Jobs Garden
From Oregon Hikers Field Guide
- Hikes to this destination:
- Fall Creek Falls Hike (TH | <— —> | LOG)
- Weather forecast: NWS/NOAA
- Maps: Oregon Hikers Maps Google Maps
- Latitude, Longitude: 43.31652, -122.83661
- Elevation: 1235 feet
Description
Jobs Garden is a field of jumbled talus at the base of a collapsed columnar basalt face shaded by big-leaf maples, Douglas-firs, and Pacific madrones. These ancient rocks are part of the Old Cascades, formed over 15 million years ago (as compared to the stratovolcanoes of the High Cascades, most of which are less than one million years old). Ongoing processes of folding have caused these basalt structures to twist and collapse.
The place was named by a Forest Service ranger who was reminded of the garden metaphor in the Book of Job. Job was a prosperous man from Uz, but an evil angel (Satan) challenged his faith in God, telling God that it was only because of God's protection of Job. God took away his protections, telling the angel to do anything he wanted to Job save kill him. Satan has Job's livestock stolen and most of his servants killed; all of his children perish when a building collapses. Job agonizes but does not renounce God, illustrating the challenges of faith when gratuitous misfortune hits. His friend Bildad the Shuhite comforts him:
13 Such is the destiny of all who forget God;
so perishes the hope of the godless.
14 What they trust in is fragile;
what they rely on is a spider’s web.
15 They lean on the web, but it gives way;
they cling to it, but it does not hold.
16 They are like a well-watered plant in the sunshine,
spreading its shoots over the garden;
17 it entwines its roots around a pile of rocks
and looks for a place among the stones.
18 But when it is torn from its spot,
that place disowns it and says, ‘I never saw you.’
19 Surely its life withers away,
and from the soil other plants grow.
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Contributors
- bobcat (creator)