The God of the Garden, by Andrew Peterson 

A mini review of The God of the Garden:  Thoughts on Creation, Culture, and the Kingdom, a memoir by one of my favorite singer-songwriters, Andrew Peterson.

The delight of a memoir is in making connection with one’s own life—the question, “What? You too?!” answered in the affirmative. I resonated with Peterson’s expression of his deep childhood loneliness caused, in part, by frequent moves. His poignant descriptions of his own and his parents’ current woodland homes reminded me of my own rural upbringing. (I had to struggle against grief as I again processed emotions about our own recent move to a big city.) His writings about depression, again, stirred up difficult memories. And yet, he managed to leave me with hope, not only for Andrew’s future, but for this broken world’s future.

Did Peterson intend to write about me? Hardly! But his writing is so evocative as he searches through his own memories that it stirs up the reader’s memories as well. Peterson says this book is about trees. And he does spend many pages writing about trees: their beauty, their history, their use as imagery in the Bible. Yet The God of the Garden is far more than that. It searches out our connections with place and time, and chronicles one man’s longing for Eden. 

I listened to The God of the Garden read by the author on Audible, and I really recommend that format. Why? As much as I love seeing the written words on the page (and these are beautiful words!), when Andrew quotes from his song lyrics he actually plays the album version of the song. Tears came to my eyes as he told the story behind the ballad of Jody Baxter and then the song played. (I’d never really understood the song before reading this book. Now, it’s become one of my favorite songs.)

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Favorite Quotes from The God of the Garden:

“We all know that we’re as broken as the world, victims and villains all of us.”

Andrew Peterson, God of the Garden

“If the grief persists…then what good is the gospel? Because we do not grieve as those without hope.” (Paraphrasing C.S. Lewis and the Bible.)

Andrew Peterson, God of the Garden

“Ah, the suburbs. That slice of America where we name subdivisions after the trees we have cut down to build them…”

Andrew Peterson, God of the Garden

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