"What is most needed in our time are Christians who are deeply serious about cultivating and creating, but who wear that seriousness lightly--who are not desperately trying to change the world but who also wake up every morning eager to create" (12).
According to Ken Myers, this nebulous undefinable thing we call culture is "our relentless, restless human effort to take the world as it's given to us and make something else" (23).
And by making things, we shape the horizons of the possible.
Literally, nothing would be possible for human beings without culture. Everything from language to interstate highways to egg omelets is a product of cultivation and intentionality. Our existence here means we will be culture shapers.
...which is really cool, because embracing the responsibility to create culture is most central element of your human design. "The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it" (Gen 2:15). Andy Crouch in Culture Making says, "Without the task of gardening--cultivating, tending, ruling and creating using the bountiful raw material of nature--the woman and man would have nothing to do, nothing to be" (35).
We were always made to fulfill this noble, kind of exciting mandate to create, participate, and share. The question is, how will we go about doing it?
What's your "garden?"
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