Gaping Gates and Precarious Paths

Matthew 7:13-20

“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?  

So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.  Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.

            Here’s the honest truth, if you’re willing to read it.  I watched a food documentary in May of this year.  It changed me like not much I’ve seen ever has before.  I’ve since watched several documentaries, all of which I take at their word (these professional fact-finders who spend their livelihoods investigating food industries and writing/filming about it).  Some books I’ve read have helped me understand more about the farming industry in this nation that I knew very little about and still find myself grasping to understand. 

            In reaction to a food industry that is more business-driven and technologically supported than it is people-driven and ecologically motivated, our family has been eating locally as much as we possibly can and supplementing with organic foods or at least well-researched brand names of meats and eggs.  And I still go grocery shopping and market browsing with little confidence that I am putting my dollar to its best use.  What qualifies to me as the “best use” of a dollar when buying food?  This is complicated:  several factors have to be balanced out.  I don't want to put my dollar where huge food processing companies who have no regard for the workers they exploit or the earth they abuse can reach it.  I want to feed my family healthy food.  I want to actually get something for my dollar.  And I want to support local farmers who are up against giants in the food world.

            Here is a concrete example of how hard it is to balance all of these desires and still have time to do my job, go to school fulltime, and mother my two girls.  We were out of town for the Saturday and Sunday local farmers markets in our town this weekend.  So we did not stock up for the week on grassfed beef from Tink’s or get Darby Farms chicken or Riverview Farms’ sausage links.  This means the protein we eat this week is going to have to come from another source.  Which means more research is involved in finding something that is humanely raised and is not exposed to antibiotics or growth hormones. 

I want to support local food, which is difficult to do when lots of the chain grocery stores do not advertise their brands genuinely and the salespeople do not know how to answer questions like, “Where is this raised?  How was it fed?”  Springer Mountain Farms raises chickens in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia, less than 2 hours away from us.  I know about them and how they are American Humane Certified, receive no antibiotics, and are fed only a vegetarian diet.  So the only grocery store chain I know of where Springer Mountain Chicken is sold is Publix.  So after I drop the girls off at preschool, I drive up to the Publix where just two weeks ago I was pacing back and forth with a sign that read, “Fair Food!”  I protested with a group of Columbia Theological Seminary students and faculty and hundreds of others with CIW (Coalition of Immokalee Workers) for Publix to raise the price of their tomatoes by 1 cent per pound in order that the workers on the tomato farms of Immokalee, Florida could earn a living wage. 

I park my car and guiltily glance over my shoulder as I dart in to pick up my chicken.  My local, healthy, humanely treated chicken that I can only purchase at the place I just picketed against.  And I tell myself, “Well, I’m not buying tomatoes…” 

Nothing about food choices is easy.  If I opt out of corporate foods and support local farmers, how do I weigh in amidst the chaos of grocery store aisles?  When I buy my butternut squash from the farmer down the road, how do I give my vote that were I buying butternut squash at Publix, I would choose organic over pesticide treated crops?  By opting out of lots of grocery store foods, am I missing out on an opportunity to change how food is grown?  I know I’m giving myself a lot of power in this scenario, like it matters a whole lot where my grocery budget goes every week.  But I think it is what the huge producers of monocultures of crops are most scared of and what would change the food system the fastest:  educated, dedicated, picky consumers who demand fairness and quality. 

In reading this text from Matthew, I think gates are not so recognizable as narrow or exceptionally wide when we are faced with the “choosing.”  I think gates are tricky, the latches don’t always catch behind you.  It’s not all bad to not have the energy one week to squeeze your way into the crack of the narrow gate (especially while juggling toddlers and grocery bags all at once).  But I am more and more convinced every day that there are in fact false prophets, with brightly colored labeling and evasive (and persuasive) wording.  And there are diseased trees that we somehow are convinced still produce good fruit. 

Lord, help us to sort out this mess.  Help us to take one step at a time, and reveal to us the path you would have us take.  And while we jiggle the latches of rickety gates, guard our hearts from despair and confusion.  Fill us with new hope and fresh food as we journey through life in this 21^st century.  Amen.

Cultivating a Cornucopia

Meet Kerri.

Kerri is awesome.  She is the kind of person who gives tours of her garden in the pouring rain.  With a Hello Kitty umbrella.  If you can’t tell from her radiant smile, she is jazzed about growing things from the ground up. 

As soon as gardening and faith came onto my radar, I remembered this same “Kerri look” from meetings at our Mom’s Group at Decatur Presbyterian.  Mom’s group is this special place where the tiniest moments are not too small to share, where latte aromas mix with lots of laughter, and yoga pants are the dress code.  We wrestle with frustration, dare to be honest, and seek to be God's people and good mothers.  I remember Kerri talking about her girls in the garden with her – about how their style of gardening was so hilarious and wonderful.  On planting day, she would kind of just let them do their own thing.  And weeks or even months later, there in the middle of the backyard would be random squash or blueberry or whatever it was they had so lovingly "planted" in the middle of the grass.

I am now back in school and she is now back working, but here we are in the rain stooping low to look at celery and bok choi.  

Her yard is magical.  

It is a beautiful landscape of nearly all edible treasures.  Her back deck is covered in grape vines, held up with loads of fishing line.  To one side there is a strawberry patch with a dwarf apple tree in its midst.  To the other side are two urban apple trees that will soon be replaced because the butterflies from the butterfly bushes have decided to eat the apple leaves (who’d have thunk?)!  To one side of the driveway is a row of blueberry bushes.  She has two raised beds full of sweet potatoes, asparagus, bok choi, lettuce, celery, tomatoes, carrots, yum yum peppers, banana peppers, collards, kale, on and on!  She has raspberries and blackberries, lemon verbena (my new favorite thing), sage, and basil.  She has a peach tree and a fig tree.  Kerri is cultivating a cornucopia.

 

I asked probably too many questions about her absolutely breath-taking array of herbs and plants.  And the last question I asked her was why.  Why did she find herself transforming her backyard into an edible playground? 

Kerri responded without missing a beat, “Because it is so very fun to watch something grow that you planted.  And it’s exciting to watch the kids – they grow the food, they pick it out of the ground.  And they just want to try it.  The whole thing is wonderful.”

Kerri isn’t just erecting compost systems and weeding her garden.  She is doing more than feeding her family with fresh food.  She is giving her girls a gift.  She is instilling in them her passion for cultivating, for trying new things.  She shares with them a smile that lights up her eyes. 

They watch when some fruit trees don’t get enough sunlight, they see when the blueberry bushes have to be replanted, they are disappointed when the squirrels make off with all of their grapes, and they get to stick their hands down in the dirt and pull out sweet potatoes for dinner.  They get to watch blackberry brambles grow tall before their very eyes.  They learn about loss and they learn about joy. 

I am so very glad there are people like Kerri.  People who bless the world with a cornucopia – and don’t even know it.

Sowing Seeds

In late August, like a good Presbyterian Masters of Divinity student seeking ordination, I took the Polity examination.  Church polity is the process and procedure book for all situations that may arise in church life, from committee meetings to calling a pastor to a congregation to disciplinary proceedings.  In studying the “Foundations of Presbyterian Polity,” it struck me how the section titled Christ Gives the Church its Life was explained: 

In the worship and service of God and the government of the church, matters are to be ordered according to the Word by reason and sound judgment, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  (F-1.0203)

            I’m not sure if it is because I was raised in a post-Enlightenment North America, in a middle class home, with educated parents, in the Presbyterian church from in utero, or simply that I am wired this way (or a combination of all of these things), but I have functioned according to a structured view of life always.  Ordering of life to the Word by reason and sound judgment makes total sense.  I am your classic Type A.  There is a rule book, there are acceptable ways of operating, and I like to play by the rules.  I enjoy being in control of a situation, and I want to cross my “t”s and dot my “i”s.  My husband may argue that I am not always reasonable, but I do value sound judgment and rational systems that put things into neat categories for my processing purposes. 

            As I have grown older, I have become more convinced that wisdom is not a “color-inside-the-lines” mode of being.  Our standard is higher than standards.  There is something absolutely breath-taking about grace found in the grey areas of life.  Grey is much messier, but so much more worth living than black and white.  That said, my appreciation for spontaneity, rebellious beauty, and real experience does not mean that I am wired to operate with such a free view of life.  I think I want to be more “outside the lines” than I am capable of being.  Not disobedient, mind you, just convinced that as a Christian person in this world, I am called to play by different rules than our society and our institutions condone.  It takes an enormous amount of trust to throw reason and sound judgment to the wind. 

            Yesterday, a neighbor from across the street came over to watch me plant some fall vegetables.  I have never spoken to this man before other than the occasional “hi” and a wave in passing.  And yet, here he is over my shoulder watching me methodically plant my seedlings in almost ruler-straight rows.  My brow was scrunched in concentration, and I was tense all over trying so hard to get the spacing of my kale just right.  It was then that he finally spoke:  “You know what they say about gardeners?  They’re really good people. “

            I did the obligatory Southern modesty thing and explained this was my first fall garden, and we would see how it turned out.  Did he have any advice?  Was I doing this right?

            He just kind of grinned.  “The longer you garden, the more you will realize that it’s really more about the well-placed weed than doing it right.”

   I looked at him quizzically.  To give me a visual, he showed me where he had long ago sculpted raised beds in his front yard, complete with irrigation system, pest control, and lots of really hard work.  He has since taken a “freer,” more organic (no pun-intended) view of gardening since two years ago when he literally scattered a few tomato seeds to the left of his driveway.  

And this is what happened in two years time from scattering seed on rocky ground:

In talking with my neighbor David, and mulling around all that he had told me about care-free, trusting, spontaneous gardening… I remembered an excerpt from a book by Barbara Brown Taylor[1] I had read earlier this summer.  If we truly live our lives in orientation to the Word (Jesus Christ), does it look that ordered?  Does it boast of sound judgment and reason?  

            It was about the parable of the sower in Matthew 13.  You know, the one where the sower scatters seeds on four different types of soil.  The seed on the path gets eaten up by birds, the seed on the rocky ground withered without roots, the seed in the thorns were choked out, and then there’s the good soil.  She remarked that she always hears that parable as a story about her, and she inevitably worries about what kind of ground she is on with God.  How she needs to work harder to turn herself into a better-prepped field for God’s word.  But then she described a revelation.  What if instead of viewing this parable as a word about us as the dirt, what if the parable of the sower is in fact really a parable about the sower? 

“What if it is not about our own successes and failures and birds and rocks and thorns, but about the extravagance of a sower who does not seem to be fazed by such concerns, who flings seeds everywhere, wastes it with holy abandon, who feeds the birds, whistles at the rocks, picks his way through the thorns, shouts hallelujah at the good soil and just keeps on sowing, confident that there is enough seed to go around, that there is plenty, and that when the harvest comes at last it will fill every barn in the neighborhood to the rafters?”

How awesome.  That Jesus could be describing here not a call to fret over our thorns, but a proclamation about the way God operates!  Jesus is suggesting “there is another way to go about things, a way that is less concerned with productivity than with plentitude.” 

            Imagine if the farming industry in our country did not worry so much about productivity?  What if the dollar sign was not the bottom line?  What if plentitude of food to all was the top priority?  What if we had the courage to live as though there is more than enough, and trust the seeds amidst the weeds? 

            I’m going to work on that this week.  I’m going to put my ruler away when planting kale seedlings!  I’m going to envision that the more I sow, the more I have to sow.  I am going to focus on my baby girls, and care less about the havoc we wreak in the playroom.  I’m going to give arbitrarily, excessively.  I am going to practice holy abandon and just see what happens.  I am going to attempt to not worry about my birds and rocks and thorns quite so obsessively and focus more on trusting a God who does not see them as obstacles.  Not sure what that looks like, just yet.  I bet it won’t make very much rational sense, but I suspect it will feel different in a very good way. 

 

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[1] The Seeds of Heaven.

The Mustard Menace

Day by day, we learn a little bit more about life through our gardening adventures.  Today’s lesson: well, there are a couple.

(1)   Pay attention. 

(2)   Don’t make assumptions.

            Here’s the backstory.  My husband and I planted our mustard greens (and various lettuces and herbs) a few weeks ago.  The mustards were looking fairly vibrant, bright green and getting taller all the time.  A few days ago, I noticed they had a few holes in them.  The sign at the gardening center where we bought them had warned us about pests and that if you see any, you should pick them off and spray with an organic pesticide.  So I even knew to look out for “loopers.”  The problem here is that I have no idea what a looper looks like.

            Today I walked out to find half of my mustard green leaves had been chomped off.  Ok, not cool.  Then my neighbor, who has a prime vantage point of the raised bed from her kitchen window, gave me a tip.  She had seen a squirrel in our box yesterday.  Ah-ha!  The squirrel, who has been eating out of our compost pile, who poses for photo shoots to win us over, has totally crossed the line and rampaged our mustards.  Immediately, I’m Googling squirrel solutions.  Cayenne pepper sprinkled on the plants repels squirrels, owl decoys have been known to help, and there is such a thing as a solar-powered vibration-emitting stake that cures your squirrel issue. 

            Later this afternoon, I was out filling the rest of the bed by planting kale, carrots and brussel sprouts, when another neighbor from across the street (who also gardens) came over to chat about our prolific lettuce and offer tidbits from his experience.  Maybe the third lesson from this venture is that it takes a village to raise a crop …  Not only did I learn I had planted the kale too close together, I learned the real source of our mustard menace.  Can you find it?

There he (or she!) is on the lower part of that second leaf.  Unbelievable that even though I was forewarned about loopers on mustard greens and cabbage, I could not find this little bugger to pick it off.  I had blamed the squirrel.  Now that I know what I’m looking for, loopers beware! 

It is surprising how eager our whole street is to offer cautions, advice, and even espionage for the sake of our crops.  While I hoped this whole gardening thing would draw me closer to God and make me feel more connected to the earth, a quite happy discovery has been the community that emerges around seeds in soil.  It’s like it’s inevitable.  Something very captivating and even awe-inspiring about life springing forth from the dirt. Everybody wants to be a part of that miracle.