About Us

Rebuilding the Garden of Eden: The Garden Project

Our Vision

We envision a Garden in a place of great natural beauty and situated in a salubrious climate with substantial acreage, sufficient water, and arable land. The location should provide a means for the community to generate its own energy from water, solar, or wind. Botanical gardens will embellish the center, and organic vegetable gardens will produce healthy, nutritious foods for visitors and community members. Environmentally sustainable simple garden-type dwellings which blend into the natural landscape will be utilized for facilities and homes.

The Garden is inspired by the philosophy of the Urantia Book but will welcome members of all faiths who seek to do the Divine Will and live together in harmonious ways. It will serve as a training center for spiritual leaders and foster an exchange with spirit-led ambassadors from other spiritual communities around the globe. The Garden will model the experience of spiritual unity without theologic uniformity and create a space where people of diverse faiths may worship the Universal One Source and Center together.

A spiritual retreat center in the Garden will be utilized as a facility for hosting conferences and retreats for spiritually oriented organizations, and this will help generate income to maintain the center. The same facility may function as a center for training spiritual leaders at certain times of the year.

Governance in the Garden will be administered by an elected group of Garden Councilors providing shared and appropriate governance for all stakeholders in the Garden. A variety of UB-affiliated groups may collaborate in sharing land use and facilities in the Garden while remaining autonomous entities.

The Garden Council will have selected a site for the project and launched a fund raising drive by July 2011. While acknowledging the inherent difficulties in projecting a timeline for future events, we hope to have raised sufficient funds to purchase the proposed site by the end of 2011, and will have identified volunteers to participate on a variety of strategic planning committees focused on the critical components of the project, i.e., agriculture, energy, worship, community governance, arts, training of spiritual leaders, service outreach, etc. Proposed activities after site purchase include:

18 months:

Strategic planning committees will have developed and submitted detailed plans to the commissioners for their approval. Initial agricultural and botanical gardens will be underway. Simple residential facilities for youth leadership training will be in place, and short term training camps will begin to be offered. Plans for service activities in the neighborhood will be implemented and young leaders in training will be encouraged to participate. Worship services will be a daily activity when there are people on the property. A design for community development will be in place and small building sites will be offered for sale, initially to the original contributors and then to others. The art center and the fresh produce raised as well as the sale of building sites and the offering of spiritual retreats will help subsidize costs.

The first simple residences will appear on the property of those who would like to live in the Garden. Healthy organic food will be raised on the property, and a system providing for energy generation for the community will be functioning. Youth who are interested in being trained as spiritual leaders will volunteer their time in the gardens and art center for room and board while in residence. They will also participate with other community members in service activities in neighboring areas. A fresh air Temple to the Father will be built to hold worship services. Spiritually minded ‘artists-in-residence’ will contribute to an art center, perhaps utilizing the plans and substantive art collection offered by a magnanimous donor as a foundation of art for the Garden.

5 years:

The art center will now include a facility/museum to house works of art, which, along with beautiful grounds and botanicals may attract outsiders to visit the Garden for paid admission. A simple health care facility incorporating the best of traditional medicine and spiritual healing will be on the grounds. Daily worship will be an important part of life in the community, and resident contemplatives will pray for the Garden in addition to other contributions. A training facility for leaders will now operate year round and begin sending forth a flow of "new apostles" who can help regenerate a spiritual and sustainable renaissance on the planet. Many who teach in the training facility will reside in the Garden. Service opportunities and projects both in the neighborhood and internationally will abound and a network of exchange and internet connection will begin to build between the Garden and other spiritual communities around the globe. Men and women will be equally involved in decision making through a system of community governance. The Garden will be environmentally self-sustaining, growing all of its own food and producing its own energy.