Tending to God's Gifts

By Paulissa Jirik SSND, Chaplain at St. Joseph's Home for Children

St. Joseph's Home for Children, located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is a shelter for abused, abandoned, and homeless children. The children range from birth to seventeen years old. St. Joseph's Home is situated in an area surrounded by a varied species of trees, shrubs, flowering bushes, flowers of many kinds, stretches of green grass and community gardens. Springtime brings to life all these precious gifts for the children to enjoy, wonder at, appreciate, and care for.

Often after reading Grandad's Prayers of the Earth by Douglas Wood and/or Silversteins, The Giving Tree, we take a walk around the grounds, stopping to hug a tree, stooping to admire a tulip, a dahlia, a peony, checking out the progress of the gardens, learning to recognize the various vegetables, feeling the breeze, following the clouds, marveling at the blue sky, watching the ants at work. More often than not, a child's expression of sadness, fear, anxiety changes to a smile, a carefree look, a sprint in their walk. Without knowing how and why, they experience the healing that Nature brings.

In addition to all the beauty outside, the lovely Chapel inside has an array of beautiful plants that the children are invited to help water, clean and arrange. It is an awesome experience and sight to observe them take such pride, such care, such joy in being a part of tending to these gifts of God inside and outside. 

It is a privilege for me to be a channel of God's healing touch through nature and in helping the children to be a part of tending to God's gifts.