Lucas' Secret Garden

The door is finally open to the Secret Garden.
For nine steady years, Jesuit Father Tom Lucas of the University of San Francisco has kept the Jesuit community garden green as green can be--at least for San Francisco.  Many students refer to it as the Secret Garden Lucas said, but its really just part of the Jesuit community.

The garden is composed of symmetry, olive and pare trees, open spaces, fountains, fish, compost heaps and the occasional raccoon and red-tailed hawk.  The Jesuit community uses this Californian/Mediterranean garden for recollection, relaxation, and good times in the sunshine. Although the garden has English and European stylings, an American Weber BBQ keeps the Jesuits satisfied; as does the view. 

Father Lucas said a gives you room to reflect and breath in a city.  A garden slows you down because you can't rush the plants--they grow when they grow.  However, Father Lucas added that is takes strategic and tactical planning on what stays and what goes for the future health of the garden.  "You have to take the time to enjoy it though." 

On Friday afternoons, Father Lucas spends quality time with the garden.  He waters the plants and prunes their foliage while pondering his own life and life in general.  Sometimes before-hand, he enjoys a cigar.  The garden he says, is a temporal art form and a dynamic process that he sees as one of the best things man has come up with.

His perspective in one that nature always wins out, but it is best when man and nature can find a balance.  After all he says, a garden was the place of original innocence, but also of the knowledge of good and evil.  We must all find a balance in life.