Trying to Practice Enough

There was leftover trout in the fridge.  Its local trout from our CSA - farmed, caught and cleaned by a local trout farmer.  Still good.  Still fresh.

The kids didn't want to eat it (they didn't want to eat it the first time it appeared on our table a few days ago).  My husband didn't want to eat it.  Frankly, I didn't want to eat it either.

But the class, the readings, the Earth herself, is having its effect on me.  I had the idea of making a sandwich, like my mother used to make with canned salmon.  Making a salad - similar to a tuna salad - with trout, mayonnaise, pickles, some Jalepeno Brew (another local product, mustard with a kick) - spreading it on bread with cheese, tomato for me because no one else likes them(one of the farmers in our CSA has a hothouse and we have local, organic, heirloom tomatoes!!), popping it in the oven and letting the cheese brown.  An open faced trout melt.

I got some bread from 'bread day' at Eden - a lovely multigrain baguette.  Threw together some potato soup to go along with it (not local, but stuff we had in the pantry and the fridge).  It was really really good.  And quick.  Devin, who only managed a single bite of the trout the first time, had three pieces.  Tom also enjoyed it.  I feel a bit smug.

But there are still leftovers in my fridge, threatening to go bad.  The manna past its due date.  One victory is followed by a dozen failures.  But consciousness begins to change.  And the Earth's voice begins to sing.  And maybe, just maybe, it really is possible that things could change.  Maybe not in time to save the polar bears.  But just maybe . . . in time to save a few things.  Maybe humanity.  Maybe we can save enough.  Or what could someday, after grief and repentance and true humility, become enough.  Not what we had.  But enough.

Material Spirituality v. Materialism

Soil for legs

Axe for hands

Flower for eyes

Bird for ears

Mushroom for nose

Smile for mouth

Songs for lungs

Sweat for skin

Wind for mind

Just enough.

                      Nanao Sakaki

                                                             Earth Prayers From Around the World

I wonder what the connection is with "material spirituality", acknowledging the presence of God in materiality - or at the least, the fact that all material things are gifts from God. - verses trying to fill the empty spaces in our lives with 'stuff' - 'stuff' that has been religiously devalued as 'material' instead of 'spiritual' so that it has no hopes of filling what is achingly empty.  What if instead of trying to disavow ourselves completely of 'materialistic' tendencies and the value of materiality, we saw all matter as holy and wholly of God?  Would we be satisfied with 'enough' - the powerful and marginalized word of a Godly economy?  Maybe this pseudo-Puritanical judgement against all things material - as if we can cleanse ourselves of our context of consumption - is moving in the wrong direction.  There seems to be a fine line here.  If material is good, spiritual, of God, then accumulating material should be a good thing.  But the story of the manna witnesses differently.  The manna is, without doubt, from God.  And there is 'enough' for all - but no more.  Any attempts at hording this material end badly.  We cannot horde the holy, we cannot build dams to contain the precious and keep it from the rest of the world - not if we want the story to end well.  We have to learn the economy of 'enough' while honoring the inherent goodness and God-giftedness of the things that make life possible - and even delightful.  Sadly, in our culture, we don't even know what 'enough' looks like.  How can we learn?  

Weeding in January

Reading Ellen Davis' book has me wanting to get my hands in the dirt, reconnect with Earth.  It makes me want to do everything differently, get back to my Mother.  It reminds me of my childhood in the mountains of Colorado, where the land was home, playground, comforter, teacher.  I remember coming through St. Louis to visit my grandparents in Belleville when I was about 12 or 13.  I remember seeing all the concrete, the cars, the tall buildings.  So foreign to what I knew back home.  And I was thinking "none of this is real.  Its all made up reality."  It isn't really real.  The structures we've built, the society we've constructed.  Its all made up stuff. Unfortunately, our 'alternative reality' - a reality that hordes the resources offered for free and appropriates the bounty of Earth for the privileged few, robbing from the 'least of these' - is destroying what is real.  Its becoming the only reality, at the expense of the God created, God infused, God intended reality.  And, because its fake, it cannot sustain life.  But its sticky.  It traps us like flies in a web and we can't see our way out of it.  

I love what the Introduction to Arthur Walker-Jones' The Green Psalter suggests - that Earth is the Body of God.  If we think of Earth as not just planet, but all living organisms - including us - the entire ecosystem, I think that might be spot on.  All of us connected in the Body of God.  But that might be too small.  Even the Cosmos is part of God - God' encompasses, embodies, breathes through all that we know.  And probably more than what we know.  And yet, our reverence for the Body has evaporated - if it was ever intact in the first place.  Certainly there have been and are a few who live out that reverence.  The pagans.  The Native Americans.  The agrarian prophets.  But most of us think only of ourselves and those closest to us - a tiny fraction of the entire Body - as if that were all that was important.  

To get out of that mindset seems next to impossible.  So, I follow my instinct on reading Davis and I get out in my tiny raised bed vegetable garden.  I gave it a rest from tomatoes last season and grew herbs and greens.  Like most seasons, though, the garden got away from me by mid summer.  The chard did amazingly well, though periodic lack of water made the leaves a bit too bitter.  I resolved to finally get out there and clear it out, though.  Get it ready for winter.  It seemed strange to be weeding in January - the ground should be frozen by now and its barely even cool.  But it was satisfying, as it always is.  As I dug and hoed and pulled, I thought about a Wendell Berry quote in Davis' book, asking "what the land requires of us."  What do you require, I wonder and I tend my neglected little patch of earth.  The abundance of weeds suggests to me "if you don't grow something, I will."  The land has a will to flourish.  It only requires either mindful cooperation or total freedom.  Anything else will be disastrous for all of us.

Privilege for a Few Consequences for Many

Its 66 degrees outside today.  In January.  Of course, St. Louis is notorious for unpredictable weather.  But, its January 5th and we really haven't seen winter yet.  We've had  a couple of wintery days.  A dusting of snow.  But winter has not settled in here.  And, while I love rolling my windows down in the car and opening them in my house...it frightens me too.  And I think about the fact that, while I'm basking in the freakish warmth of January 5, 2012, the polar ice caps are melting a little bit more.  Polar bears are getting a little bit closer to extinction.  And the water may rise just a tiny bit more on the shores of Bangladesh.  My privilege may very well be another's pain.  But that seems to be the condition for those of us in the US and other westernized, industrialized, wealthy countries.  And, even for the justice minded, its damned hard to relinquish.

We were talking in class about how little fresh water there is in the world.  About how we need to preserve it.  And my mind drifted to my love of scalding hot baths.  How much comfort they bring when I'm cold to the bone, or sore from too much Just Dance 3 on the Wii, or just stressed out or sick or unbearably tired.  I rationalize that we have a lot of water here in our region.  That forgoing those luxurious baths would not give water to a thirsty child in Kenya. But the fact remains that while I soak in scented bubbly water up to my shoulders, there are people dying for lack of the very stuff I'll send down the drain without a thought.  What do I do with that?

My husband and I make an effort to buy local, to get Fair Trade, to spend justly when we can (see, even there we have a choice!  To spend our money justly or just to spend it).  But we are still so very privileged.  We live in such total luxury when compared with the rest of the world.  Or when compared to how we probably all need to live if this planet is to have any shot at sustaining life as we know it.  I wonder what our lifestyles need to look like if we are going to keep the rarity of a 66 degree day in January.  Will we be able to live them?  Will we have the strength to turn away from our many comforts so that our children's children may have hope of any comfort at all?

Bugs and Weeds (and Guns and Aquinas). Not Necessarily in that Order.

This is my second blog on environmental concerns in as many months.  And both for Eden Seminary.  The first one focused (or attempted to focus) on the creation doctrine of Thomas Aquinas and its use as ally or adversary in the growing need for action to address climate change particularly in impoverished countries, which experience the side effects of climate change more acutely.  I used the country of Bangladesh as my case in point.  I link it, above, because I was able to find some really interesting articles that help to back the position of environmental action.  As well as a great song by John Denver ; )

This article was on NPR on Dec. 29th and was very encouraging.  It talks about the military testing green technology in Afghanistan.  Caring for the planet was among their lowest priorities for doing what they're doing but, if the technology works, it would be a great proving ground for the rest of society.  I don't think green technology is the only answer - I think we need to dial our lifestyles and expectations way back - but it is certainly part of the solution.  And to have the conversation is a start.

I'm enjoying The Creation by E. O. Wilson.  Its especially fascinating to think about the diversity of the insect world and the importance behind that.  I loved his 'disaster prognosis' theorizing what would happen if all insect life were to be extinct (34-35) - that ended with humanity barely surviving and longing for 'bugs and weeds' - the derogatory phrased the Wilson assigns to many who disparage the environmental movement, saying we care more about 'bugs and weeds' than human beings.  His allegory makes the point beautifully that human beings cannot exist without what we would like to deem as disposable elements of creation.

I've been thinking a lot also about Hosea again - and of that book's condemnation of human's readiness to objectify each other, creation and even God.  I think the intertwined nature of all those things will be important to address as we think about lesson plans, sermons, and daily life the church.  It isn't an either or proposition. Its all or nothing.