Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share The Gift of the Garden
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
The Gift of the Garden
In her poem 'God's Garden', Dorothy Frances Gurney writes:
'One is nearer God’s heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on earth.’
Join Giles Fraser and a panel of green-fingered guests as they gather together at the Aga Khan Centre in Kings Cross to reflect on the theological significance of gardens and gardening.
From Eden and Gethsemane, to the ancient Islamic gardens of Andalusia, to the Japanese Gardens of Zen Buddhism; temples to churchyards, these sacred zones have been places of solace and reflection for millennia; places of life and death, of peace and tranquillity.
Here, even non-religious gardeners find common ground with their religious counterparts: on their knees, often in silence, hands in the earth. For many, gardening is the answer. We hear from Jill Smith - lay minister and trustee of 'The Quiet Garden Movement', who tells us how her garden is a place of healing.
Our panellists are Dr Omar Ali de Unzaga - Head of Ismaili Studies at the Aga Khan Centre, Revd Lucy Winkett - Rector at St James' Church in Piccadilly, and Ai Hishii - Director of Japanese garden architects, Momiji Design.
*You can visit the Islamic Gardens at the Aga Khan Centre for free - book online.
Presenter: Giles Fraser
Producers: James Leesley and Bara'atu Ibrahim
Editor: Tim Pemberton
View all episodes
By BBC Radio 4
4.4
9797 ratings
In her poem 'God's Garden', Dorothy Frances Gurney writes:
'One is nearer God’s heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on earth.’
Join Giles Fraser and a panel of green-fingered guests as they gather together at the Aga Khan Centre in Kings Cross to reflect on the theological significance of gardens and gardening.
From Eden and Gethsemane, to the ancient Islamic gardens of Andalusia, to the Japanese Gardens of Zen Buddhism; temples to churchyards, these sacred zones have been places of solace and reflection for millennia; places of life and death, of peace and tranquillity.
Here, even non-religious gardeners find common ground with their religious counterparts: on their knees, often in silence, hands in the earth. For many, gardening is the answer. We hear from Jill Smith - lay minister and trustee of 'The Quiet Garden Movement', who tells us how her garden is a place of healing.
Our panellists are Dr Omar Ali de Unzaga - Head of Ismaili Studies at the Aga Khan Centre, Revd Lucy Winkett - Rector at St James' Church in Piccadilly, and Ai Hishii - Director of Japanese garden architects, Momiji Design.
*You can visit the Islamic Gardens at the Aga Khan Centre for free - book online.
Presenter: Giles Fraser
Producers: James Leesley and Bara'atu Ibrahim
Editor: Tim Pemberton
More shows like Beyond Belief
View all
In Our Time
5,380 Listeners
Start the Week
158 Listeners
Seriously...
261 Listeners
Crossing Continents
76 Listeners
Thinking Allowed
316 Listeners
Profile
107 Listeners
Great Lives
501 Listeners
More or Less: Behind the Stats
867 Listeners
A Point of View
75 Listeners
The Reith Lectures
156 Listeners
Desert Island Discs
2,048 Listeners
Last Word
47 Listeners
In Our Time: Religion
270 Listeners
Moral Maze
59 Listeners
Private Passions
36 Listeners