Finding God in the Garden: Backyard Reflections on Life, Love, and Compost

by Balfour Brickner

Book Overview

Grieving after the death of a beloved daughter, Rabbi Balfour Brickner struggled with his faith while preparing a flowerbed. One day the rabbi found himself writing down the thoughts that came to him as he turned the soil, and observing nature's abundant examples of order and renewal, miracles and beauty, Rabbi Brickner found his faith returning like a garden in spring.

Using the garden as a sanctuary and springboard, Rabbi Brickner considers...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0316738662
• ISBN13: 9780316738668
• Release Date: April 2003
• Publisher: Back Bay Books
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

So Meaningful For Out Times!

This is an incredible book that speaks to many issues we confront today -- from the meaning of life and death to sex and love -- to social activisim -- with a little gardening as well! Offering humor and wisdom Brickner welcomes us into his world - and shows us how to better manage and live our own lives with more meaning and purpose.

A Delightful Blossom!

This book was an unexpected pleasure to read. When I first saw it, there was some hesitancy on my part to read it. I thought it would be filled with cliche metaphors, but in reality, there was a deep spiritual wisdom that blossomed with the unfolding of each page. Rabbi Brickner makes beautiful comparisions betweeen that which we have in our guardians, on the one hand, and that which we have in our hearts and spirits as Jews on the other. I became enlightened on both matters of botany and the Bible. This book was a true joy and will be satisfying to anyone who reads it.

a perfect companion

Highly recommended ...FINDING GOD IN THE GARDEN is for everyone who digs in this earth of Eden, who has ever wondered what that First Garden & its First Gardeners might have been like.A man in the autumn of his life, speaks about his decades as a spiritual coach, as an interpreter of things Biblical & religious & as a newcomer to gardening both in the micro- & macrocosmic sense.From how sex became sinful & how it never was meant to be; of how weeds are the manifestations unwanted evils & how we humans do differ from our animal cousins. Of how to think about God within the context of our lives as well as how to think of the land as a primal learning place.Woven between Rabbi Brickner's memories of gardens he has tended, are his musings of philosophies both Judaic & Christian as he playfully & seriously explores the meaning of soul & prayer, of compost & death, free will & miracles, fertilizers & sacred human activities, of sitting & thinking, healing.Easily accessible, charmingly written, Rabbi Brickner has poured into this gentle & fascinating book, a host of kind wisdom & offers us bouquet after bouquet of joyous soulful & healing thoughts.Very well done, one of those books you will keep for each season of your garden & your life.