The Lost Garden

Dear friends,

I wonder if you know where the Garden of Eden is?

Whilst it might be hard to put a cross on the map, as far as the Bible goes, the garden of Eden could be anywhere between the pointy bits of the “Fertile Crescent” – comprising the currently most contested parts of the Middle East, with the Judean uplands at one end, and the catchments of the great rivers Tigris and Euphrates at the other. Somewhere in Israel, Syria or Iran, then. At the time of the Biblical patriarchs – (Abraham, Moses, Jacob etc), reading round this arc gives one a litany of the great empires of the old world: the Egyptians, the Hittites, the Mitanni, the Assyrians, and the Babylonians. Further to the East, in the mountains, there were the Medes to the north and the Elamites to the east. Father Abraham makes his journey following the Euphrates upriver from Ur in Babylon, pausing at Haran at the top of the crescent, before continuing down the Mediterranean seabord towards Egypt, and Canaan. Noah flees catastrophe somewhere in the Tigris/Euphrates basin, and the memory of a great flood makes its way down through history, not only in the Hebrew bible, but also in stone with the Epic of Gilgamesh. The hanging gardens of Babylon were one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, of which now only the pyramids of Giza remain. Like the great powers that built them, the others have been swept away. But as far as the present day peoples of these lands are concerned, their history is exceptionally deep rooted, going back to over 2000-1000 BC. On this chart, Western Europe is a “young” place – where not much went on before the Romans arrived – and America is still in nappies. In these ancient lands of the fertile crescent, most history lies buried deep below the surface. Let us pray for wisdom, then, and discernment, as the path to peace will not be found by chance, but by determined attention to the causes of the war itself. At the very least this will involve the removal of all enriched uranium from the hands of the Iranian regime. Although we should be careful if the Russians offer to supervise this.

Worship Services for Palm Sunday 29th March

9.30am Morning Prayer at St John’s Stoke Row with Revd Kevin Davies

11am Holy Communion at St Peter and Paul, Checkendon with Revd Kevin Davies.

Midweek zoom service: Wednesday Evensong at 5.00pm  410 935 129

Lent and Holy Week

PS The message of God’s love has reached this family, through the ancient Ethiopian Coptic orthodox church. Not visible from this photograph, the lady wears a necklace with a cross. They too, will be celebrating Easter.