It was interesting to hear Spovegan assess my perspective on local food in the following terms last week. She said;
"Craig seems to be approaching the idea of veganism from an environmental view point, whereas the Times
contributor takes an ethical stance using some rather polarizing
language. There is some obvious discomfort between these two
philosophies."
I am intrigued by the way she describes this disconnect between the environment and "ethics" and the tension it creates. It
gets right to the heart of what motivates my interest in local food and
sustainability, so in response I want to explain my viewpoint in a
little more detail.
Before I get into that I want to invite you to share in
the comments section or via email what it is
that animates your interest in local food and sustainability. Awhile
back I did a series called "A View From Your Window" where I featured
pics of your vegetable gardens. I'd like to do another series called "A
View From Your Local" where I can post stories of what drives your
interest in these issues. More on this at the end of the post.
Wendell Berry's commentary on "nature poetry" helps explain some of my perspective. Berry
points out that in the world of poetry there are two kinds of nature
poetry. He says;
"I will use the term here to refer only to those poets who
seem to me to have turned the natural world, not as a source of
imagery, but as subject of inspiration...With these (poets) nature was
of primary interest; by seeing into its life they sensed the presence
of a shaping and sustaining spirit within it. With poets such as Donne
or Pope or Shelley the particulars of nature were only of secondary
interest insofar as they 'stood for' an abstraction that interested the
poet primarily and that he has in mind before he turned to nature for
the image."
I was trained both formally and informally to take the latter approach,
most significantly in my conversion to the Christian faith in early
adulthood. Theology and engagement with God were framed as pursuit of
an abstraction, with the material particularities of the world relevant
only as much as they serve as metaphor and conduit to access the
divine realities.
After
years of living with this disconnect and seeing the damage it does both
personally and otherwise I have come to the same conclusion as Berry:
"...perhaps
the greatest disaster of human history is one that happened to or
within religion: that is, the conceptual division between the holy and
the world, the excerpting of the Creator from the creation...and this
split in public attitudes was inevitably mirrored in the lives of
individuals: A man could aspire to heaven with his mind and his heart
while destroying the earth, and his fellow men, with his hands."
This disconnect between truth and the material world is as much a sickness of modernity as it is of religion. My intent here is not to bash on religion. (I am grateful
for my conversion to Christ and I am after all the pastor of a
Presbyterian Church. It's hard to get much more religious than that.)
My observation here is more personal lament than global outrage, more
about spiritual formation than apologetics (the truth claims of Jesus
or the Bible.)
And so my work with local food, our year long
experiment, tearing out the lawn, raising chickens, etc. is, at least
in part, an experiment in re-weaving faith and soil, food and spirit,
earthy reality and divine truth, backyard and baptismal font.
It also relates to my experience as a pastor. I'm thinking
of a friend who no longer attends church because she says she
experiences God in nature. I'm thinking of the growing crowds of people
who say they are spiritual but not religious. I see this as more a
rejection of the false divide of the "holy and the world" than it is a
rejection of God. And in some ways the church has itself to blame
for this exodus. The church signed a long-term endorsement deal with
modernity that looked like the deal of the century for awhile but has
taken a tragic turn where people feel like they have to choose between
nature and sanctuary, spirituality and a community of faith. As a
pastor I am experimenting with what it looks
like to lead a church that rejects this false divide and witnesses to a
holistic faith. So I do the normal stuff like preach and visit the
hospital and write newsletter articles, but I also manage a farmers'
market and help distribute food with Second Harvest and work to
establish community gardens in West Valley, and write a blog about
local food.
And let me be as clear as I can, my interest in food
and consumption is not some bait and switch effort to slip Jesus into
people's lives, as if local food were some carrot on a stick to lead people along
into the holy. The whole point is that I am learning to pay attention
to real carrots, preferably local and organic, and see them as in some
way holy. If I am seeking to convert people here it is a conversion to
a whole life where truth and holiness are wedded to earthiness. At
least that's the ongoing conversion I'm seeking in my own life.
But
enough about me, what about you? What motivates and drives your
interest in sustainability and local food and care for the environment?
And I'm more interested in the personal dimensions of your journey than
I am in arguments for sustainability. If you respond in the comment
section I'll pull from there and re-post some or you can email me.
Either way I'll maintain your anonymity. Thanks in advance for your
input.
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