Local Food, Poetry and the Pursuit of Holiness

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.

Comments

[Amy]

We are Christian wannabe farmers (we do provide much of our own family's food-not a small undertaking with 18 children). We came to be interested in the local food movement because we believe in eating foods as close to the way God created them as possible and also in being good stewards of the land God provided. I would venture to say that 95% of the foods found in the grocery store aren't even close in content to what God deemed to be food and we know big agriculture ruins the land. We also believe in multi-generational faithfulness, that is, providing for our future grandchildren and great grandchildren by our actions now. What we are currently providing for the future generations is a huge debt load and myriads of health problems because the "food" is so bad. Finally, our interest in providing food for others is in the hopes of building community, something sorely lacking in this texting, social media based world. In a nutshell, we are trying to be local farmers because we "want to take dominion of the earth for the glory of God".

[Momof5]

We've moved slowly into an interest in sustainability. As my username suggests, our family footprint seems like it might be pretty large. And there's no question that our food bill can be pretty sizable. But I was curious -- and maybe a bit defensive -- about whether we really are using more than our share. Knowing my kids as I do, of course, I can't imagine the world without them, and because they're mine I'm quite sure the world is a much better place because of them. But can I make it actually better? For them, with them, through them?

So we pay attention to where our food comes from, we garden, we keep our lights off (although the tool Avista provides on their web site places us at the very bottom of consumption for a household of 7 people already), we share and reach out as best we can. I cringe when we're imperfect -- do I really have to drive all the way to Costco for the third time in a week? Sometimes, yes -- but I'm beginning to see some signs that we're moving in the right direction.

We have learned to eat all sorts of crazy vegetables because they happen to grow in our yard (so do carrots, thank goodness). One son who is taking Environmental Science at school is astonished that his classmates have to be taught to think about where their food comes from and how much fossil fuel their cars use. It seems normal to us that we know the name of the man who raised our beef and of the man who slaughtered it, and the woman who packaged it.

Those connections carry with them a poetry of their own, I think, and a sense of place and purpose that is very close to faith.

[Craig]

Thanks for the comments so far. Looking forward to re-posting later this week.

[Hillary]

Inspired by you we have as a family been eating much more locally(CSA during 6 months of the year and local farmer's market weekly in the other months). My motivations are however much more selfish. I find as a family we gain by eating locally in three big ways:
1. When our refrigerator is filled with organic fruits and veggies we have signed up for, we eat them and don't miss the junk food so much.
2. By going to our local farm weekly my kids and I have a better appreciation of where our food comes from. Prior to this, I think they believed food was made/grown in the supermarket and fast food stores.
3. Lastly by supporting local farmers, I support the green spaces my neighbors occupy with their farms in lieu of housing subdivisions.

Though my motivations are more selfish, still appreciate the effects.

Hillary