The Gogo's Garden

Many times I have read the Psalms of praise as redundant phrases that foster God’s ego, they no longer become the cries of my own heart but at times empty words sent up to God. This was until a professor of mine taught me how to truly read the Psalms. She offered that one way in doing that was creating a picture in your mind of what the Psalmist is painting. Since my new understanding Psalm 148 has been a Psalm not only of praise to me but one of hope in a new creation both materially and spiritually in this world. The Psalmist paints a picture of creation as it was when God first ordered it into being. She goes through each command that God gave in the cosmos. I would like to think that her Picasso was not only one of memory, but mission. She sets forth a vision for what the world can look like again, a picture of garden is what I gather from the text. I have preached on this vision of “green” living and environmentally friendly living and new life and have even tried to take steps in my own life to see the garden come alive again, but it wasn’t until I met a Gogo in her garden that the Psalmist vision took hold of my heart.

A week ago I went to visit Gogo Teresa’s garden which the Phakamisa ministry helped her to start. I not only saw her garden but seven others which she had trained and helped other woman to start. The gardens were not just a hobby for the gardeners but they were actually their only hope for food in their forsaken part of this land. The Gogo’s lived in informal settlements and townships. Most of them cared for up to eleven grandchildren or other children that have been orphaned in the community. Many of the children that they love, feed, bath, and care for have AIDS and would die if not for the Gogo’s guardianship.

As we drove with “Mother Teresa”, the name many of her friends called her, we stopped at all the different gardens and met all the other Gogo’s who ran the gardens. Each one was so proud of her spinach, tomatoes, Zulu Cocumba, pumpkins, onions, peppers, and potatoes. Each vegetable had its proper place and they explained to me how they planted and nurtured each of the different plants. They told me how they were given simple seeds and how they grew to be food for them and their children. Which not only provided something to put on the dinner table at night but also helps give the nutrients they need for their ARTs (Anti Retriviral Treatment) to be effective in their bodies to fight against AIDS.

Teresa’s garden was the last one way saw that day and it was the biggest garden, not because of her work alone, but because she had invited others in the community to plant there as well. The garden became a community undertaking providing not only food but the soil for relationships to be planted, rooted, and grown. In many ways the garden provided new life. The simple Gogo played God and was literally the hands and feet of the creator as she planted new life in the soil that was given to her, while at the same time planting hope and happiness in the children and other Gogos that she continually helps.

In Gogo Teresa’s vision and in her mission I was able to see with my own eyes and even taste with my own taste buds the picture the Psalmist painted in Psalm 148. I did not know that day as I entered the informal area made of sticks, a few bricks, and lots of rubbish that I was in fact stepping into the Garden of Eden recreated by the heart of God and the hands of the Gogo Teresa.