The Garden That Refused a Fence

A small church in Portland inherited a vacant lot next door, choked with blackberry brambles and broken glass. Someone suggested a community garden. The first debate was predictable: who gets a plot? Members only? Neighbors who attend? What about the unhoused folks sleeping under the overpass two blocks east?

A young woman named Dev, who had left her childhood church after being told her love for her girlfriend was incompatible with God, showed up at the planning meeting. She did not come to argue theology. She came with seed packets and a wheelbarrow. She said, "If love comes from God, then every act of genuine love is already holy ground. You do not need to fence it."

They built the garden with no fence. Plots went to anyone who wanted one. The church members grew tomatoes beside refugees from Myanmar. A retired veteran taught composting to teenagers doing court-ordered community service. Dev and her girlfriend planted sunflowers along the property line, a wall of gold facing the street.

John writes that everyone who loves is born of God and knows God, because God is love. Not a love that audits credentials first. Not a love that requires doctrinal agreement before it shares the soil.