Jerusalem Cross Gardening: A Compass for Inner Transformation

The Jerusalem-cross-raised-bed outside my window, site for my gardening of soil and soul, promises to serve as a compass for a journey of inner transformation this year. 

The Jerusalem Cross Raised Bed
this Winter

Barren and cold at the moment, only dried out tomato vines on wire frames remain standing to shelter insects through winter. Yet even in this frigid death, signs of life show. Green garlic shoots poke bravely through the ice in defiance of winter, a sign that change will come, Spring is on its' way. 

My anticipation builds as the days grow longer. Soon the usual gardening of soil activities will begin - the making of compost, fertilizing of beds, watering of plants, and the harvesting of crops. But it is the gardening of soul that so excites me about the coming growing season - the experience of winter as a "womb of new beginnings" and Spring as an encounter with that which makes all things new. The Jerusalem-cross-raised-bed with its' four quadrants facing West, North, East and South - each representing one of Nature's four seasons (Fall, Winter, Spring, and Summer) and one of the four Christian Gospels (Matthew, Mark, John and Luke/Acts) - will serve as a compass for a journey of inner transformation (please see diagram).

Guided by the universal Four Path Journey of Quadratos as developed by Dr. Alexander John Shaia, each day I'll stand at the center of my Jerusalem-cross-raised-bed and alternately gaze West, North, East and South while contemplating each Path's question: "How do I face change?" (West, Path 1 of Fall and Matthew); "How do I move through suffering?" (North, Path 2 of Winter and Mark); "How do I receive joy and experience union?" (East, Path 3 of Spring and John); and "How do I mature into service?" (South, Path 4 of Summer and Luke/Acts).

The Jerusalem Cross Garden
in Summer

Change, and coping with it, is a part of life, which is what makes the Quadratos paradigm, its core premise being "that the four gospels were selected together to be used as a process for inner transformation," so helpful. Matthew, written for the early Messianic Jews in Antioch, their Temple destroyed, and the Chief Priests murdered by Empire, helps them cope with change. Mark, addressed to the early Christians of Rome, facing death if they didn't renounce the Christ, were helped to move through suffering with its chief metaphor being of Jesus and his disciples together in a small boat crossing a stormy sea. John, writing for the early Christians in Ephesus, a cosmopolitan city of many cultures and gods, all vying for attention, celebrated that in the Christ all were one. And for a brief moment in history Paul's "neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free" community triumphed over division.  Finally, Luke/Acts was written for all Christ followers, who, like those on the Road to Emmaus questioning ''all the things that have happened in Jerusalem during these last days," struggled to integrate it all into a life that matures into service. 

The Jerusalem Cross Raised bed
still under construction

This past Fall while harvesting squash from my garden as the leaves of the surrounding trees changed color, I wrestled with the changes facing me in my shift from pastoring a congregation to retirement from the institution in order to more intentionally engage nonviolence and earth care. The summons to change had simmered within me for many years, a real test of how to endure my long Winter of uncertainty.  But Spring arrived much as a garden grows to climax in blooms and fruit, offering a joyful union with life's fuller purpose. 

And ahead? Ahead lies the warm summertime of my personal "yes." "Yes" to life, to being a Christ follower at greater peace with a world of struggle and joy. Grounded in my garden, Quadratos' integration of Gospel with gardening with earth's seasons, enriches my gardening of soul. Daily it centers me ever deeper into The Christ, offering that compass of inner transformation for the journey, and frees me for a life of calmer engagement with a world birthed in, by, and for Love, and thirsting for more. 

                                                                                                                                                                                

A Genius of Fertility

"An elderly dame ... dwells in my neighborhood, invisible to most persons, in whose odorous herb garden I love to stroll sometimes, gathering simples and listening to her fables; for she has a genius of unequalled fertility... 

- Walden, Solitude, Henry David Thoreau 

 

Visiting Henry David Thoreau's Walden this month as we travelled through New England has re-inspired me to the potential Walden of my own backyard. I long for that localized "genius of unequalled fertility" which he experienced in Nature around Walden Pond, the garden of his "friend" in whose herb garden he "loved to stroll sometimes, gathering simples." It was here he seemed to touch the Source of all that is, asking "Shall I not have intelligence with the earth?" as one who was "partly leaves and vegetable mould" himself. 

 

My own garden - which I propose to call Walden-on-Hudson - is starting to display faint glimmers of Nature's fertile genius - herbs, fruit trees, chickens, veggies, composting bins, a small pond. 

I find it thrilling to experience that all we need for healthy living is freely given and to be found right outside our doors. It remains only for me to do the meticulous work of system design, followed by the hard work of making the appropriate connections between the multiple design elements, domesticating the ways of fertile Nature into the abundance of a Walden in my own yard. 

And So it Begins....

And so it begins... Sunday was a bitter/sweet passage. Relationships forged over five years will be greatly missed, even as tomorrow comes, like a raincloud, full of promise and surprise. 

And so it begins...the end of my term as minister of Covenant United Methodist Church; my journey from the ordered round of predictable and worthy routines, institutional safe guards and retirement security; from a group think often afraid to risk, into a wilder rhythm of spontaneous adventures and encounters with creative gospel, gloriously grounded in the life giving routine of daily living WITH the earth - watering the alfalfa, harvesting a handful to feed the chickens, collecting their eggs with a grateful heart and enjoying breakfast as the gift of a mutual relationship of caring. To look each avian personality in the eye, welcoming them to shepherd me toward a lifestyle of domesticated wildness connected to the earth and the creativity of engaged fullness. That's my journey beyond Covenant.  

It starts today, with this blog entry typed to a chicken's "song" clucking the arrival of yet another gift outside my open window. Nature's eternal round of fullness in relationship.

"Weary with Absence, I Return to Earth"

Wendell Berry's poem tells it straight!

"I have again come home through miles of sky                                                                                            from hours of abstract talk in the way of modern times                                                                                when humans live in their minds and the world, forgotten, dies into explanations. 

Weary with absence, I return to earth.

...and sink into the ancient happiness of slow work in unhastenable                                                            days and years."                                                                                                                               

 - Wendell Berry, "This Day: Collected and New Sabbath Poems" 1992, VIII 

 My end as pastor of Covenant arrives in just a few weeks. And with Berry I wonder at my own preoccupation with hours and hours of abstract theology and preaching "in the way of modern times," while the "world, forgotten, dies into explanations." Just how effective, or ineffective, have I been to help meet the challenges of our day, never mind just to be? 

 I too am "weary with absence" and with this appointment to a year of discernment intend a "return to the earth." It's time for some intentional Jerusalem-cross-gardening of my own, that gardening "of soil" that promises the "ancient happiness of slow work in unhastenable days and years." 

 

 So it begins. Raised beds, in the shape of a Jerusalem cross, planted to annuals. A herb spiral as guild ("a group of plants harmoniously interwoven into a pattern of mutual support") of cullinary and medicinal plants. An apple tree, marvel of gardening craft with four varieties of apples grafted onto a common rootstock, the tree surrounded by multiple plants serving as bird attractors, insect attractors, grass suppressors, mulch providers, nutrient accumulators, and nitrogen fixers. And chickens. Everyone needs companions and participants for the journey who give and receive in the mutual flow of a caring relationship. 

 And all of it a glorious congregation-of-life in my own backyard wildly dancing with the Christ in the universal pattern of order, disorder, and reorder. 

Joining this dance is perhaps that "ancient happiness of slow work in unhastenable days and years" of which Wendell Berry writes, that "return to earth," arriving as my time of pastoring "in the way of modern times" ends.

Without Justice, Christianity Forgets Its' Founder

The four little planter-box-crosses are added to the Jerusalem
Cross raised beds. The fencing around the raised beds is temporary
until the boundary fences are complete.

Each one belonged in my emerging potager garden. And it felt good to see them there, encouraging me to better "talk the walk, and, walk the talk."

The four little planter-box-crosses symbolizing acts of devotion, acts of worship, acts of compassion, and acts of justice took their place on my Jerusalem cross raised bed yesterday.

Particularly rewarding was adding "acts of justice" in light of the recent marches against violent policing and racism in the USA and world. For without justice, Christianity forgets its' founder and enables the kingdoms of this world.

I need to get better about doing justice! And so Carla and I marched in Spokane last Saturday for non-violent policing and for justice. A well behaved, multi-racial crowd participated, until the disrupters and political stirrers, late in the day, did their distracting from the peaceful focus on justice.

Acts of justice. Acts of compassion. Acts of devotion. Acts of worship. If I would faithfully follow Jesus, all four are necessary - even if it costs because friends and congregation members fear and resist a Jesus-lifestyle of love in action.

Now it's time to plant. In the four little cross-shaped planter boxes, I'll be experimenting with some different herbs - lovage, caraway, cilantro and Persian mint. They'll flavor my dishes in new, creative ways. And, as I practice the four acts of devotion, worship, compassion and justice, my spiritual walk will be flavored too by the life and nation-building, world-shaping love of the man from Nazareth.

                                        ____________________________

This article touches on a shocking truth about white evangelical religion in the USA today that all Christians must honestly and non-defensively wrestle with. We have to recover justice to recover our souls! 

https://faithandleadership.com/william-h-lamar-iv-its-not-just-coronavirus-bad-theology-killing-us

Weep. Seed. Weed.

During this Great Pause gripping the world, people are weeping. Perhaps you are too. I know I am. So many good folk's health and livelihoods are affected.

But creation is not. 

Given a breather, it's showing signs of joyful and playful renewal - clearer skies; cleaner rivers, lakes and seas; thriving local farmers who are mostly committed to sustainable farming practices.

 Perhaps Pentecost this year is about the Spirit working in history to seed something new - the re-syncing of people with planet "as it was in the beginning," with the added liturgical promise of this being forever, "now and ever shall be, world without end." 

Jerusalem cross gardening, as a spiritual discipline, is grounding me in the promise found in this re-syncing, helping me to "be the re-synced," or, to "be the change" which our world so desperately needs yesterday.

Jerusalem Cross Gardening of Soil.

A tree that will bear Fuji, Gala, and Honeycrisp apples
prepares to be espaliered against the fence.

In my own life this seeding has begun. The fences of my potager garden are being completed to keep the deer and moose at bay. The raised beds (in the shape of a Jerusalem cross) will soon be filled with beautiful organic soil (just need to entice my son to help move it). The chicken cage/tractor has arrived and some laying hens soon will too. Newly planted apple trees and blueberry bushes are leafing out and flowering. The herb spiral is not far behind.

So much still waits to be done, but thanks to this bitter/sweet pandemic and its gift of slowed time, the elements of my permaculture design are steadily emerging to seed the garden I'm after - one that leans in to Original Sustainability through the permaculture ethic of caring for creation, caring for people, and giving away surplus.

In the process, I truly am being re-synced, drawn in to the unity at the heart of creation, found only when we learn to live as FRIENDS - with God, people and all of nature.

Jerusalem Cross Gardening of Soul

An interesting observation is emerging. I'm discovering that nonviolence and its' practice - something I know I can become so much better at - drives this re-syncing process.

Two quotes by Dominic Crossan focus my thoughts.

Three varieties of blueberry bushes
planted above a row of terracing rocks

"...the historical Jesus lived and died for nonviolent resistance to the violent normalcy of civilization then embodied in first-century Mediterranean place and incarnated in first-century Roman time."

I note as I read this sentence today that nothing has changed. In spite of 2000 years of Christians following Jesus, we still have not learned he was, and is, nonviolent in his embodiment of the divine. Yet violence is still a normal part of our civilization today, both in how we relate to people and creation, but in a way that is dangerously more powerful.

Crossan continues. 

"We take upon ourselves nonviolent resistance against violence to move the trajectory of human evolution toward justice and peace rather than injustice and violence."

Gardening Can Shape this Trajectory

The chicken cage/tractor being
prepared for residents

The good news is nonviolent resistance is happening in my garden. In it I am learning to lean in to Original Sustainability and to join the loving dance of mutuality - yes, with backyard chickens [see previous blog entry] and fruit trees, and herbs, a small alfalfa field, insect breeder boxes, table scraps, and the Spirit ever pulling the life in my gardening system into itself even as it becomes incarnate in seed, shoot, bud, flower and fruit.

Conclusion

The simple act of gardening is restoring my soul. In a small but important way, it is helping to non-violently "move human evolution towards justice and peace" and away from "injustice and violence" particularly towards the earth. 

Weeping, seeding and weeding. It's all about how the Spirit seems to be moving in my life this season as Pentecost approaches. I am grateful to be doing Jerusalem-Cross-Gardening in my own back yard again. The parts of myself are reconnecting, gardening of soil eliciting the gardening of soul to weave contemplation and action into the Trinitarian dance that unites all in the unity of the One. 

Well-Being - From "Nest Egg" to Egg

Chickens! 

I closed out one of my small investment funds recently and invested in, yes, chickens. And the return they'll bring.

By this act, "nest egg" morphs into the promise of "eggs." And with it comes a shift in daily living - one more intentional and engaged with the wider mystery and gift of life at the center of which moves Christ.

Cold hard cash becomes living, breathing birds in a web of life; investment shifts from dollars banked (Economic Capital) to cultivating appropriate relationships with the fullness of the earth (Natural Capital). 

And it's in the relationship that the "return" will be found. The birds will be a part of a greater whole, as will I - a gardening system of multiple design elements into which we'll both fit, each playing our own unique life-giving and life-receiving roles.

The chicken condo arrives...

The multiple design elements?  A movable chicken cage/tractor system for housing the birds safely; the birds themselves (ideally an heirloom breed for hardiness and good egg productivity); insect breeder boxes (40 gallon porous barrels buried in the soil, and filled with moist mulch in which multiple insects and worms can thrive to be harvested as a protein supplement); a forest system of fruit trees (upper storey), alfalfa and herbs (ground storey) for fruit, forage and pest control; and swales on contour to harvest rainwater off a neighbors roof in order to optimize groundwater recharge to promote tree health and productivity. And, of course, me. I'll be one of the design elements too, playing a stewardship role of connecting the table (i.e. food scraps) with the chicken run, with the food forest, with the insect breeder box and ultimately back to the table (i.e. as eggs) in the endlessly regenerating cycle of life.

A cheque arrived in the mail last week as I closed out an investment account and reinvested it today in chickens. It wasn't a huge sum, but this return promises the added value of connection. I look forward to the arrival of the chicks, and investing myself in a reciprocal relationship of caring. Perhaps I'll finally learn my place, a small part in the endless circle-dance of life, death and resurrection.

Perhaps the world needs more backyard chickens to help us "get back to normal." And maybe, just maybe, they'll help usher in a new normal, not a return to the normalization of greed that has plundered the earth in which we've all been complicit.

It all begins, again, in the garden?

The Cold, Hard, Trinity of Spikes.

The steel spikes felt cold and hard to the touch, akin to the nails that must have been used to crucify Love on that first Good Friday. And here I was using three - a trinity - on each corner of my raised beds to build a cross. (I was using three spikes on each corner to hold my Jerusalem cross shaped raised beds together as the center piece of my garden). 

Nails. Trinity. Cross.

My mind played with this thought of using a trinity of nails to build the cross.

Hammering to the rhythmic sound of steel on steel, something stirred deep within me to think of Love submitting to be nailed so cruelly to a cross with spikes similar to these, acceptable for my garden but brutal if used on hands and feet. 

Can the reason Love submitted be anything other than the Father's "your-ways-are-not-my-ways" (Is. 55:8-9) revealed now in Jesus and expressed as he hung on the cross by his words, "Father forgive them for they know what they do?" (Lk 23:34).

God - the Holy Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit - needed this cruel trinity of hard, cold nails used on Jesus' hands and feet, to help humanity re-imagine how God works to redeem the world. That, no matter what, God will love. The cycle of meeting violence with violence will be broken.

Jesus says it best in John 12:24. "Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you have it forever, real and eternal." (MSG).

It is in the reckless "letting go" that life happens. And so Love, in Jesus, could not but rise again in the hearts of the disciples as they too became reckless in their own loving to seed the change in the world that God yearns to bring.

No matter what. God will love. I hope Jerusalem Cross gardening is seeding the same kind of union with Love in my soul.

"Kin(g)dom of God - Not to be Confused with Civilization"

"By showing up for worship you put yourself on the side of life at a time when a tiny virus is bringing the whole world to it's knees." 

- Easter Sunday sermon, Bishop Elaine Stanovsky, U.M.C., April 12, 2020

The icon of Morihei Ueshiba, founder of aikido,
 hangs on the wall behind the Ndaleni Cross
constructed of two samurai swords sheathed
by Trinity into a love stronger than death.

"Showing up for worship you put yourself on the side of life..."

I love this Easter thought. And would add the hope that showing up for worship during this pandemic, even if only digitally, cements a growing conviction within enough of us that things cannot return to normal. Theology, economy, community - these must all emerge in new ways in the post COVID-19 world if we are to get back up off our knees in an enduring and peaceful way.

Jesus would call this "new way" the kin(g)dom of God. But it should not be confused with civilization.

Describing a brutal massacre of civilians -  women and children, some only a few months old, of the village, Distomo in Greece on Saturday, June 10, 1944 - by the 4th Armored Police Division of the Waffen SS because of an anti-German ambush by local partisans during World War II, John Dominic Crossan* calls such acts of vengeance barbaric. He notes further that civilization is supposed to save us from acts of barbarism like this, even during times of war.

The sad truth is that often civilization has not. Does not. Will not. Save us. And that's because it's development has always been accompanied by escalating violence. Flint became bronze became sword became cannon became nuclear bomb. And all have been used in war. Is it just a question of time that intercontinental ballistic missiles, or worse, are too?

Civilization has not saved us from barbarism. It did not save Jesus. It did not save the Jewish nation. It didn't even save civilization itself as the enemies of Rome helped defeat it. And today, the barbarism of civilization still wreaks havoc on the kin(g)dom of God of which there are beautiful signs all around us.

Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of aikido,
the "way of the harmonious spirit"

So, what will save us from civilization? At war with itself and nature by pitting nation against nation through wars and relentless competition for endless GNP growth, civilization is turning the "It is good" of God into a nightmare of global warming, social and economic disintegration, and ecosystem collapse.

Life itself is being compromised, and the COVID-19 pandemic, the "tiny little virus bringing the whole world to its knees," offers us a brief opportunity, not only to show up for worship on Easter Sunday, but to show up for the kin(g)dom of God during these next Great Fifty Days of Easter as the world struggles to find a vision to forge the different future that is so needed.

But what will this vision look like?

The answer begins and ends with love. Love as the way of the cross that always ends in an Easter, a resurrection.

Emergence theology is wrestling with this in fresh ways within the Christian tradition. If God is love and theology is about the ways of a loving God, then Lent is the time, as Brian D. McLaren suggests, for "an honest self-examination of our maturity in love and a renewal of our commitment to grow in it." And this is especially needed now, during an Easter when the world is challenged by this global pandemic.

So, "Do we love like Jesus?" Or do we love as civilization loves - with guns, missiles or threats to dominate in our back pockets?

Do we love even our enemies, as Jesus did? Or do we circle the wagons and prepare for battle like civilization always does?

Jesus embraced the cross, willing to surrender his own life rather than take the life of another. And in doing so, he lived.  And love became stronger than both death or the threat of death. His example spawned a movement of loving Christ-followers who collectively helped move the good of civilization towards the community of the kin(g)dom because death itself had lost its grip on them.

Where are such Christ-followers today?

Do we love like Jesus? Our challenge in this post-COVID-19 world is to follow his example by being discipled to "say 'no' to the ways of the sword, 'yes' to the ways of the Lord" and to practice nonviolence as Jesus did.

The Universal saints of St. Gregory's Episcopal
Church, explained.

The Great 50 Days this year began in the isolation of our own homes on Easter Sunday morning with the whole world on it's knees.  It's time, finally, to learn to do as Jesus did, "celebrate the revolutionary power of death-defying love," and to do this both in our congregations and alongside all people in the global diversity of many cultures, faiths and practices.

Learning the non-violent way of Jesus will not be easy. There seems to be no ready road map in our Christian world to learn how to practice nonviolence and especially the spirituality that supports it. But at Covenant Methodist here in Spokane we are making a small start.

The Peace and Creation Care Team is learning from Universal Saint/Friend of God/Seventh Story Hero, Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of aikido. "He believed "Budo" (the martial arts way) is not felling the opponent by force, nor is it a tool to lead the world into destruction with arms, but it is accepting the spirit of the universe, keeping the peace of the world, and correctly producing, protecting and cultivating all things in nature."

We have hung an icon of Sensei Ueshiba beneath the 1000-plus peace cranes in our sanctuary during this season of Easter, bringing his witness into our worship space.  Looking to Jesus as the perfecter of our faith, perhaps we will yet learn from Ueshiba how our swords can be sheathed by Trinity in a love that is stronger than death (please see the photo of the Ndaleni Cross above).

Isn't that what resurrection is? A love that is stronger than death! A love that fearlessly and nonviolently challenges all forces of civilization that have done violence to community and creation. Post COVID-19 we don't want those forces back!

It really is time to "show up" for worship. And for practice. The nonviolent love of Jesus towards people and creation beckons. Things cannot return to normal. Theology, economy, community - these must all emerge in new ways in the post COVID-19 world if we are to get back up off our knees in an enduring and peaceful way.  It's what creation groans and longs for - the revealing of the sons and daughters of God, citizens, wringing the good out of civilization.


 *  "Resurrecting Easter - How the West Lost and the East Kept the Original Easter Vision" by John and Sarah Crossan.

Rocks, Piled High in Garden and Psyche

A Pile of Rocks in Garden and Psyche

They were the curse of my new project. Every thrust of the spade and pick axe brought the loud thud of yet another rock strike.

Quickly the task of building a fence and installing raised beds, that should have taken weeks, was stretching into months. The rocks, water-worn by an ancient flood and hidden in the soil for centuries, now piled up in both my garden and impatient psyche.

Rocks Waiting to be Placed

Until they didn't!

In life's rhythm of disorder, order, to reorder (Covid-19 disorder, stay-at-home order, healing of body and soul reordering), the disorderly rock piles, with an ordered placement, now yield a re-ordered threshold into my potager garden. Paved to handle increased foot traffic this new path, as bonus, now displays the ancient story of those tectonic and watery forces that shaped this beautiful land.

A New Path Emerges...

Again, for me there is now no going back. The COVID-19 pandemic spurs me to a determination to be a more faithful Christ-follower: my theology graduates from kindergarten; my preaching freed from a transactional understanding of the cross ("Jesus paid it all") to a relational one of Christ in Jesus demonstrating pure Love, to which all are called.

A new path for me - forged by the ordering of disorderly rocks in my garden, and the ordering influence of this stay-at-home directive - is being laid on which I now must walk. St. Francis says it so well from his deathbed. "I have done what was mine to do, may Christ now teach you what you are to do."

This feels so right. Perhaps my second half of life will be richer for it.

Written this Holy Saturday, April 11, 2020.

Spring 2020. The Pandemic.

"And the people stayed home...and learned new ways of being." Kitty O'Meara

The 8 foot, deer proof fence, under construction 

This poem (see below), so simple and direct, went viral for a reason. It's about the promise of healing - healing for me, for you, and for the whole world under attack by this pandemic. And that promise taps into a deep longing many have.

"And the people stayed home...and learned new ways of being." These are the words in the poem that capture this moment we're in.

That's what I'm learning - new ways of being while staying home, and among other things, developing my potager garden.

Worms - from decay comes
fertility and life

Compost bin filled with table
scraps - and worms

As I work - erecting my fence; composting my grass clippings, leaves and kitchen scraps; constructing a herb spiral ending in a watercress pond; installing my raised beds in the shape of a Jerusalem cross; laying out swales to capture rainwater from a neighbors roof to optimize groundwater recharge; planting fruit trees to use that water; planting alfafa as a legume to fix nitrogen for the tree crops and to feed the chickens - I am making connections. Connections with life in all its' visible and invisible forms promising a unifying friendship - with God, people and all creation.


It's good forging these relationships. Good because it feels so right, this "learning new ways of being" in a world waiting for people who have learned to "stay home." 


So, I've made a decision, partly inspired by the insightful words of this poem. I'm not going back!

Looking east in the emerging potager garden

I'm not going back to the way it was before. Today I choose. I choose to continue to "stay home" and to "learn new ways of being" - to garden; and to read, listen, rest, exercise, play, be still, listen again, meditate, pray, dance; and to meet my shadow.

This day, I choose to embrace this moment offered by the disruption of this awful pandemic. It promises me, promises the world, a sweetness of healing that, coming at such great cost to so many, should not be missed.

Kitty O'Meara captures the hope best. "And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, ... and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed."

                                                                     * * * * *

AND THE PEOPLE STAYED HOME

"And the people stayed home. And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still. And listened more deeply. Some meditated, some prayed, some danced. Some met their shadows. And the people began to think differently.

"And the people healed. And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless way, the earth began to heal.

"And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed."

- Kitty O'Meara 



Permaculture Design: an approach used in developing my potager garden that is very much about the healing of the earth. Below is a good summary of what it is. It's good to be dusting off these skills again as Carla and I become rooted to this spot. No more moving!

Falling into Fall, Falling into Splendor

A favorite author says it well. 

"God empties Godself into creation, and then we humans spend most of history creating systems to control and subdue that creation for our own purpose and profit, reversing the divine pattern." (Richard Rohr).

To control and subdue creation is like trying to control and subdue God. It can't be done. Not without a huge price to pay to the wellbeing of creation and all depending on it. Controlling and subduing only ends up making a mess of the life-giving work of the divine pattern and alienating ourselves from God. 

But a new vision of history is emerging for humanity in this age of global warming and other environmental crises. And that vision, as old as the first "God said", is union with the divine pattern of Godself.

The divine pattern is perhaps best described by science as the water cycle, nutrient cycle and energy flow, those natural processes constantly attending life, death and resurrection throughout the earth. My task is to begin where I live, right here in Spokane, Washington, U.S.A. - to join these natural flows and cycles as Gods' creative movement of life itself. And so my alignment with God-emptied-into-creation begins now, in this rain, this Fall, a time when leaves can either create a waste problem and be a chore to be done with gritted teeth, or a time when those leaves covering the lawn become an opportunity to feed soil and soul.

Soil. Harvesting the leaves to make compost rather than carting them off as waste to the dump, will mean harvesting a whole season's worth of nutrients which can fertilize the soil of my Jerusalem cross raised beds. Healthy soils will mean healthy vegetables, will mean a healthy Roger and Carla.  Spurning such a gift would be like spurning love itself, wasting God. I don't want to do that anymore. And so I begin. My first step is to harvest the leaves in as simple a way as possible. Turns out the lawn mower is perfect as a tool most of us already have.

An added benefit of the lawn mower is that it does a wonderful job of shredding the leaves and also mixing them with the grass clippings, helping with an appropriate ratio of carbon to nitrogen to enable the composting process. (See photo on right).

Then it's a simple step to add the season's bounty of shredded leaf mulch and grass clippings to a growing compost pile. I will cover the pile with a tarpaulin to protect it from too much rain and then watch the nutrient cycle of Godself  as the rich, fertile soil emerges for my Jerusalem cross raised beds.

 Soul. God really does empty Godself into creation every Fall, and this in a kaleidoscope of beauty and color carpeting the green lawn. There God lies in all Gods' autumn splendor, waiting to be harvested as part of the divine pattern of self-giving love.


Falling into Fall this year it feels like I'm falling into a carpeted splendor - the splendor of love that promises healing for soil and soul. And all the world.

July 5th. The Morning After.

Her words touch me deeply on this morning after. 

July 5th dawns in America. The rocket's red glare - from thousands of backyard celebrations last night, stirringly visible across the waters of Puget Sound for hours on end from our Seattle hotel balcony, and sounding like the raging battle that inspired that hymn to America's fight against tyranny so many years ago - no longer flares.

It is time, again, after the celebrations of all that is good about America, for the deeper things that promise to make her, and all nations, truly great. 

Joan Chittister words? 

A spiritual path that does not lead to a living commitment to . . . the Kingdom of God within and around us everywhere for everyone, is no path at all. . . . It is a dead end on the way to God. . . .

And the image that encapsulates these deeper things of God is this one...

 

The image speaks of things, not of "men", or even of "America", but of God, and God's Kingdom, which all people everywhere are invited to embrace.

Today, on this July 5th morning, it is time, again, for that "living commitment to...the Kingdom of God within and around us everywhere for everyone," and, we might add, "for every thing" in this exquisitely connected world we live in.

Tomorrow Carla and I witness the return of the Elwha River on the Olympic Peninsula to it's wild state (after the removal of two dams whose power generation is no longer needed), the restoration of a life-giving ecosystem with wild salmon runs whose connections run far and wide throughout the Puget Sound bio-region. (The number of fish returning each year plummeted from 400 000 in the early 1900's to just 3,000 after the dmas' construction blocked much of the river and its tributaries).**

It is time! Time to walk on holy ground again and to witness the God of abundance and generosity at play. Time to experience the "invisible hand" of the Creator's Provision visibly gifting enough for all People through a living Planet.*

It is time to see the Master Gardener "of soil and soul" at work again, time to see love win.

* The Triple P's of People, Planet and Profit (or Social, Natural and Economic Capital) helpfully anchor a Pattern Map that provides a framework for navigating toward "an ecologically restorative, socially just, and reliably prosperous society" approximating Kingdom values. See the the Pattern Map here.  

** Return of the salmon on the Elwha River

It's Thyme to Dance. With the Trinity*

Quite simply, it's time! And thyme will serve as both symbol and daily inspiration.

The driveway of Hougham Park, our home in Spokane, WA

Firstly, time. It's time to join the divine dance of the Trinity, something we Westerners have been missing out on for far too long - living as friends, with God, with people, and with all creation. The words relationship and unity (within diversity) will be key to putting such friendship into practice during a time of climate change and tribalism, both of which are threatening the wellbeing of the entire planet and its' people.

Secondly thyme. Thyme, will sign my new commitment to joining this divine dance. The planting is done. Into the cracks between the concrete slabs of our drive and path, a space too often preoccupied with annoying weeds, sprigs of thyme have been planted. Already they are taking root, greening up, even starting to flower. All that is needed now is some regular weeding and watering, and soon beauty and fragrance will welcome guests, and all things divine, on their approach over the Thyme Drive and Thyme Walk to the front door of a home striving to live in friendship with all things.  

Thyme takes root in the cracks of
drive and path

Planting thyme, however, is Act One of this time of new beginnings. Act Two will be to design and develop a potager garden (a French term) on the south west of our property. A potager garden's purpose is to produce food - local and organic - cultivating flowers and herbs alongside fruit and vegetables to enhance the garden's beauty. Once the deer proof fences are up, the "gardening of soil" will begin.

Sabbaticals are wonderful gifts, and I am so grateful to my congregation for allowing me time to explore how to truly join the divine dance in order to live in FRIENDSHIP. 

Well, this blog entry is done. It's "thyme" to dance - time to go do some gardening "of soil and soul."
                                      ____________________________________

*As inspired by Anton Rublev's Trinity icon and reflections by Fr. Richard Rohr, Henry Nouwen and others. More can be read about the icon here.