When we were living in Scotland we discovered that Scots use the term “garden” when we in the US would say “yard”. We tend to use “garden” to refer to areas for growing vegetables, fruits, and flowers. All this reminds us of the Garden of Eden story. In that story the humans were placed in the garden “to work and take care of it” (NIV). Now the whole earth is our garden. Are we taking proper care of it? We certainly work it or even overwork it. Taking care of the earth is a more difficult task. We struggle to find the balance between use and preservation. Short term profit can look very tempting when longer term caution may be costly or inconvenient. Something as simple as recycling takes a degree of dedication to detail to maintain. Bigger solutions to our care for our “big” garden demands not only our individual participation, but also more cooperative action. We do not have agreement on what needs to be done to keep our world at its best. Political pressures also complicate our desire to care for the earth. Can we together find ways to wisely keep a balance between “working” the garden and “taking care” of it? What is increasingly clear is that it is foolish to simply close our eyes and hope for the best. Like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, we are called to use, but not abuse the garden God has given us.