The Theologians of Grace, Place, and Space

The Christian Witness of Gertrude Jekyll and Edward Lutyens

by Reader ADEDOYIN TERIBA

And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs — Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings. - From “God’s Grandeur” by Gerard Manley Hopkins

One of the most intriguing aspects of our faith is the way Christ creates and sustains the universe. A prayer we often recite describes him as “everywhere present and filling all things.” Thus, to study creation through Christ’s kenosis and grace is to study an aspect of reality that He shares with us. Put differently, to study or even commune with a flower is to commune with God through His grace. The use of the word “commune” here is intentional, since communion is synonymous with another word: “prayer.” Perhaps we can say that appreciating God’s cosmos is a form of prayer; and if, as St. Evagrius says, “one who prays is a theologian and a theologian is one who prays,” then we are all theologians.

Two brilliant artists from the nineteenth century, the gardener Gertrude Jekyll and the architect Edward Lutyens, can help bring this into focus for us. We might call them theologians of grace, place, and space. Or perhaps it might be more succinct to say Jekyll and Lutyens were priests of grace through space and place. The philosopher Martin Heidegger once said that not all spaces are places. When a space assumes a character, it becomes a place. Jekyll and Lutyens created an English place—a marriage of the British landscape with British architecture that embodied God’s grace.

Gardens at Le Bois des Moutiers in Normandy, France Plaque at the Holy Island Lindisfarne Jekyll Garden painting.

But who were they? Gertrude Jekyll (“Geeekerll” is how the English pronounce her last name) was born in London in 1843. She was a painter before becoming a gardener. Her gardens are known for their painterly quality; she painstakingly juxtaposed flowers whose colors completed one another. She continued to design gardens even after giving up watercolor due to her failing eyesight, at the age of 48. Some scholars claim that part of the colorful nature of her gardens was due to her disability. Sometimes those with weak eyesight have more sight to see than those who can physically see. But there was also a spiritual component in her work; she was able to look at landscapes with a vision of how creation could be offered back to God as a form of thanksgiving. Her writings are littered with allusions to Holy Scripture, defending the human need for beauty and nature. Hence, one can call her a public theologian, offering God’s creation back to Him in praise in a way that benefits all those who go to her gardens.

Her designs have had an incalculable impact on horticulture and garden design in England and the U.S. In the U.K., many of her gardens have become part of the group known as the Royal Gardens, accessible to the public and under the financial stewardship of the British government. Some of the most outstanding gardens she designed are the Hestercombe Gardens and Hartland Abbey Gardens (the Abbey was built in 1157, but Gertrude designed the garden at the turn of the twentieth century).

Edward Lutyens (1869-1944) was one of the most important British architects of the turn of the twentieth century. He created a modernist house type that was both humane, reflecting the tradition of the English townhouse, and innovative for its time. In other words, he made the traditional English country home newly relevant. He also designed prominent public buildings in India, which was then a British colony. He embodied the old vision of what tradition meant: not something archaic, but ever changing, ever innovating; the fountain of youth that springs eternal.

She and Lutyens met when he was 20 and she was 46, and thus began a collaboration for the ages, namely in marrying gardening and architecture. The metaphor that comes to mind is a hand in a glove. Both of them saw the home and the garden as part of a single entity that was a place. Some of their designs were deeply enmeshed: at the Hestercombe Gardens, for instance, the flora wraps around part of the building, forming the “cover” for parts of the houses. To say I love the homes and gardens they designed would be an understatement. Their projects have made me rethink what architecture is. For me architecture has now become both structure and landscape. In the best designs, these components are interwoven and delight in one another. They show the Trinity, three loving Persons, one in essence. Hence the goal of architecture, its ultimate telos, is to reveal the Trinity. Vegetation, flowers, and vines can clothe architecture like a garment. They show the Lord robed in majesty.

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. (Matthew 6:28-29)

Jekyll and Lutyens’ collaborations, joining houses and gardens, cannot be described effectively, only experienced. They are heavenly, showing the manifold wisdom of God. There are ramifications in all of this for our own lives. Is this not what we are called to do—to ascend and descend the ladder that leads to heaven? Is not the Mother of God the ladder to the Anointed One—the Christos? We venerate the Mother of God because her obedience led to the revelation of Christ’s humanity in His taking on of her flesh. It showed how the grace of God took on a concrete form. The grace of God displays itself all around us in concrete ways in the beauty of architecture and gardens. Every time an architect and landscape designer create something beautiful, they participate in the grace of God, obedient to the promptings of the Holy Spirit (as Mary heeded the word spoken to her by Gabriel). Hence, in their partnership, Jekyll and Lutyens obeyed the call to create beautiful places.

Let us be inspired by their example and look for God’s glory in the gardens all around us. My spiritual parents at Princeton showed me the glory of flowers at Pascha. It led me to ask myself, what beautiful flowers exist in my home country of Nigeria? Why can I not create gardens of delight in Nigeria and in the United States? This is all to say: go to those Chinese gardens; go to those Italian villas; go to a botanical garden near you; go and see the logoi in nature, which is part of the Logos. Why can’t we be theologians of grace, space, and place in our own back yards?

RDR. ADEDOYIN (THEOGENES) TERIBA is an assistant professor of art and urban studies at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. He is a tonsured reader at St. Gregory the Theologian Orthodox Church in Wappingers Falls, New York.