yearofplenty

What Would You Do If You Had One Year to Live? - A Sunday Reflection

I have the morning off from my usual worship leading responsibilities. I'm grateful for the breather. I presided yesterday over a beautiful but draining memorial service for a 45 year old member of the church I pastor. It's put me in a bit of a reflective mood and in honor of her I want to offer some thoughts.

I do around 20 memorial services a year. I've done as many as three in one week. In 12 years of being a pastor I have grown accustomed to the awkward rhythms of walking through the days and weeks that follow someone's death. I've learned that when you die no one is going to talk about how successful you were or how much money you made. They will talk about your passions, and the volume of your laugh and the things that brought you joy. They will mostly talk about the generosity of your love, or struggle with the lack thereof. They will rejoice in the miracle of reconciled relationships and/or carry a wound of unresolved resentments. 

This most recent memorial service stands out as unique in my experience. My friend was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor only to have the cancer inexplicably disappear. For almost a year she lived in the grace moment of a miracle and she lived it so well. She served and loved and seized life in the most wonderful ways. Her gift to me is the way she has got me thinking about how I would live my life if I only had one year to live. What would I do if I was given the miracle of another year? And I guess that's the way it is, isn't it. We've all been given the miracle of another year, probably more but then again, maybe not. We all live in that grace moment of a miracle every day, more often than not, unaware.

This is not altogether unrelated to our Year of Plenty experience. Part of the gift of our year of constraints is the way it led us to live with more passion and awareness of the miracle of everyday. Theologians call these constraints "askesis" from which we get the work asceticism. While this word has mostly negative connotations in our contemporary life it's a word worth recovering and redeeming. I like the way Eugene Peterson describes it in his book "Under the Unpredictable Plant."

“We are familiar with the frequently beneficial consequences of involuntary askesis. How many times have we heard as we have visited a parishioner in the days following a heart attack, “It’s the best thing that ever happened to me – I’ll never be the same again. It woke me up to the reality of my life, to God, to what is important.” Suddenly instead of mindlessly and compulsively pursuing an abstraction – success, or money, or happiness – the person is reduced to what is actually there, to the immediately personal – family, geography, body – and begins to live freshly in love and appreciation. The change is a direct consequence of a forced realization of human limits. Pulled out of the fantasy of a god condition and confined to the reality of the human condition, the person is surprised to be living not a diminished life but a deepened life, not a crippled life but a zestful life.”

These comments about unintentional askesis remind me of Andrew Sullivan’s interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates wherein he shares about how HIV has changed his life. He said of contracting the disease.

My own sense is that it’s the most important thing that’s ever happened to me in my life…It certainly helped me realize that careerism is idiotic. I had worked really hard and gotten to this place and then “Boom!” In one day I was told, ‘You’re going to die, you can’t stay in America and you’ll probably have to quit your job…’

Andrew then said with a little glisten of a tear in his eye and a wistful voice;

At that point you either go into denial and carry on as if it isn’t happening, or you absorb it and have a life changing moment. I mean who cares, I could be dead…And then also the knowledge that God can strip you of everything, and what do you have left -- it’s a very useful moment in one’s life to realize, what do I have if this is all taken away? What’s left? What am I really living for? What are my values?...It strips away a lot of stuff – if you let it. It’s a place I came to die that taught me in a strange kind of way how to live. And I think that means letting go of a lot of stuff most of us are afraid to let go of.”

Peterson goes from talking about this unintentional askesis to talk about intentional askesis. He says,

Askesis is voluntary disaster…Why wait? Why wait for an accident, an illness, a failure? Why not take deliberate steps now to rid myself of the illusions of being a god, study the limits of my mortality, and sink myself into the quite marvelous but sin-obscured realities of creation and salvation?

In many ways our Year of Plenty was a voluntary disaster. It was a year of wonderful constraints. "Why not?" is a question we grew very familiar with and it's a question my friend has reminded me to keep front and center. Why wait? Why not? What would you do if you had the miracle of another year to live? These are the questions I'm reflecting on today.

While I didn't get a chance to preach in the pulpit this morning I sort of stumbled into giving a sermon here on the blog. Oh well.

Grace and peace to you in the midst of these questions.

www.good.is - "Cowpooling is hot right now"

I continue to enjoy the www.good.is website. This post about an upcoming edition of the magazine on neighborhoods is full of interesting links including one about cowpooling, which according to the magazine is "hot right now." That's the funniest quote I've heard in awhile. I was also fascinated by the story about Orange County, in China. Definitely worth a read.

Michael Pollan, Oprah and #Agchat

I missed Michael Pollan's appearance on Oprah today. The clip above with John Stewart probably gives you the gist of what he had to say. Even more interesting to me than what Pollan had to say is my growing awareness of how the farming community, at least a significant portion of it, really resents that Michael Pollan is so prominent in telling the story of agriculture. There is a growing sentiment that farmers should be the one's to tell their own story. See the Twitter response below for a sense of how some farmers feel about it.

@RadicalOmnivore No one said farmers are good communicators, that is the problem, we don't talk about what we do, we just do it.

Don't believe evrythng u hear @Oprah about food & how it's produced. Talk 2 a farmer 2 hear the real story, we live it evryday. #agchat #mom

@Oprah, please invite farmers on to tell your viewers how we raise food & protect our livestock, Pollan doesn't raise food, we do. #agchat

DayAngus Dear @Oprah I am going out to help my daughter feed a balanced diet of grain & hay to her cattle. #agchat #meatcamp

I was introduced last week to the #agchat hashtag on Twitter when my recent posts on the American Farm Bureau and farmers (here and here) caught the attention of people in that conversation. I was surprised to find the following headline ricocheting all over Twitter and Facebook linking to my blog;

@Chrischinn: After the suicide of a dairy farmer, critic of #ag now understands "it's hard to be a farmer." http://bit.ly/84zpi3 #agchat

I'd never really thought of myself as a "critic" of the agricultural community but there it was, I was the repentant critic. I prefer to think of myself as an ag advocate but, oh well.

I do think they are on to something when those on #agchat talk about the importance of telling the story. In general us consumers live in the midst of fragmentation and part of what is happening in the local food movement is that we are seeking to recover the story of our food. In the midst of powerful forces at work in the marketplace that rely on storyless efficiencies and disconnected commodities, we're choosing to live into a new story of connection in relationships with the people that produce our food and consumer goods. We're peeling back the veneer of pastoral scenes on our food packages dreamed up by marketing departments, and we don't like some of what we're seeing. We want to know the stories of our farmers.

I was talking to a farmer friend yesterday, and he said the problem isn't the farmers, but rather the large corporations that are controlling the food supply. It's not the ranchers, but the massive feedlots scattered across the country owned by a few corporations. It's not the growers but the few corporations that have a stranglehold on the seed supply. I think he's on to something. Between the farmers who want to tell their story and the consumers who long to reweave the story of their consumer lives are corporations that want to control the story on both sides of the equation. I think I should stop here lest my blog ends up on #evilglobalcorporationchat on twitter. :)

Ultimately businesses will adapt to the demands of the consumers. We want to hear the stories of our farmers, and we want our farmers to hear our stories, why we want good clean healthy food. Let's get to work telling and listening and the corporations will follow.

Wendell Berry: Orientation of Agriculture to Local Needs, Possibilities, and Limits Indispensable

In "Another Turn of the Crank" Wendell Berry argues that the place to begin the work of restoring communities strung out on the global economy is the development of local food systems.

...In many places, the obvious way to begin the work I am talking about is with the development of a local food economy. Such a start is attractive because it does not have to be big or costly, it requires nobody's permission, and it can ultimately involve everybody...By "local food economy" I mean simply an economy in which local consumers buy as much of their food as possible from local producers and in which local producers produce as much as they can for the local market.

...Of course, no food economy can be, or ought to be, only local. But the orientation of agriculture to local needs, local possibilities, and local limits is indispensable to the health of both land an people, and undoubtedly to the health of democratic liberties as well.

He gives some specific recommendations worth considering. I wonder how we're doing in the Spokane region in these areas of development.

If the members of a local community want their community to cohere, to flourish, and to last, these are some things they would do:

...Develop small scale industries and business to support the local farm and/or forest economy.

...Strive to produce as much of the community's own energy as possible.

...Make sure that money paid into the local economy circulates within the community for as long as possible before it is paid out.

...A sustainable rural economy will be dependent on urban consumers loyal to local products. Therefore, we are talking about an economy that will always be more cooperative than competitive.

...It's an economy whose aim is generosity and a well-distributed and safeguarded abundance.

...Develop properly scaled value-adding industries for local products to ensure that the community does not become merely a colony of the national or global economy.

New Wearable Fast Food Feedbags

Roast House Coffee Newest Roaster on the Spokane Scene

I had a chance to stop by Roast House Coffee last week and get a tour of their newly opened facility. Dave Rier, formerly the master roaster for Thomas Hammer coffee, is manning the controls of their Diedrich small batch roaster, so you know the coffee is going to be good. I especially appreciate their emphasis on relationships, both with the Spokane community and the coffee growers who provide their beans.

They are focusing on private label business, meaning that they will roast coffee for your business to sell under your own brand. It's a real opportunity for Spokane area businesses to get a high quality, artisan product that helps extend their own brand. Their coffee is currently available at the Main Market Food Co-Op under the Main Market brand.

The owners of the business are big supporters of the local food movement in Spokane. I wish them well. Stop by their roasting facility and say hi.

Hard Times on the Farm: NY Dairy Farmer Kills Himself and His Cows

It's hard to say why a NY farmer killed his 51 milking cows and then turned the gun on himself. Apparently he only killed the cows that needed to be milked twice a day. The only clue at this point seems to be the statement of a neighboring farmer who commented that it's "hard times to be a farmer."

The circumstances of this tragedy aside, the statement that it's a hard time to be a farmer is an important one for us to hear and take note of. The economics of farming are brutal, especially dairy farming. The demographics of farming are foreboding, with an average age of farmers in the U.S. of 57 in 2007. The chart to the left shows the long term pattern. The high cost of entry for new farmers wanting to get started with land and equipment means that younger people are choosing other careers. Add to this stress the consumer backlash against industrial farming practices and maybe it helps provide some needed context for rising anger among many in the farming community.

Last week I highlighted and reacted against the harsh tone of the recent American Farm Bureau (AFB) meeting in Seattle. In response to my post the Deputy Director of Public Relations for the AFB in Washington D.C. was so put out he tweeted, "There are some times on twitter when I just need to walk away. This is one of those times." He put out the call to AFB members to respond to the blog post and they did.

This response was particularly poignant:

It is not consumers that we are "declaring war" on. It is the lack of knowledge. It has been proven that public perception is shaped by those who speak out. And the farming community has long-since been one that is reluctant to tell our own story...and now that story is being told for us by those who would like to see our livelihood come to an end. So we need to start letting consumers, such as yourself, see us as we truly are...not the way others portray us.

Recognizing the daunting challenges currently facing farmers makes it easier to understand why it would feel like people are out to bring their livelihood to an end, even if that's not the case.

Recognizing these difficult circumstances makes it easier to understand why Mike Barnett from the Texas Farm Bureau had a very different reaction to the AFB address. Whereas I cringed at the aggressive tone, he rejoiced in it;

It was good to hear a major leader in agriculture stand up and say enough is enough. It was good to hear a call to action for agriculture to fight together against an insidious disease that threatens to consume our industry. It was refreshing to hear a cry to take "the fight to the enemies of modern agriculture."

"Things have got to change," Network's Howard Beale said. "But first you've got to get mad."

Is Stallman "the new mad prophet" of agriculture? Let's certainly hope so. I do know that he's mad as hell. I'm mad as hell. And I imagine you are, too.

Are we going to take this anymore?

While I can't relate to the anger, the tragedy on a dairy farm in New York today reminds me that it's "hard times to be a farmer" and even in passionate debate about food and food practices, farmers deserve our respect and concern. So go hug a farmer today.

Al Gore Tweets Story About Year of Plenty and Spokane Churches Going Green

OMG, I just got tweeted by Al Gore. I've never actually typed "OMG" on a text or a blog or a tweet, but I figured this was the occasion to seize the day and give it a shot.

Turns out Al Gore, with over 2 million twitter followers just tweeted the New York Times Story about Spokane pastors and churches going green, which includes the church I pastor and our work with the Millwood Farmers' Market.

@algore: A new trend – Green Pastors: http://bit.ly/4wMHWW

I realize I'm on the edge of sounding like a narcissistic, vainglorious publicity hound at this point, so I promise this will be the last time I mention this whole hubbub with the New York Times. Promise.

But I do reserve the right to wear my "I got tweeted by Al Gore" T-shirt on occasion.

"Fed Up With School Lunch" - Teacher Eats and Chronicles a Year of School Lunches

An anonymous Teacher, Mrs. Q, is so fed up with school lunches she is courageously "Eating school lunch just like the kids every day in 2010", taking pictures and describing the experience on a blog.

Pictured to the left is the famed Rib-a-cue that I encountered at my daughters' school last year.

It's a great project with some intrigue. She wrote recently:

"Now I'm feeling majorly exposed. I could absolutely lose my job over this. In just the first ten days of school lunches I've gotten a bigger response than I expected. It makes me nervous.

Most teachers do feel the same way that I do about the lunches served in the building. So that's reassuring. We've all discussed the lunches and how bad they are in passing. Then we go back to teaching. No one has done much.

I'm not a hero, but I am a whistleblower. But instead of calling a "tip line," I've shouted it to thousands of people. Oops"

School lunch "whistleblower," I love it. Best of luck Mrs. Q. Here's an email interview she did with Mother Nature Network.

The State of the Inland Northwest and Spokane Blogosphere

I was chagrined to find out yesterday that David Blaine is closing his blog, "From the Back Kitchen" where he has kept us all abreast of local restaurant news, especially the running tab of restaurant closures. I would put David among the deans the Spokane blog scene so I think it's noteworthy. We probably need someone to start a blog to keep tabs on all the cool Spokane area blogs that close down.

You type in Spokane Blogs to Google and at the top of the heap is Spokane Food Blog, a worthy position for an important Spokane blog. Then the Spokesman blog page get's a mention. But after that there is an abyss of rotting blog flesh. You've got a link to a Spokane Blogging RSS feed that has been defunct since 2008. Then Spokane Food Blogs old and now defunct blog, iluvspokane, is listed. Then you've got Spokurban, vintage 2006, and some other random stuff. Either Spokane bloggers aren't very good at optimizing their blogs for Google searches or our blogoverse needs a little boost.

Toward that end, I want to put a shout out for your list of the best Spokane/Inland Northwest blogs. I'll follow it up with a post and optimize it so that hopefully when people search for Spokane blogs they'll get a current list.

Here's my list in no particular order:

Spokane Food Blog
Spovangelist
Downtoearthnw.com
Cycling Spokane
From the Back Kitchen (maybe if enough people rally we can get David to keep going)