connect with your context and longings.
[reading: “Let Us Recognize” by Bret Hesla]
Friends, Let us recognize that the healing of the earth will involve us doing what we know how to do: planting gardens, creating green policies, letting go of harmful habits that give us short term profits and long term damage. Let us lift up the gardens waiting to be planted and pledge ourselves to more planting.
Let us recognize that the healing of the earth will involve generations yet to be born. Walt Whitman said, “Now I see the secret of making the best person: it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.” Let us lift up the green hearts yet to be born, and the earth they will inherit.
[sing]
Friends, Let us recognize that the healing of the earth will involve ideas no one has thought of. We may not be in the planning room when they come. We may not be around for the public announcement of success. But we trust that these changes will come. Let us lift up the healings yet to be imagined: for the earth, for our bodies, for all nations.
Let us recognize that the greening of the earth will continue after humans are no longer in the picture. It’s bigger than us. Let us lift up the wild places waiting to return: the healing we receive when we visit those wild places, and their worth on their own merit.