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.…