This post was first published in September 2021
If you are fortunate to have a garden, however large or small, during these times of pandemic, you have probably spent more time in it than usual. You may have noticed the creatures that share your garden with you, who either have made it their home, or are passing visitors. Observing these creatures, their habits and the way they live, can, I believe give us an insight into the nature of God and may enable us to reflect on our response to Him and to one another.
‘Slugs and Snails’
I am quite sure that you are not happy to welcome these visitors to your garden, and that you immediately reach for the blue pellets when you see the dreaded silvery trails, or come down one morning to discover that your prize young marigolds have been eaten down to a stalk! But wait! There is more to the humble slug and slithery snail than meets the eye or attacks the patience. They, like all the other creatures that inhabit our gardens and indeed, our planet, are creatures of our God and King, and are put here for a very definite purpose – to give nutrition to hedgehogs, birds and slow-worms, all of which are vital in the unity of creation. Every creature has its purpose and place – it’s just that we would rather that slugs and snails would find another place other than our garden, just as I suspect slugs and snails would rather not have, as their purpose, to be food for other creatures! But that is how a productive garden works best, when it works cohesively. Everything relying for full production on everything else.
We spend a lot of time and effort to encourage pollinators to our gardens and feel pleased and a little boastful when bees and butterflies descend on our fruit and flowers, but we shudder at the thought of slugs and snails, and regard them as pests.
I think that Christians sometimes can subconsciously harbour that attitude towards others. We know what we ought to think about others, and how we should act towards them, but if they don’t quite fit, or look quite right, or have differing opinions to us, we discover that we have an unconscious bias, especially if they enter our ‘space’, or dare I say it, our church.
What does Jesus say about such an attitude? Read Matthew 25: 31 – 46 to discover the key to how we can best serve Him, and in doing so, accept and serve others. Remember that in the Middle East, shepherds run their sheep and goats together, and only the knowledgeable eye can tell them apart. But the Good Shepherd can always discern our attitude to those we might consider as ‘slugs and snails’ in our midst. And judging by that parable, he won’t think much of it.
Thankfully, God has a purpose and a place for everyone, including you and me, which actually depends on you and me including everyone, if it is to work cohesively, and create a fair and just, productive society.
By the way, if you are being plagued by slugs and snails in your garden, but don’t want to harm them, I have heard that fleece put around pots deters them.
Strangely enough, I haven’t seen many of them around in our garden this year. I wonder if someone else in the house reached for the pot of blue pellets! I sincerely hope not!!