A kitchen garden is where the vegetables are grown for home use. It is often placed outside the kitchen door, so the one preparing the meals has easy access. Here is the artist's kitchen garden at Pontoise. The little phrase "at the Hermitage" seems to be the name used for a cluster of houses in the town - perhaps a kind of neighborhood. We can see it beyond the wall and the trees.
Pissaro painted this garden many times. He kept turning to face a different direction within the same garden. Maybe there's a metaphor in there for our political and religious thinking. Some people never dare to look in a new direction.
Pissaro painted this garden many times. He kept turning to face a different direction within the same garden. Maybe there's a metaphor in there for our political and religious thinking. Some people never dare to look in a new direction.
Here we see the garden wall and a couple of paths that lead throughout. If we look closely we can see the brushstrokes which cause the trees to quiver. This front part of the garden grows cabbages, vine tomatoes or pole beans. Something vine-y grows on a trellis behind the tall tree on the left. But what is new in Pissarro's images is that he almost always includes people in his landscapes. People are never spoilers - they make the painting happen. Here, the gardener is bent over and his wife stands next to him with the basket waiting to be filled.
Bending over is a devotional, even liturgical gesture. But our work can be (should be) consecrated to God. My Catholic boyhood days always began with a class recitation of The Morning Offering- the giving of the day's efforts to the glory and purposes of God. And Ora et Labora is the monk's motto: the day's balance of prayer and work.
But I'd suggest it's really this inclusion of people in the first place that matters the most. Some people live a kind of religion that's not very inclusive of others. Or it only includes people who are of the same doctrines, disciplines, colors and kinds. Why is that? Isn't religion supposed to change and evolve us - not just give us items to believe in (which is a very low level of religion) but grow us up in the heart?
William McLeod is a 9 year old Catholic boy in Utah. When he arrived a little late for class on Ash Wednesday, having been to Mass, his teacher told him at once that the black cross on his forehead was "inappropriate" and had to come off. He tried to teach the teacher about the meaning of the sign, ("We're getting ready for Easter") but she handed him one of those wipes we pull out of a plastic can and either took it off herself or directed him to do it. His classmates watched as he dissolved into tears.
Jesus wants us to know that religion without the sensitive companionship and care of others isn't much of a religion. And yet, lots of Christians are causing tears or tolerating the tears of others - watching, tysk-ing or shaking their heads, but not saying or doing anything about it. "The Catholic blogger world is a cesspool of hate," the Vatican director of social media said.
Remember the songs Fred Rogers taught us: I Like Someone Who Looks Like You! It's You I Like. Won't You Be My Neighbor? I Like You Just the Way You Are. These song-themes are about the radical inclusion of others. Maybe we should sing some of them at Sunday Mass. Pissaro shares these ideas gently too in dozens of paintings - but today, in the kitchen garden.
Remember the songs Fred Rogers taught us: I Like Someone Who Looks Like You! It's You I Like. Won't You Be My Neighbor? I Like You Just the Way You Are. These song-themes are about the radical inclusion of others. Maybe we should sing some of them at Sunday Mass. Pissaro shares these ideas gently too in dozens of paintings - but today, in the kitchen garden.
