Poor Garden Lane

In Scredington, Lincs, is Poor Garden Lane. This struck me as a strange name, especially in a county famed for its plentiful arable crops and pretty cottage gardens. Its rich soils and amenable climate allows both agriculture and horticulture. Yet life in Eden, had we been wise enough to remain there, would have proved far more verdant, productive and fertile. Whatever we manage to grow or produce, it is a poorer crop than would have been yielded in an unspoilt world. Even our limbs and organs, great though they are and inclined to self-healing they may be, are still poorer than Adam and Eve’s unsullied, self-rejuvenating bodies.  

The gospel makes the poor rich and the weak strong. Christ’s people, though they labour in the poor and polluted allotment gardens of this ailing earth, are destined for a restored Eden; though their bodies conk out and old age is just as cruel, there is a new, resurrection body awaiting them.