Last night at our board meeting, the chair of the Garden board looked directly at me and said, "You're on the road to burn-out, and I'm concerned." He's right, but slightly off - I think I already am burned out. The last two weeks have been really exhausting, and really stressful. Really, really. Good news is, it's over - I just submitted the federal grant application that I've been staying up late and skipping days off work to finish. Was it worth the cost to my body and spirit, though? Was it worth the headaches from staring at a computer screen and re-reading the 136+ page instruction manuals to find the one paragraph that talks about what size margins the budget justification page is supposed to have? (They are seriously that picky). Or skipping house dinner and distancing myself from friends to fill out the reams of online forms? Or feeling too tired to even pray?
The grant we applied for was a Community Food Projects grant to do participatory research on food security in 3 low-income farm worker communities in Oxnard. I'm excited about the project, especially since it brings together 6 different partner organizations we've been working with in the area, including a major farm worker employer and agribusiness, Reiter Bros. The kicker though, is that this research will be led and designed by Community-based Researchers (read: people actually from the community, and even farm workers themselves, rather than outside academics). The local university is also partnering with us to pair student researchers with these community researchers. It's a great opportunity that I think will strengthen community ties so that hunger issues will be addressed from within and through relationship with the poor rather than just pouring in aid from outside. But the process of applying for the money to fund this made me apprehensive, because of how grants are designed.
Grants are predicated on the whole idea of measurable, "evidence-based outcomes." I.e., Success. Basically, the Big Money wants to fund projects that address a problem (some call it a crisis), and whose problems they can fix. And you have to have certain objectives along the way that can be met. For example, "we will address (name %) rates of food insecurity in (name area populated by poor people) by starting 2 farmers' markets in (name time frame)." Which I think promotes the mindset that we can change the world, one dollar at a time, checking off our check-list of solve-able problems. Or, if I'm cynical, this promotes a crisis-seeking mindset within non-profits to fund/promote their existence.
This morning, I was commiserating with Alice, a friend who runs another non-profit, about grants' emphasis on success through "measurable outcomes," and she said, "You have to read a chapter from this book by Greg Boyle!" and off she went to get it. Greg Boyle is a Catholic priest, and the founder of "HomeBoy Industries," an organization in inner-city L.A. to provide jobs, training, and encouragement to young people who are in the gang culture.
So, here I am, sitting in her office and nearly in tears because of Boyle's words. He brings it back to Jesus, just who I've been needing to come back to in this tension. Listen to this:
"Success and failure, ultimately, have little to do with living the gospel. Jesus just stood with the outcasts until they were welcomed or until he was crucified - whichever came first...
"The Left screamed: 'Don't just stand there, do something.' And the Right maintained: 'Don't stand with those folks at all.'
... "How do we get the world to change anyway? Dorothy Day asked critically: 'Where were the saints to try and change the social order? Not just minister to the slaves, but to do away with slavery.' Dorothy Day is a hero of mine, but I disagree with her here. You actually abolish slavery by accompanying the slave. We don't strategize our way out of slavery, we solidarize, if you will, our way toward its demise. We stand in solidarity with the slave, and by so doing, we diminish slavery's ability to stand. By casting our lot with the gang member, we hasten the demise of demonizing. All Jesus asks is, 'Where are you standing?' And after chilling defeat and soul-numbing failure, He asks again, 'Are you still standing there?'
"Can we stay faithful and persistent in our fidelity even when things seem not to succeed?
I suppose Jesus could have chosen a strategy that worked better (evidence-based outcomes) - that didn't end in the Cross - but he couldn't find a strategy more soaked with fidelity than the one he embraced." (Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion 172-173)
Oh thank you, de-centering and re-centering Jesus.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Monday, November 1, 2010
Halloween and Dia de los Muertos
Sunday was Community Roots Garden's Halloween/ Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) party. We hosted the celebration along with MICOP, Mixteco Indigenous Community Organizing Project. Here are a few pictures of the fun:
We went trick-or-treating in the surrounding neighborhood with all the kids that came. There must have been at least 30 kids there. Our line was half a block long, and we pretty much depleted the neighborhood's candy supply!
Earlier in the afternoon, while the Mixteco men were building the Dia de los Muertos altar (in background), some of the families pulled out some shovels and picks and started working in the Garden. The atmosphere was so joyful, transcending that distinction between work and play. Here, a ninja and samurai help Lupe pull out the old zucchini plants.
The finished altar honoring the dead, with food laid out for loved ones passed. One of the most beautiful altares I've seen - the yellow flowers are marigolds that we planted in the garden for this purpose. Hanging from the arches (symbolizing the gateway between death and life) are fruit and pan de muerto bread in the shapes of animals.
We went trick-or-treating in the surrounding neighborhood with all the kids that came. There must have been at least 30 kids there. Our line was half a block long, and we pretty much depleted the neighborhood's candy supply!
Earlier in the afternoon, while the Mixteco men were building the Dia de los Muertos altar (in background), some of the families pulled out some shovels and picks and started working in the Garden. The atmosphere was so joyful, transcending that distinction between work and play. Here, a ninja and samurai help Lupe pull out the old zucchini plants.
The finished altar honoring the dead, with food laid out for loved ones passed. One of the most beautiful altares I've seen - the yellow flowers are marigolds that we planted in the garden for this purpose. Hanging from the arches (symbolizing the gateway between death and life) are fruit and pan de muerto bread in the shapes of animals. Thursday, October 21, 2010
Autumn, two poems.
I had the pleasure of a holiday spent visiting good friends out East this month in Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey. It was such a good, needed time of renewing and strengthening old friendships, reflecting on new relationships in my life, and pure recreation. One of my favorite afternoons was spent apple picking with two old roommates, Carolyn and Ashley. Here's a poem from that experience.
Notes on an Apple Harvest
I taste fall in the Berkshires,
in a crimson-tipped valley
where an orchard drops its fruit.
Braeburns, like dusky plums,
burden thick old limbs,
and fallen Winesaps
press the ground, they
bruise it soft and red.
I favor the Macoun,
its sheath of skin
snaps and juice puddles
cold like spring rains.
Autumn lets loose
the quick, sweet
flavor of season's change.
And here's a poem by May Sarton that I dedicate to dear Sarah in New York. The "you," as I interpret, is open-ended and can be an ideology, a person, an experience... Thank you, Sarah, for being with me as I "lose what I lose to keep what I can keep."
Autumn Sonnet
If I can let you go as trees let go
Their leaves, so casually, one by one;
If I can come to know what they do know,
That fall is the release, the consummation,
Then fear of time and the uncertain fruit
Would not distemper the great lucid skies
This strangest autumn, mellow and acute.
If I can take the dark with open eyes
And call it seasonal, not harsh or strange
(for love itself may need a time of sleep)
And, treelike, stand unmoved before the change,
Lose what I lose to keep what I can keep,
The strong root still alive under the snow,
Love will endure – if I can let you go.
Notes on an Apple Harvest
I taste fall in the Berkshires,
in a crimson-tipped valley
where an orchard drops its fruit.
Braeburns, like dusky plums,
burden thick old limbs,
and fallen Winesaps
press the ground, they
bruise it soft and red.
I favor the Macoun,
its sheath of skin
snaps and juice puddles
cold like spring rains.
Autumn lets loose
the quick, sweet
flavor of season's change.
And here's a poem by May Sarton that I dedicate to dear Sarah in New York. The "you," as I interpret, is open-ended and can be an ideology, a person, an experience... Thank you, Sarah, for being with me as I "lose what I lose to keep what I can keep."
Autumn Sonnet
If I can let you go as trees let go
Their leaves, so casually, one by one;
If I can come to know what they do know,
That fall is the release, the consummation,
Then fear of time and the uncertain fruit
Would not distemper the great lucid skies
This strangest autumn, mellow and acute.
If I can take the dark with open eyes
And call it seasonal, not harsh or strange
(for love itself may need a time of sleep)
And, treelike, stand unmoved before the change,
Lose what I lose to keep what I can keep,
The strong root still alive under the snow,
Love will endure – if I can let you go.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Cardboard Wafers or Real Food?
A short piece for the Broadcast, a newsletter publication for Episcopal young adult ministers...
As a teenager, I was part of a church that celebrated the Lord's Supper by passing around a plate of translucent communion wafers. These flimsy wafers bore a strange resemblance in size and shape to Pogs, small cardboard discs that young adults who were kids during the 90's might remember collecting. I doubt they taste much differently. The 0-calorie discs of “bread” dissolved as soon as they touched my tongue, and with a swish of grape juice, I sensed no trace of Christ's body left in my mouth or in my body. What a contrast to the Feast that I participate in every week at the Abundant Table.
The Abundant Table, a small house church and campus ministry that started up an organic farm last year, breaks bread using a fresh roll made by our priest or a church member. I savor the bread and can feel its substance as it passes down my throat. After the Eucharist and a blessing, we continue the Feast together with a potluck dinner. About three-quarters of the worshipers at the Abundant Table are either members of the farm's Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)* program or are farmers/ farm interns who work to supply about 60 CSA members with vegetables and fruits from the 5-acre organic Farm near our house. As one can imagine, our potluck dinners feature the farm's bounty in a mouth-watering array of dishes. We feast on Julie's spinach and zucchini lasagna, Erynn's kale salad, Josephine's roasted beets, and then top it off with Seth and Ana's Indian-spiced almond and carrot pudding.
I believe that our celebration of Eucharist can lend itself to an awareness of how we eat during the meals following, whether they be potlucks inspired by a farm's harvest, lunch from a drive-through, or a youth group's snack time. Are we eating “cardboard wafers,” or are we feasting on food directly connected to real hands and to creation? I think of the Abundant Table (yes, we're an aptly named bunch) as practitioners of a hearty Eucharist feast. The bread that we distribute once shared strands of gluten with the rest of the loaf; through sharing it, we remember our inter-connectedness with one another and with Earth.
Author and farmer Wendell Berry calls the very act of eating a sacrament, “by which we enact and understand our oneness with the Creation, the conviviality of one body with all bodies.”** This begs some questions about how we eat the sacrament of Christ's body and the extension of that sacrament into daily life. Do we eat mostly alone? How do we share the food and resources given to us? Are we consuming what Michael Pollan calls a “food-like substance,” or are we eating food that comes from healthy plants and animals, that finds its source in the Earth that sustains us? Ultimately, if we believe that the sacrament of Eucharist draws us together into new life as the body of Christ, let us not separate that life from the health of our physical body.
* Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a relationship between a farmer and community members in which members commit to financially supporting the farm for a season, and in return, receive weekly delivery boxes of the farm's harvest. See our website, www.jointhefarm.com, for an example CSA.
** Wendell Berry, “The Body and the Earth,” in Norman Wirzba, ed. The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry (Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2002), 93.
-Volunteer at a community garden to learn how to grow your own food and connect with others. To learn more about community gardening, visit http://www.communitygarden.org
-Plant some vegetables and fruits instead of shrubs and lawn in your yard. Visit http://www.dinnergarden.org/ for a great example of home gardening with a vision.
-Contact a farm for a service-learning trip. Two youth groups from All Saints, Pasadena, and St. Wilfred's, Huntington Beach, recently spent a rewarding week connecting to the land through helping with work on our farm.
-Subscribe to a CSA, share a box with a friend, or start a CSA drop-off site at your church. It's a great opportunity to connect with farmers and other members of the community. Check out http://www.localharvest.org for a directory of CSAs and farms nearest you.
-Take your youth group on a trip to the local farmer's market to learn about where their food comes from and how it's produced.
As a teenager, I was part of a church that celebrated the Lord's Supper by passing around a plate of translucent communion wafers. These flimsy wafers bore a strange resemblance in size and shape to Pogs, small cardboard discs that young adults who were kids during the 90's might remember collecting. I doubt they taste much differently. The 0-calorie discs of “bread” dissolved as soon as they touched my tongue, and with a swish of grape juice, I sensed no trace of Christ's body left in my mouth or in my body. What a contrast to the Feast that I participate in every week at the Abundant Table.
The Abundant Table, a small house church and campus ministry that started up an organic farm last year, breaks bread using a fresh roll made by our priest or a church member. I savor the bread and can feel its substance as it passes down my throat. After the Eucharist and a blessing, we continue the Feast together with a potluck dinner. About three-quarters of the worshipers at the Abundant Table are either members of the farm's Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)* program or are farmers/ farm interns who work to supply about 60 CSA members with vegetables and fruits from the 5-acre organic Farm near our house. As one can imagine, our potluck dinners feature the farm's bounty in a mouth-watering array of dishes. We feast on Julie's spinach and zucchini lasagna, Erynn's kale salad, Josephine's roasted beets, and then top it off with Seth and Ana's Indian-spiced almond and carrot pudding.
I believe that our celebration of Eucharist can lend itself to an awareness of how we eat during the meals following, whether they be potlucks inspired by a farm's harvest, lunch from a drive-through, or a youth group's snack time. Are we eating “cardboard wafers,” or are we feasting on food directly connected to real hands and to creation? I think of the Abundant Table (yes, we're an aptly named bunch) as practitioners of a hearty Eucharist feast. The bread that we distribute once shared strands of gluten with the rest of the loaf; through sharing it, we remember our inter-connectedness with one another and with Earth.
Author and farmer Wendell Berry calls the very act of eating a sacrament, “by which we enact and understand our oneness with the Creation, the conviviality of one body with all bodies.”** This begs some questions about how we eat the sacrament of Christ's body and the extension of that sacrament into daily life. Do we eat mostly alone? How do we share the food and resources given to us? Are we consuming what Michael Pollan calls a “food-like substance,” or are we eating food that comes from healthy plants and animals, that finds its source in the Earth that sustains us? Ultimately, if we believe that the sacrament of Eucharist draws us together into new life as the body of Christ, let us not separate that life from the health of our physical body.
* Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a relationship between a farmer and community members in which members commit to financially supporting the farm for a season, and in return, receive weekly delivery boxes of the farm's harvest. See our website, www.jointhefarm.com, for an example CSA.
** Wendell Berry, “The Body and the Earth,” in Norman Wirzba, ed. The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry (Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2002), 93.
A few suggestions for churches/ youth groups/ individuals looking for next steps for connecting with food, one another, and Creation:
-Start a small garden at your church. Connect the Garden to your church's Sunday School curriculum for kids, like St. Paul's Episcopal in Ventura, CA does. Or, grow grapes for communion wine!-Volunteer at a community garden to learn how to grow your own food and connect with others. To learn more about community gardening, visit http://www.communitygarden.org
-Plant some vegetables and fruits instead of shrubs and lawn in your yard. Visit http://www.dinnergarden.org/ for a great example of home gardening with a vision.
-Contact a farm for a service-learning trip. Two youth groups from All Saints, Pasadena, and St. Wilfred's, Huntington Beach, recently spent a rewarding week connecting to the land through helping with work on our farm.
-Subscribe to a CSA, share a box with a friend, or start a CSA drop-off site at your church. It's a great opportunity to connect with farmers and other members of the community. Check out http://www.localharvest.org for a directory of CSAs and farms nearest you.
-Take your youth group on a trip to the local farmer's market to learn about where their food comes from and how it's produced.
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