I remember a faithful, prayerful person telling me that late in her life she had realised that whenever she began to pray, in her imagination she saw the garden of her childhood home. The beautiful image had long been so familiar as to be hidden, as it were, by the absence of any other experience against which to assess what was normative.
This has precedents. In Scripture, the vineyard is often the preferred image of encounter with the people of Israel. The garden is the place of encounter with individual souls: Adam and Eve, or Mary Magdalene. Perhaps Gethsemane was a favourite place for Jesus to encounter his Father in prayer. We are all in the garden when praying, but the garden is also within us. Scripture calls the human heart a “hortus conclusus”. “You are a garden enclosed, my sister, my spouse,” sings the lover in the Song of Songs. It is a powerful image for the unique identity of every human heart made in the image of God, and its capacity for intimacy. The deepest recesses of this sacred, fragrant place are meant only to be a dwelling place for God and for spousal love whose entry is by consent and consecration. Access to any part of the enclosure belongs only to those who honour the place.
