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4 Corners Festival 2025: Nearer to God in a Garden?


Three weeks ago, Knockbreda Community Garden, an initiative of Cornerstone Methodist Church on Rosetta Road in south east Belfast, hosted two groups of visitors as part of this year’s 4 Corners Festival. The previous morning, as part of the Radio Ulster Service from St. John’s Parish in west Belfast, I interviewed Jillyna Hines, a leader in the project:

DAVID: Please introduce yourself and tell us a little about the project and the event tomorrow…

JILLAYNA: Hello David, my name is Jillayna Hines and I work for the Methodist church alongside my husband David, looking at ways to invest and support the community around where we call home. A few years back, a small team of us from the local area started to dream about a community garden and now, nearly 5 years later, we are delighted to host an event in the festival, taking a tour of interested folk around our raised beds, our wildlife pond and into the orchard – there will be storytelling, poetry, songs and maybe a few worms to discover in the compost… we’re really looking forward to it.

DAVID: Why a garden? It’s not a common sort of thing for a church to get involved in...

JILLAYNA: Yeah, It was around the time of Covid 19 when the feeling of isolation and disconnect was at an all time high, and what used to be called Knockbreda Methodist Church had a patch of ground that had at one time been an allotment, but had been left derelict for many years, except for a small patch that had been faithfully tended by William a local green thumb. And so a few friends started to talk about how we could develop it into more of a community space and what has come out of that very overgrown and neglected patch of earth has been beyond what we could have imagined. Norman Wirzba, a brilliant agrarian theologian, has often said that every church should have a community garden – churches are often land rich but people poor.

So when you are brave enough to give the land away to the community, it can become a sacred place of laughter and learning, connection with one another and the earth. Every week when I am there, digging or weeding or chatting with cups of tea in hand I’m reminded again that the very ground we have the privilege of working with is imbued with holiness.

DAVID: What benefits have you seen come out of it?

JILLAYNA: For me, over these past 4 years the garden has become a place where I have been able to live out this beautiful rhythm that Robin Wall Kimmerer calls the gift of reciprocity – grace given and grace received. I get to nurture the earth that nurtures me. And I listen to stories from my neighbours, and their lives enrich mine. Where the compost pile has become a never ending mystery in which you can see the other side of death, and you dig beside friends and neighbours whose tears of grief or pain water the ground and our laughter nestles under the trees.         

I think in the garden, I realise my vulnerability, that humans, like the plants that we tend are limited beings… and that is good. The bees and the broad beans and the tadpoles teach us that there is no such thing as ‘life alone’ – we are all inextricably linked…we are made from the soil and we depend upon all the creatures and organisms in the soil to survive.        And how when we become involved in the making, in creating, we become aware of ‘our place’, ‘our home’ – it has offered connection and community and an awareness of the earth on which we depend.  

DAVID: I think that all the places for tomorrow’s event have already been booked... indeed am I right to think that we have had to schedule a second one for the afternoon, largely to accommodate a group from the Bog Meadows ladies group in this part of the city?

JILLAYNA: Yes! We’re planning on a tour in the morning and then one again in the afternoon – fingers crossed for good weather!         

DAVID: No such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing! But given the tours are full tomorrow, how can people get involved or learn how to do something similar in their corner of the city or beyond?

JILLAYNA: We love people coming to the garden – so drop by anytime and we can swap stories and experiences – we have volunteers there every Tuesday and Saturday mornings and Wednesday Evenings. Drop in and meet the team of volunteers and the tadpoles – it’s a special place.

I can confirm that it is a special place, and I suspect both groups who visited on the Monday of the 4 Corners Festival would concur. You can check out Knockbreda Community Garden on Facebook and Instagram if you are interested in finding out more.

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