Soul Gardening [Paperback]

Terry Hershey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1999

This book is about what it means to be a soul gardener. Reading it is not unlike walking in a garden-where it feels good to be alive, where we sit for a while and talk about what we learn there-which allows us to be more fully human. Terry Hershey recounts experiences from his own life, using the metaphor of gardening to speak to our longing for spiritual growth, a healthy lifestyle, and a more centered life. Enriched by Bible quotations and spiritual classics, his stories will lead you to new insights into the kind of life the Creator intends for us. The soul gardening exercises will lead you to your own experiences of the wonder and beauty of daily life. Soul Gardening will not make you a gardener. But it will nurture your soul, teach you how to live, and renew your sense of what it means to live the good life. It is about appreciating the ordinary gifts of grace, the value of solitude, the art of listening and the healing power of nature. Finding the balance between loving and losing, creating a sane lifestyle, being fully awake and alive and the value of slowing down the gift of seeing God's world with new eyes.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Don't turn to former-minister-turned-garden-enthusiast Terry Hershey for instructions on how to prune, weed, or fertilize; turn to him for guidance on how to open your heart to the rhythms of the garden. Likewise, look here not for listings of plants or tools, but for advice on how to slow down enough to appreciate the space between your door and the garden gate.

"My garden placed me squarely in the world of sun and moon, wind and rain, soil and water, insects and animals, summer and winter," writes Hershey, who goes on to tell the story of how cultivating a garden changed him from a hard-charging, success-driven minister to a guy who spends sunny mornings wrestling with his dog and child on the dew-laden grass. After becoming "unraveled by an iris" he sighted while rafting down the Colorado River, Hershey became enthralled by the wonder and the madness of creating a garden.

Hershey feels that gardeners have a chance to go through life fully awake, if they'll just slow down long enough to savor their gardens. "Gardening can be strong medicine," he writes, "an elixir that nurtures and shapes the soul." Unfortunately, even while living on a rural island in Puget Sound, Washington, Hershey sees that gardening, just like so much else in life, has become a competitive activity, an excuse for haste, worry, and overwork. In an attempt to counteract the rush toward accomplishment, Hershey celebrates not just the joy of discovering plants and digging in the dirt but also the profundity of resting on a bench beneath a honeysuckle vine. He remains deeply committed to just sitting in the garden, and in this wise and heartfelt book, he invites all of us to join him. --Valerie Easton

Review

"God is in the details. Inspiring, invigorating, and spiritually moving. I would buy it and live in it." -- Dr. Alan Loy McGinnis, author of The Balanced Life

"Life is a garden. Exquisite beauty is everywhere-and Terry Hershey's writing will help you adjust your lens in order to see it, feel it, and be grateful. A magnificant book." -- Harold Ivan Smith, D. Min., author of Decembered Grief: Living with Loss When Others Are Celebrating

"When I looked up from reading Soul Gardening, I was surprised to find myself in my living room and not in Mr. Hershey's garden. This is not just a book. It's an experience." -- Barbara DeGrote-Sorensen, author of Six Weeks to a Simpler Lifestyle

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 168 pages
• Publisher: AUGSBURG BOOKS (December 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0806640375
• ISBN-13: 978-0806640372
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #277,504 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Terry Hershey is a writer, inspirational speaker and founder of Hershey & Associates, an organization that provides resources on building balanced lives and healthy relationships. Terry is also a professional landscape designer who savors daily pauses in his personal garden behind his home on Vashon Island, Washington, where he lives with his wife and son. He is the author of ten books, including The Power of Pause: Becoming More by Doing Less (Loyola Press), Sacred Necessities (Ave Maria), and Soul Gardening: Cultivating the Good Life (Augsburg Fortress).

To read Terry, or to hear him on his audio book, The Power of Pause, is not just to gain information. It is an experience. And everywhere Terry speaks, the feedback is unanimous, "Terry Hershey was truly humorous and enlightening all in one. He gave us permission to be embraced by grace. He was truly a highlight of our year!"

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very good read, March 14, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Soul Gardening (Paperback)

I have just read your book Soul Gardening. Enthused would be an understatement. I could not put it down and even now as I write I am eager to return to its pages. Bravo! I have been looking for a long time to have a book compel me, voila; Soul Gardening appears. I want to go work in the garden, take rest in my Adirondack, read your reflections and let the work of my hands baptize its pages. It is a honest, earthy, spiritually insightful book that needs its special shelf among the plants and tools of my garden and my soul. I love it!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You motivated me to live life to the fullest, October 3, 2001

By 

Aubrey Hasse (Falls Church, VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Soul Gardening (Paperback)

Thank you from the quiet moments in my soul, for your book Soul Gardening. I would like to tell you how I, Aubrey Hasse, ended up reading your book and what it has meant to me.
I grew up in the country in East Texas in a single parent home with my Mother and brother, Jacob. For three years now I have lived around Falls Church, VA and attended Columbia Baptist Church with my husband, John.
You spoke at a conference here just recently after my life turned upside down. January 2nd I reported my brother missing to the authorities in Temple, Texas. After
doing all that could be done John and I came home. Only days later we returned to bury my 20-year-old brother and try to understand why he and a friend had been murdered.
Before knowing about the conference, John planned to do something for himself; yet he was after me to attend. I spent most of that Saturday just being alone and quiet, but for 5 minutes while walking by the Church (we lived 1 block away) I
came in the back door and sat in the hall listening. The topic was keeping the Sabbath. I may have gotten just as much in those 5 minutes as those in your audience. I left because being with so many people was not easy that day. That Sunday you
spoke about church people needing each other. I really needed those around me and you encouraged me to be able to ask.
John was trying to help but began to drive me crazy with "you need to read this." In 2 weeks he bought 3 books that I needed to read "right away." I did not even have enough time to read the book I wanted. One of those books was Soul
Gardening. I made no connection between the speaker at the conference and the author.
I opened the book and saw the little flowers and thought I could productively read one of those sections a day. Shortly there after, I found myself in your garden watching the hummingbirds and relaxing. In reality, I was sitting in Washington, DC with construction, cars and concrete all around me after a stressful day at work. I could not put the book down.
Your book helped me relax and remember being a kid. On page 29 you said, "I came face to face with a part of myself that had been missing. And I liked what I saw." I wrote in the corner, "I remember sitting in the soft green clover, staring out
over the hills, and slanted tree in the front yard, and life in the country." This life was full of my memories of Jacob and they were heart warming.
Reading your book helped me look into my soul amidst great pain. My brother, Jacob, lived life to the fullest. Your words motivated me to live that life. I am also glad you spoke directly about death. As Jacob was the first time someone close to me had died, I still have a hard time understanding the reality of what that means.
In short, I picked up your book because my husband made me. I continued reading it because it was not churchy. Today, I am better for it.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I have found something rare--clarity!. . .on contentment, December 12, 2000

By 

Mark Triplett (Minneapolis, MN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Soul Gardening (Paperback)

I just finished 'Soul Gardening'. I took the author's advise on page 36 and "put down the book" and spent some time... Well, I just laid back on the ottoman and began to look up, studying the ceiling above me, and my mind began to drift off to a peaceful, fanciful playground. I imagined the texture likened to that of a landscape as viewed from space, and I was flying. I just stayed there, absorbing the richness of the moment (per Terry's instructions, of course) and I truly felt a release of calm, peace, 'permission from within' to invest myself in that. Something else happened as well. I can't explain it, but one of my cats (the one we call Princess Sophie-Ann, a sassy Royal Brat), jumped up onto my chest and began pawing my chest and purring with eyes squinted and chin jutting out as if inviting a kiss. This cat has NEVER done anything even remotely affectionate -- to anyone! Perhaps she noticed something different in me just then. Hmmm. I must say, in just a few pages of this wonderful book I have gained more than just information or instruction. I have found something rare -- clarity!--on 'contentment'. Thanks to'Brother Hershey', for investing time in his garden, and in his writing, which has found it's way into my life.