A Return to the Garden
Friday, February 13, 2026
Father Richard Rohr identifies in Revelation, the last book in the Bible, a “return to the garden” for all of creation:
The whole Bible is trying to return us to the garden. By the end, in the book of Revelation (21–22), the garden becomes the New Jerusalem, where there is no temple, but only the river of life and the trees of life, where even “the leaves are for the cure of the pagans” (22:2) and where “God lives among humans” (21:3).
The Hebrew prophet Ezekiel’s vision (Ezekiel 37:27) has been fulfilled: Humanity has become God’s people, and God has become their God. There is no need for a religious building because the garden itself is the temple. Life is now one sacred reality.
Eden is a symbol of unitive consciousness. We cannot objectively be separate from God. We all walk in the garden whether we know it or not. We came from God and we will return to God. Everything in between is a school of conscious loving.
Authentic spiritual cognition always has the character of re-cognition! We return to where we started and, as T.S. Eliot stated, “know the place for the first time.” [1] As Jacob put it when he awoke from his sleep: “Truly, Yahweh was in this place all the time, and I never knew it” (Genesis 28:16). That is, without doubt, the common knowing of mystics, saints, and all recovered sinners.
Many of the journeys before that point are journeys away from the center, where we literally become “ec-centric.” These are the recurring biblical texts of fall and recovery, hiddenness and discovery, loss and renewal, failure and forgiveness, exile and return.
Fortunately, we are always being led back to the real Center to find who we really are: to find ourselves in God. God seems both very patient and very productive with the journeys back and forth. Such is the pattern of the soul, of history, and of the Bible, a progress of sorts: two steps backward and three forward.
That humble productivity and slow efficiency on God’s part is called “the economy of grace” or the good news. Here, God fills in all the gaps, everything is used, and nothing is wasted, not even sin. It leads to a worldview of abundance and enoughness. Buying and selling is a cheap substitute and always leads to a worldview of scarcity, judgmentalism, fear, and stinginess. Why would anyone want to live there? And yet many, if not most, of us do.
The full biblical revelation has given us the history within the history, the coherence inside of the seeming incoherence. If we don’t get this inner pattern, then religion becomes simply aimless anecdotes—just little stories here and there, with no pattern or direction. They come from no place and there is no place they are going. We have to know where the text is heading or we do not know how to look through the appropriate lenses.
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1.
“Let us make them in our image.”
This passage is the main text from which we derive the doctrine that human beings are made in the “imago Dei,” or “in the image of God.”
This passage grounds the way many of us view human beings as inherently dignified, valuable, and purposeful.
That said, many people focus on the “us” and see that as a nod toward the Christian conception of God as a Trinity (Three-in-One and One-in-Three). However, I have been focusing on the “our” part of the passage.
We are not in the image of God alone; we are in the image of God when we are in loving community… because God is a loving community. In Western culture, we are so individualistic that we do not value the community as we ought. If God, in God’s own self, is a co-suffering, infinitely outpouring, self-sacrificial community, then we should probably let the Trinity inform more of how we think about ourselves and what it means to be part of the “Beloved Community.”
2.
“Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.”
– Carl Jung, Swiss Psychotherapist
In full honesty and transparency, many years ago, I was in burnout/fallout from working in an incredibly unhealthy church culture.
I distinctly remember one day when I had not showered for 2-3 days and walked into the church office with a black hoodie on and with the hoodie up over my head. Walking straight into the interim pastor’s office, I collapsed into a chair and asked, “What does it look like when someone is in crisis?”
His reply?
“I think I am looking at it right now. You have an immediate two weeks off. Get out of town for a bit and go stay with your parents.”
It was during that time that I came to the experience of, “Oh, I get it. I understand why people would drink or do drugs or what have you. I would do anything to get away from this feeling.”
Fortunately, I did not fully bottom out on any of those things (but not due to my own strength), and instead regrouped and chose to hike the Appalachian Trail in 2015.
Hitting that type of rock bottom broke me of whatever judgmentalism, condescension, or elitism that I felt toward addiction. I still maintain that since then, I have been a better pastor. I can better connect with people and have greater compassion for others’ internal experiences.
Jung is absolutely right. Know your own darkness, and you will be better able to deal with the darkness in others.
3.
“Modern man is not in agreement with himself. He has no one voice to listen to but a thousand voices, a thousand ideologies, all competing for his attention in a Babel of tongues.”
– Thomas Merton, Trappist Monk
We are all walking contradictions.
Sometimes, we do not even consciously know or admit our own contradictions, and it shows in how cranky, disappointed, or frustrated we can be with our own lives.
I am starting to understand that the process of holy-making (sanctification) is in some sense a process of integration, of “whole-making.” Every one of us must learn to integrate the fragmented parts of our lives, the parts that are tugged and yanked in competing and opposite directions by the “thousand voices, thousand ideologies, the Babel of tongues” that confuse and disorient.
It is likely a lifelong process, but I can attest that my life has been improved by limiting the voices I allow to speak into my life and by making certain that those same voices are of the best quality I can find.
4.
“Everyone has to pick a path through the stickers and briars and come out the other side in his own way.”
– Paul Quenon, Monk and Photographer
Paul Quenon is a Trappist Monk who had Thomas Merton as his spiritual director in the monastery. He has become a well-known poet, photographer, and author in his own right. His book, In Praise of the Useless Life: A Monk’s Memoir, is a delightful read.
5.
“Life is to be lived as play.”
Seeing life as “playful” does not come easily to me. It is not my automatic response or reflex to think that every day is a new day to “play.”
I am often too serious. I am also distracted by my own frustrations, resentments, to-do lists, projects, commute, and so on. It is probably similar for you. Life piles up with new responsibilities, and often it feels as though every minute of the day is claimed for… and often not for the purpose of play.
Which leads me to wonder: Is life a matter of running away from things in order to play, or of finding a way to play in the midst of all those things?
It is probably the latter, although I admit that I do not know how to do it very well.
There is a line in Merton’s New Seeds of Contemplation when he talks about throwing our “awful solemnity” to the wind. We are just so dang serious all the time, perhaps thinking that it glorifies God for us to be so serious, but what if God most wants us to be playful? You know, to trust that things can be good even if they are frivolous or prodigal? In the economy of God’s grace, there is no such thing as “wasted time” because in some sense everything is unnecessary. Everything is a frivolous overture of the infinite grace of God being poured out on all of us.
