How to Plant a Garden in Babylon

Small acts of rooted resistance when the world feels like exile

How to Plant a Garden in Babylon

Small acts of rooted resistance when the world feels like exile

Note: This post was originally written during the early protests in Los Angeles responding to the ICE raids. I know I’m sharing it a few weeks late, but honestly, insert whatever breaking news is happening as you read this. The names and headlines change, but the ache is the same.

No matter the details, one thing remains true:
We are living in Babylon.

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Everything Feels Like Too Much!

What do you do when everything feels like too much?
The ICE raids.
The protests and unrest erupting in Los Angeles.
The images flooding our screens, buildings burning, people running, families weeping.

And now the president sending in National Guard troops and even Marines,
Framing the whole thing as a fight to be won rather than a wound to be healed.

The media loops the loudest moments,
Painting protests with the broad brush of violence,
Ignoring the thousands gathered in peace,
Kneeling in prayer,
Marching in love,
Weeping for justice.
It’s disorienting.
It’s exhausting.

And it’s tempting to turn it off entirely, not because you don’t care,
But because your heart just can’t carry all of it.

If you feel paralyzed,
You’re not alone.
You’re not weak.
You might just be in Babylon.

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This Is Babylon

Not the ancient city.
But the spiritual reality,
Where injustice reigns,
Where cruelty is institutionalized,
Where power serves itself and calls it peace.

And in times like these, the question bubbles up:
Is there any point in hoping anymore?
What does resistance even look like when the world is on fire?

For some, it looks like protest, courageously showing up in the streets.
For others, it’s organizing, writing, donating, protecting.

But there’s another kind of resistance too, one that doesn’t trend,
But still tears at the foundations of Babylon.

This post is about that kind of resistance.
The slow, sacred kind.

The kind Jeremiah spoke of when Israel was exiled,
When their temple was gone, their homes destroyed, their future uncertain.
Into that devastation, God says something strange:

“Build houses and live in them. Plant gardens and eat what they produce…Seek the welfare of the city to which I’ve exiled you.” (Jeremiah 29:5–7)

Plant a garden.
In Babylon.

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Wait, What?

You’d think God would say:

• Rise up.

• Escape.

• Tear it all down.

But instead,

• Stay rooted.

• Create beauty.

• Feed people.

• Work for the good of where you are.

Even when “where you are” is painful.
Even when it feels like the empire is winning.

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Resistance Doesn’t Always Look Like Protest. Sometimes It Looks Like Presence.

Planting a garden isn’t flashy.
It won’t trend.
It won’t feel like enough.
But it is resistance.

Because in Babylon:

• Beauty is resistance.

• Generosity is resistance.

• Community is resistance.

• Forgiveness is resistance.

• Continuing to love when cynicism is easier?

That’s holy rebellion.
And all of it adds up.

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Faithfulness Is Not a Strategy for Winning. It’s the Way of the Kingdom.

In our culture of urgency and performance,
Planting anything small feels irrelevant.

But Jesus taught us that the Kingdom is like:

• Yeast

• Seeds

• Mustard plants

Quiet growth no one notices, until everything changes.

We’re not here to take back Babylon.
We’re here to break it open,
With small, slow, steady signs of New Creation.

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What’s a Garden You Can Plant?

Maybe it’s:

• Listening to your child instead of doom-scrolling outrage

• Organizing a community meal with people who don’t agree with you

• Choosing to stop reposting fear and start practicing hope

• Praying for a leader you didn’t vote for

• Giving your time to someone who can’t repay you

• Forgiving someone who hurt you deeply

• Starting something tiny that won’t impress anyone but will heal someone

That’s what gardens in exile look like.
They don’t make headlines.
But they make room for the Kingdom.

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Guiding Question

• What’s one small, beautiful thing I can nurture in the middle of the world’s noise?

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This isn’t about withdrawing.
It’s about refusing to let Babylon shape your soul.
It’s about resisting the empire by becoming more human, not less.

So plant something.
Tend something.
Heal something.

Just hit reply and tell me what garden you’re planting.
This is how we begin.
Together.

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