When What Is Buried Comes Alive Again

A Garden Project Reflection Inspired by For the Sake of Our Children by Léandre Bergeron

By Josh Singleton | Founder and Lead Cultivator, The Neighborhood Garden Project

In For the Sake of Our Children, Léandre Bergeron calls himself a rebel. He says the rebel in him was the worst kind of creature for the men who wore the black robes. That rebellion never left him. It was the same strength that allowed him to tell his parents in 1949 that he was quitting the Juniorate and never returning. The response was fear, shame, and condemnation. His parents spoke curses over him. They warned him of eternal punishment. And then came the final consequence. He was told to go alone and tell the Superior he would not be returning.

He writes that he set off joyfully. He knew it was his liberation. He knew his parents were sending him to speak the truth they were too afraid to face. His rebellion was not a flaw. It was a signal. Something inside him knew the institution around him was suffocating who he truly was. His energy, curiosity, voice, and identity did not fit into a world built on fear. His rebellion was the beginning of freedom.

Later, Bergeron reflects on how this same rebellious spirit seemed to disappear every summer when he worked on Mr. Charrière’s farm. He wondered how rebellion could live so loudly in one environment and soften so quickly in another. He answers his own question. The farmer was respectful, austere, and gentle. He did not command or control him. He simply gave him real work and invited his energy. On the farm, rebellion dissolved. Not because it was disciplined away, but because it finally had room to breathe.

This reveals something we often overlook.
Rebellion is not always resistance. Rebellion is often communication. Rebellion is invitation.

People who seem resistant in tightly controlled spaces often settle when they step into real work and real space. They are not trying to disrupt. They are revealing that the environment does not match their design. What looks like defiance is often a buried identity trying to surface. The garden is one of the few places where this becomes clear. Those who arrive wound up, withdrawn, or reactive become grounded once the pressure lifts. They settle because the soil respects who they are.

Children rarely have the language to explain this. Adults rarely do either. We are not designed to express what’s happening inside of us only through words. God built us to communicate through movement, reaction, and presence. Children do it through energy, curiosity, and rebellion. Adults do it through anxiety, control, distraction, or over-responsibility. The signals look different, but the root is the same. When the environment presses against our design, something in us pushes back.

Some people arrive at the garden wound up.
Some arrive withdrawn.
Some arrive hyper-responsible.
Some arrive exhausted.
Some arrive over-explaining.
Some arrive carrying decades of quiet tension.

The soil receives all of it the same way it receives a restless child. Without judgment. Without expectation. Without pressure. The garden respects the person in front of it, no matter their age. And because of that, people begin to settle. Shoulders drop. Breathing deepens. Internal noise quiets. Curiosity returns. Presence returns. Parts of them that have been buried for years begin to surface again.

It does not happen because people try harder.
It happens because the pressure lifts.
Because the environment aligns with design.
Because the body and spirit finally have room to breathe.

This is why the garden does not just cultivate vegetables. It cultivates people. Young and old.
The same invitation that softens rebellion in a child softens anxiety in an adult.
The same spaciousness that helps a kid come alive helps adults remember who they were before the weight settled on them.

Parents often miss this because we carry our own pressure. We tell our kids to behave, be respectful, calm down, do this, stop that. Most of it comes from fear of being judged or the need to appear in control. We want to look responsible. We want to look capable. We want to feel secure. I know this because I have done it with my own boys. The garden showed me what I was placing on them. Their behavior was not the issue. My pressure was.

When families step into the garden, they begin to unwind. They feel the weight they have been carrying. They see their children differently. They see themselves differently. The garden invites them into peace. It gives adults the same room to breathe that it gives children. What is buried in us begins to rise just like it does in them.

Bergeron’s story reminds us of a simple truth.
Rebellion in a person is rarely the problem. It is usually the clue.

It tells us where there is misalignment.
It tells us where pressure is too high.
It tells us where identity is trying to surface.
It tells us where becoming is trying to happen.

The Garden Project is becoming a place where people are not corrected into conformity but invited into freedom. A place where parents are not asked to perform but welcomed to rest. A place where God restores what fear has buried. A place where the soil and the Spirit teach the same lesson. Becoming happens when there is room to breathe.

And when people of all ages begin to come alive again, everything around them is cultivated too.