Jocelyn and Daniel's Left Coast Blog

Rapturous Delight

2011-05-20T20:36:00.000-07:00

In honor of tomorrow I thought I would post this photograph. It's a bit of art gracing the sidewalk outside our building which was created by a neighbor's child. I believe it captures well how I feel and, more (and I don't think it's inacurate to say), how God feels today, tomorrow, and every day hereafter:

All Shall Be Well

2011-05-13T15:08:00.000-07:00

Today is, according to some, the feast day of St. Julian of Norwich (the w is silent)--though others say May 8th.

Quite fitting to have been offered a job today after more than a year of resumes and cover letters--though we shouldn't forget St. Jude the patron saint of lost causes.

I like to think of Julian sitting there stroking her cat and saying, "All shall be well. And all shall be well. And all manner of things shall be well."

Her meditations on Christ, her work as a sort of spiritual director, and her deep rooted spirituality make her a great model for everyone.

So for Amber Noel, for cat lovers, and anyone who needs to hear it again, "All shall be well."

Balancing the Budget

2011-04-27T14:04:00.000-07:00

The following is a rant. You are forewarned.

Among the ranks of the underemployed, I consider that I am pretty well off. Besides living in a country with comparatively good public services, I am married and my spouse is still employed. In fact, while I continue the job searching, I have, in the past year, enjoyed a significant amount of employment. Much of this was contracted work for which I had to literally write the check to the government to pay my taxes.

Honestly, I don't mind paying a lot of my taxes. I think it's great to have roads, parks, public transit, basic health, food and housing programs, social services, libraries, (some) police, firefighters, public schools, public utilities, judicial systems, regulating bodies--you get the idea.

I really hate paying for wars, be they international or domestic (drugs, ICE, Wars on USAmerican health). I have yet to swing fully over to the side of war tax refusal. Though I have certainly looked into it quite seriously. Ultimately my goal is to live on less money than would put me in the situation to pay such taxes. (It's not that I don't think any wars can be justified. In fact, I'm sure that justifications are possible. It's that I cannot see any way to support war and follow in the way of Jesus Christ. Call me crazy, but there's a vibrant two thousand year Christian tradition on both sides of this one--I just can't see a way of treating others the way I want to be treated and doing violence. This doesn't mean refusing to do anything about injustice. It's a lot more complex than that--a conversation for another time.)

Anyway, What I'm saying is, taxes are a pretty certain part of life--unless you are a massive, exploitative corporation--you know, the ones who lobby congress, get subsidies and bailouts, pay their CEOs millions and exploit workers around the globe. In that case, you can likely use a tiny percentage of your massive wealth and redirect it toward tax evasion, further lobbying to preserve your loopholes, and most importantly into direct PR, foundations, and think tanks that support frenetically whipping up the public into a frenzy about the fictional glories of the market and how personal freedom is somehow bound up in never regulating exploitative capitalism.

Well, I think it's important to highlight the few voices who are willing to raise questions about this. Check out this article about the role of the Federal Reserve and the Banks who took out tax payer subsidized loans while at the same time making much higher interest loans back to other branches of the Federal government. That's right, we're paying them twice--oh and maybe they hold your mortgage as well (if so, make that thrice). Still think making money any way they legally can in a capitalist system is okay? Also, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont released this nice little tidbit about corporations who posted significant profits without paying taxes, which I think speaks for itself. And let me just say, it is a specious argument that raising taxes on a company means that they will then just pass it on to consumers. There is plenty of room for these corporations to take a cut in their profits and pay what they owe, all the consumer has to do is say, no, I won't pay that increase, I'll buy from somewhere else. Isn't that supposed to be how the market will regulate itself?

Finally, to put into perspective the federal (and many states') budget crisis, consider the simple solution of raising taxes for corporations and the extremely wealthy. It's not like they got wealthy out of nowhere, their money comes directly from consumers, from tax payers (among whom they are not counted) through bailouts, subsidies, loopholes, and lowered tax brackets. How insulting now to let their rhetoric about the travesty of raising taxes win the day.

In Washington, we recently failed to institute an income tax on our wealthiest citizens. Why? because of the triumph of fear based rhetoric that made non-wealthy voters believe their apparent freedom was being put at risk. In reality, we simply reassured that we would continue to pay far more through other taxes in order to keep the few valuable government services that we hope to save from being cut. These visuals help explain a little more why increasing tax on big business and wealthy individuals makes sense.

Finally, while the associated website that this comes from is fraught with issues that I don't care to critique right now, I find this short video to be spot on in "sizing up" the real problem of our current system.

We have got to find a way opting out of this extractive economy and becoming sustainable, local, responsible, and creative people who will work, not for personal wealth, but for shared abundance for all. To me, many of the ways to do this have little or nothing to do with the government or monetary economy. However, I believe that there are times when we need to call for real action and change in that system. I believe that we are far past that time on the issue of needing to regulate a market that has long been intensively manipulated by the wealthy and powerful. Governmental regulation does not mean interfering with the market any more than it has already been twisted and shaped to benefit the few. Appropriate governmental closing of loopholes, demands that reasonable taxes be paid, and allocation of those taxes to services that provide for all residents of our nation, especially the poorest of the poor is not an unreasonable interference with the market. In fact, it is simply saying that the market manipulation will change hands from the corporations to the people--of course, I'm even more of a fan of the people simply not buying any product or service from these corporations, but that is going to take some time and willpower of the USAmerican people to stop consuming and start creating to meet their own and their neighbor's actual needs.

End of rant.

Peace,
Daniel

The Most Wonderful Thyme of the Year!

2011-04-18T21:54:00.000-07:00

As you can see, we recently brought in an armload of herbs from the garden. While the final bulb of last year's garlic still hangs on the wall, we are rolling in the bounty of spring. I've spent two days slowly heat drying batches of chives in the oven. The flowers (left foreground) are being kept fresh in a vase and will be allowed to open and then enjoyed in salads.

We culled the thyme, which was spreading gloriously around the garden, covering about 4-5 square feet--all that from one little sprig that we picked up at the Seattle Tilth sale 2 years ago.

Surrounding the thyme is the freshest most tender Lemon Balm of the year. This plant, Melissa Officionalis, is probably one of my favorite garden herb and medicinal plant ever. It's soothing properties help calm stomachs, ease nerves, and put this restless sleeper right to bed. It is a gentle herb that is safe for the whole family to enjoy as a delicious lemony tea, and also lends itself to culinary uses for flavoring rice, chicken, and fish. On top of all this, it packs a serious punch medicinally in that it has antiviral properties which, along with it's mild sedative effect, makes it the perfect soothing tea for those with seasonal colds and flu. I love the taste of the young fresh leaves and when we went to the garden, our two bushes from last year had made it through the winter and were sending up their vibrant stalks to soak in the springtime sun. By seriously pinching back the vigorous early growth, the plants will fill out even more with thick side shoots, making for more fresh leaves throughout the summer. I like to use it fresh through most of the year, but it is always nice to have some leaves dried ahead of time to blend in tea mixes. I have been known to foist this plant in all forms--seed, bare root, potted, dried, and in blends of tea--on many a friend and stranger.

The top row in the photo is oregano. This hearty herb is one of my favorites both for its flavor and vigor. I rescued ours from someone else's thinning, and lodged it into the rock wall around our garden, since then it has spread wonderfully. I'm drying as much as I can for next winter's use (it's flavor keeps quite well dried), since I've had to do without it for a couple of months after failing to set enough aside last year. I'll use the fresh herb all summer and in our canned tomato sauces as well. So yay for lengthening daylight and slightly warmer weather.

Well that's all for today.
Peace,
Daniel

Sick Day Haikus

2011-04-04T18:03:00.001-07:00

We have both been miserably sick for three days running now, and today even though our fevers have broken, it seems we have wandered into some wonderful, delirium-inspired flights of fancy. They must be shared, both as a testament to the glorious inner-workings of our poetic faculties as well as to how muddle-wumpus sick we are. (though the fact that we are posting these at all probably makes that pretty clear). So, from the heart... (this post can be erased later, right?)....

Note: Daniel is taking comfort in the fact that we're publishing this under Jocelyn's log in, even though he is sitting right here co-authoring it.

Our Sick Day Haikus

Being miserably sick is miserable. Damn straight. (three more words).

Only nefarious capitalists use high-fructose corn syrup.

Is muddle-wumpus hyphenated? (It's not in the dictionary).

Some how it doesn't feel like a haiku if it's not spontaneous.

A Poem I read tonight

2011-03-25T22:37:00.000-07:00

So there is more to the Technology rant that I started before, and maybe I'll get back to it in a bit, but, tonight I went to the artists' reception at MHGS where I had the chance to share a bit of my work that I did back in December while I was doing the residency. Along with 2 poems that I already posted in a video post, I read this one which I have been brewing up for the few months since the residency and I wrote all the words for in the past week.

Sorry about the wonky line breaks, I'm too lazy to change the page format to fit how the poem should look on the page. It was kind of a "spoken word" piece anyway, so the rhythm is more in my reading than the layout, if that makes any sense at all.

Home

When I say “I am hoping to find home,”

Don’t get me wrong.

I am not speaking of eschatology.

Because I know—with knowledge that tells me it is right to stand in awe of the moon,

That there is a way in which sign, symbol, ritual, and sacrament

Are one.

And the place is called:

“Sharing our table.” And

“Inside of your arms.”

---

The moon this week was closer than it has been since I was eight.

I watched it rise and set on the east and west horizons,

Planted root crops by its light, and

The next day, as I rode on the bus,

In celebration of the equinox, a stranger gave me a two foot alder sapling.

After all, what better rhythm than the moon

To measure our own disappearance and emergence

Through the seasons that shape all who depend

on the mineral exchange of rocks and time in soil—

on the transpiration of water from leaf to cloud?

---

I can live without facebook, itunes, plastics, antimicrobial soap, architecture, even baking,

But I would DIE without potassium, mychorrhizal fungi, pollinating insects, and roots

That hold the body of the earth together as it is baptized in the water cycle that keeps all things alive—holding us together like a womb within the body of God.

---

So I am looking for home and

When I find it, the first thing I will do is dig a hole

In which I’ll plant a seed

Of a tree from which my grandchild will pick

The first fruit.

Because I believe that seeds and roots may teach us the mysteries of how to be

People shaped by Holy Breath on clods of soil pressed between God’s hands.

---

And what might our ancestors tell us about home—the ones who kept us alive before the plow?

The ones who, before YHWH introduced that terrible question of being, knew,

That the storm cloud’s blessing can clothe the grass of the field finer than Solomon’s splendor?

---

And while we can never go back,

We can still surrender to the delirious pleasure and embarrassing blessing that we are

Bodies, bound up in skin and hair, with smells and shapes that declare

Our utter connection with the land and all earth-kind.

And though we have evolved a desert spirituality

to cope with our propensity to perpetuate desertification,

Like Francis, we find that even in wilderness,

every hill and valley swarms with creatures who proclaim the glory of God.

(And perhaps it was to the saint that the birds preached the gospel,

Rather than the way we tell the story)

---

So it is not a metaphor when I say, “The Spirit of God is at work in the world.”

And I do not mean that the kingdom of God is “like” a wedding feast.

Because eschatology is NOT about world’s end, but world fulfilled.

---

And when I begin to recognize that my body defines my place within the arced lines that

The moon and sun trace across the sky,

Inside the embrace of horizon’s arms, I begin to understand that here there are neighbors and enemies, tragedies and histories, lovesongs and harvests, adventures and heartaches,

art, life, music, story, hunger, poetry, pain, glory, injustice, sanctuary, differences,

estuaries, lovers, parents, children, rivers, seed to plant and feasts to share—

and all of it is more than I can bear

in a LIFETIME,

THEN I will know that I am home.

And all the significance that my brilliance or striving could bring, is no longer needed because

The world doesn’t need

another savior.

---

So I’ll put away my traveling clothes.

And slowly I’ll grow old,

And I’ll watch the moon from the same place where, weekly, I share bread and wine, and all of us will be communicants and sacrament;

Fractal fragments of God’s great grace, spreading out to chase the Spirit

like the wild goose she is, rampant in all creation.

Mostly it was an honor to share my work and talk with folks a little about it, but I have to say, I am still completely impressed with the beautiful people that I was able to do the residency with. These people created and poured heart and soul into arranging, writing, painting, photography, songs, poetry, and more. It was a privilege to share the space with all of them and again tonight to come together and hear the common and unique threads that flow between our individual expressions of art.

I was surprised by how much home came up throughout the night. So glad I was able to lend my voice to a beautiful chorus that we all helped create.

And now I'm off to bed, and tomorrow I'll wake up a little more at home because Jocelyn is coming home from her week long trip to Waputo, WA, which she'll have to write about sometime later.

Peace,
Daniel

Simply Elegant

2011-03-24T19:33:00.000-07:00

This.

Technology rant part 2

2011-03-12T17:13:00.001-08:00

The more techne used to buffer us from our own bodies and the body of the world, the duller our sensations become. The intensity of our experiences, and thus our bodies’ ability to communicate to us our own pain, pleasure, fear, grief, joy, fullness, and satisfaction, are dulled by our layers of techne. I am buffered from the harmful effects of cold by an accumulation of body fat, a bodily response employed by many mammals in cold climates. This keeps me warmer while also giving me extra stores of energy to help me get through times when the world around me may not be producing enough to sustain my life. By wearing wool socks, thermal underwear, clothes, coats, scarf, and gloves I reduce my appreciation for my body’s response to cold weather. I feel warmer at first, and then I begin to get hot. I remove my outer few layers and then I start to get cold, I am in a frustrated dance of modifying my use of technology, because when I start walking in the cold, my body produces heat, and since I have excess body fat, I start to get hot, then I get angry about my body being fat, and I start thinking about a new diet (probably eating fruits and vegetables grown unsustainably in another region of the world) might help me deal with this. By now I am frustrated, because I have started to sweat and it’s not very white and socio-economically stable of me to go around stinking, so I try to remember if I put on enough deodorant, and then I worry that even though it’s aluminum free, could my underarm product be giving me cancer? I go on thinking—while all this time still taking off and putting back on my gloves, scarf, and coat—that perhaps the solution is not to walk in cold, but to just ride in a warm bus, or if it’s too cold to wait at the bus stop, perhaps driving my own car. But then, as I reject the idea of having a car, because it costs too much to in both money and the energy of thinking about the impact of cars on the planet, I think, well, I should really start an exercise program, because my work requires me to sit at a computer all day, and that’s why I’m fat. But I know that I won’t exercise, because, well, I just don’t have the equipment I would need, and I’d have to walk through the cold to get to a gym. And that’s when I remember that there are diet pills to suppress my appetite, or stomach bypass surgeries, which while needed by some, would just be a convenient thing if I could just have that done and not have to worry about any more. And so, I have come far from feeling cold and then feeling my body’s beautiful responses for keeping me warm, instead I am thinking about how to choose between technologies that might help me feel less cold, less warm, less sweaty, stinky, or fat. Basically, because technological responses to these conditions exist, I feel like I should be employing them. Why? Because they promise to give me some type of advantage; translation, they’ll make me feel a little less like an animal—a living body in the world.

And here, at the place where our technologies deaden our bodily senses, we see the search for meaning arise. We spiritualize, enculturate, psychologize, and consumerize as ways of giving ourselves more meaning to replace the feelings of bodies that tell us when to laugh, cry, eat, play, run, sleep, and orgasm. And here, the interplay between individual advantage and species advantage gets muddied—with the invention of perhaps the most transformational technology that has impacted us yet—not agricultures, languages, engines, telecommunications, or computers, but the technology of the market economy. It can be as simple as a vendor explaining why their fruit tastes better for the price or as complex as market research, branding, ad campaigns complete with movie, toy, and restaurant tie-ins—but it’s essentially the one technology of selling happiness that elevates the individual advantage of the seller by promising the advantage to the buyers at the expense of our collective connection to the actual needs of our bodies and to our place within the complex body of the earth.

So what then, is the response of people who are concerned with living well as humans (I am taking this desire as the given for religious people who believe that God has created them to live well in care of themselves, their neighbors, and the world. I also believe that this concern can be equally held by those without religious conviction, though I right from a specifically Christian theological viewpoint) rather than as perpetuators of the abuse of our own bodies and the body of the world? I would suggest, that in order to stop our role as cancerous cells in the world, we need to abandon the idea that we can fix the problems we have created through our techne with more techne. The reality is, we are a single type of being within a massive supra-organism of the world, and a healthy world cannot be controlled, or fixed by a single type of being. So basically, I am suggesting we stop trying to buy our way to a “green future.” Our own story of our use of technology through time should be enough to tell us that we will screw that option up worse than we can now imagine.

Late night ramblings on humanity and techne/technology part 1

2011-03-03T14:57:00.000-08:00

Well, here's the first part of my promised posts on my late night writings. This stuff is not what I would ever describe as academic writing, so please don't read it for logic flow or cohesion.

"As I read Wes Jackson and think about what he is saying about the earth as supra-organism, then I think about cells within the body. It feels like religion is a hormone or a chemical production within the human cells of the earth’s body, and that perhaps, they offer some influence in regulating the proliferation, morphology, and health of these individual and, more importantly, collective, human cells, which, when functioning healthily, can contribute to the healthy interplay between all the other intensely complex systems which make up the body of the earth. But when the human cells go awry, they can function like a cancer, growing abnormally, and specifically, diverting needed resources and energy from and at the expense of other parts of the body, parts the human cells are largely oblivious to.

So what is the solution? Is there an ethical imperative that we should correct this in some way? Perhaps, but it will not look like we imagine. The ability of a body’s systems to re-establish health seems to be primarily found in allowing the rest of the body to regain equilibrium, rather than by training the cancerous cells to clean up their messes. What am I trying to say? Let’s turn to a look at the way humans typically understand ourselves. We think of ourselves as either the highest of animals, or even outside the animal kingdom. It is not for strength, size, number, or specific role in the systems of nature that we are considered great. Instead, we see ourselves as the upright mammal, the ones who look around us and think about what is around us, devising ways of interaction with our world that extends beyond responding to the intense messages of our own bodies. In short we view ourselves as tool makers—we are human because we create and use techne.

As we have moved through time, we have developed this intellectual capacity which may be described as our techne—our techniques, arts, and technologies. That is to say, we have found a reason to live that lies beyond our own bodies depending on the systems of our surroundings for our basic bodied needs of ingestion, excrement, reproduction, and rest. Now, we have, by virtue of our techne, invented a society capable of meeting these basic needs for at least the strongest of our members, and so, our greatest concern is no longer providing these needs for all of our members, but now we have to ask, “how to go about using our techne?”

This has led to the invention of ethics beyond what it required to care for our bodies and the bodies of those around us—an imperative that seems to be instinctual in most species, including ours, and which has been reiterated in human religions in terms such as “love your neighbor as yourself,” “Do to/for others as you would have them do to/for you,” and “care for those in need.” The complex conundrums of philosophy and ethics rarely have to do with expanding or complicating these instinctual imperatives. Instead they involve questions about the use of weapons, force, medical devices, resource consumption, political and economic power, etc. All of these techne can serve to intensify the ability to thrive of individual humans over other humans as well as the ability to thrive of humanity over other species within the world of which we are a part.

Thus, because our techne are useful in helping us leap beyond individual health to individual dominance while at the same time moving us collectively from our species’ health to our species’ proliferation, we view our techne as the greatest marker of our humanity—some might say we crown it our God. But, there is some truth in the notion of trickle-down economics. As the individual members of our species create new techne which grant them more advantage within the human clan, the entire species of humanity, as it surges to seize that advantage, asserts the advantage over/against other species and the body of the world itself as a means of seeking to enrich humanity. Sadly, we have lost much of the richness that the world has to offer, because we have trampled other species and the body of the earth in our rush to seize each new techne. More, we have done this because we believed the techne could make us happier, grant us a better life, than the homeostasis that could be achieved between our bodies and the rest of the world through our eating, drinking, excreting, loving, and being loved. However, Anthropology, Sociology, Psychology, Mysticism, and Institutional Religion have overwhelmingly told us that this is not the case."

Part two to come soon.

Peace,

Daniel

Magnum Opus. . .or, the things I think are really great at 3 am

2011-02-23T11:59:00.000-08:00

I am freaking brilliant by night. No really I swear. When my body won't let me sleep and my mind is careening madly through the topics of theology, ecology, and ethics, I come up with amazing things.

Or at least that's how it feels.

So I drag myself out of the bed, pull on sweatshirt and wool socks, leave the warm den of the bedroom where Jocelyn murmurs a half-conscious condolence about my sleeplessness, and I walk out into the frigid outer darkness of deep space which is our unheated living room.

Instantly more awake and enlightened, I stumble to the kitchen and put on the kettle, then sit down and begin to pour out my thoughts.

--

I've found that the only way to get to sleep is to get all the thoughts out so that I can rest assured I won't forget any of my delirious brilliance. Typically after 1 to 2 hours and a mug of lemonbalm tea later, I go back to bed and, after about 30 minutes of warming up, I fall asleep.

--

But in the morning, I return to the words that I wrote. It's never that they are worthless. In fact, there are times like today when I think they are quite good. It's just that, well, what by darkness feels like brilliance seems to fade in the light of day.

That said, I'm prepared to foist some of what my tired mind thinks of as brilliance upon you. Don't worry, it's in mostly coherent sentences. Over the next week I'll be cleaning it up a little, and passing it along in chunks. For now, here's a preview of a single unedited paragraph taken out of context of its surroundings:

"And here, at the place where our technologies deaden our bodily senses, we see the search for meaning arise. We spiritualize, enculturate, psychologize, and consumerize as ways of giving ourselves more meaning to replace the feelings of bodies that tell us when to laugh, cry, eat, play, run, sleep, and orgasm. And here, the interplay between individual advantage and species advantage gets muddied—with the invention of perhaps the most transformational technology that has impacted us yet—not agricultures, languages, engines, telecommunications, or computers, but the technology of the market economy. It can be as simple as a vendor explaining why their fruit tastes better for the price or as complex as market research, branding, ad campaigns complete with movie, toy, and restaurant tie-ins—but it’s essentially the one technology of selling happiness that elevates the individual advantage of the seller by promising the advantage to the buyers at the expense of our collective connection to the actual needs of our bodies and to our place within the complex body of the earth."

Ah yes, I think I was channeling some combination of Jacques Ellul, Neil Postman, Anne Lamott, Derek Webb, Sara Miles, and Wes Jackson on that one.

More to come.

Peace,

Daniel

Jesus Songs

2011-02-04T19:14:00.000-08:00

Jesus.

Yep. This is the search result for “Jesus” in itunes on our computer. I probably should have included the column that shows the number of plays each song has. Ben Folds’ “Jesusland” leads by an embarrassing number, with “Jesus Was a Crossmaker” being a close second, especially if you count the two different versions I have—that makes me want to watch Elizabethtown now. sigh.

Anyway, besides demonstrating how bored I was sitting at home sick, unable to job search while the internet was down for most of the day, I thought this little exercise was a useful way of inventorying the last dozen or so years of my life.

I know people who suggest that you can tell your life story in terms of your hairstyles or music albums; as icons that can be windows into who you were at various points along your own timeline. I think that for me, this concept holds pretty true.

Obviously, I haven’t had itunes my whole life, and while several of these songs represent albums uploaded for nostalgia’s sake, there’s a world of Jesus songs that don’t show on this list that have occupied significant space in my head and heart throughout childhood and adolescence. Also, there are quite a few songs that are very “Jesus” without the word appearing in the title, namely I’m thinking of several songs off the Sufjan Stevens Christmas album.

So, I’m listening through this list of songs (okay, some of them I skip after a couple of minutes) and it’s quite a trip. Actually, it’s making me feel a little Billy Pilgrim, if you know what I mean. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that all of these songs have held a serious position in the playlist of a single life—my life.

Odd. Absurd. Beautiful.

There are two songs in this list that have spoken to me since the first time I heard them, and somehow, amidst wildly swinging changes in my life, they still speak to me just as strongly—for some of the same reasons they initially did and also for different ones too. Go figure.

There’s so much more than this that can be said, and if you want to talk about it, I’d love to sometime. For now, I’ll leave you a selection of some of my favorite lines from songs in this playlist. There’s not much in these that I would consider great writing (with a few notable exceptions) but I was working with a very limited set here.

“And I wake up in the night and feel the dark,

It’s so hot inside my soul, I swear there must be blisters on my heart.”

“Tonight in the line at the merchandise store, while they were packing up my bags,

I saw the pictures of the prophets with the picket signs, screaming ‘God hates fags.’

And it feels like the church isn’t anything more than the second coming of the Pharisees.

…And tonight in the light of the gathering rain, I could hear creation groan.

And a sigh rose up in the streets of the city to the foot of heaven’s throne.

And the people hear the strain of a sweet refrain, an absolution in the fray….

So, Amen. Come Lord Jesus. Amen.”

“I hear words that were said over two thousand years ago,

I hear the Spirit when it’s near—reminds me who I belong to.”

“Town to town, broadcast to each house they drop your name but no one knows your face.

Billboards quoting things you’d never say, you hang your head and pray, for Jesusland.”

“You look inside, finding all the things I hide from me.

Take me just as I am, help me understand that in you I’m finally free.”

“Plastic Jesus shelters me, for his head comes off, you see. He’s hollow and I use him like a flask.”

“Jesus is still alright with me…” (I really wish that I had understood as a kid that there are at least two grammatical readings of this phrase.)

“I never gave him nothin’ I remember, maybe a broken bottle if I had two. Hangin’ behind his wholly even temper hiding the more unholy things I’d do…Naked, the Judas in me fell by the tracks but he lifted me high, kissin’ my hair like a brother and never askin’ why.”

“When I least expect it, here and there, I see my savior’s face. He’s still my favorite loser, falling for the entire human race. Ain’t it crazy what’s revealed when you aren’t looking that close. Ain’t it crazy how we put to death the ones we need the most.”

That’s all for now. Peace.

Dear Mr. President. . .

2011-02-01T09:43:00.000-08:00

So I just got off the phone with the White House. Okay, technically the "volunteer staffed White House comment line." But the woman on the other end assured me she would pass on my comment to the President. Riiiiiight.

Nonetheless, I called. And I'd like for you to do it too. Do it today.

Why? Because Monsanto Agriculture Depart---er, United States Agriculture Department has announced this week that it has approved without regulation the use of Genetically Engineered Roundup Ready Alfalfa. That's right. The half a Billion in lobbying money and campaign contributions in the last decade has finally paid off for Mon-satan--er--santo.

This isn't just a case of live and let live. Monsanto and other GE mega-corporations have a well documented history of patenting genes, letting their crops go wild and then suing farmers when testing shows their genes in fields that were planted from the farmer's own saved seeds. Surprise, surprise. Nature's way of plant propagation works, to say nothing of trucks full of GE seeds being driven uncovered through farmland. It's like saying, "hey little farmer, I know you've got dead bodies on your property, since we killed the folks and buried them there. Now you're gonna go to jail for not paying us for the dead people we put on your land. Tee-hee-hee." And of course we put up with it, because it's science--it's the future!

The reality is, we hardly have a clue about plant defense systems. Replacing complex genes that have developed over thousands of years in cycles of defense against viruses, bugs, and bacteria with shiny genes from other species is about like replacing our blood vessels with plastic tubing to do away with the problem of clogged arteries. Sure it sounds nice, and you can sell it to people, but it causes more problems than it could ever solve.

The nightmare of this is that it will spread, and people will not have the choice to say no, I don't want that being fed to the livestock I'm eating. Worse, when nature finds a way to compromise the shiny new GE genes in this strain, it will have spread throughout alfalfa fields that were supposed to be GE free, and they will be compromised too. Then what will we feed our livestock? Oh I know, GE corn! Then their ruminant stomachs can acidify and we can barely keep them alive on antibiotics which can be passed on to us! That sounds lovely!

So seriously, what can we do? Demand that the president puts an executive halt to this approval and introduces a moratorium that listens to scientific studies from those outside of Monsanto payrolls so that we can come to a reasonable decision that will keep our food supply safe and secure for the future. We need to act now, since I'm certain Monsanto is already shipping out seed orders for the spring.

If you give a shit about what you eat, or the plight of all the farmers who will get sued as soon as Monsanto can go test their fields for their genes that they are about to set loose, then call or email the White House today.

Thanks.

Here are two links to information from what I consider a very reputable source:
http://www.pccnaturalmarkets.com/sc/1102/SC1102-ge-alfalfa.html

http://www.pccnaturalmarkets.com/sc/1102/goldie.html

Winter Harvests From the Garden and Woods

2011-01-20T18:30:00.000-08:00

So this year I did not do a cold frame like we did last year. As a result our winter harvests have been significantly slimmer. Even so, about the middle of December we got our last harvest of the year-- a batch of Arugula, Chickweed, and Miner's Lettuce. Yesterday, Jocelyn stopped by the garden on her way home and brought in our first harvest of 2011--the last of the Chives that made it through the snow.

Today, I had a hankering to get out into the woods, perhaps it was some primordial urge based on the slightly longer days and a break in the misty Seattle rain. Whatever it was, I found myself grateful that we live within a couple of blocks of one of the few old growth areas that has been preserved in the city. I wandered over a ridge where Jocelyn and I have stalked mushrooms, and there, peeking up beneath a thicket of Oregon Grape ( I must find out when to harvest the roots of this plant, it's a relative of Yellowroot (Goldenseal) and has similar medicinal properties) were the first Stinging Nettles of the year. I gathered a few tops from the more mature plants and noted where I saw others coming up, just where I remembered them from last year. I'll check back in a few weeks when more of them are the right size.

Then, as I walked on, I saw massive amounts of Claytonia, one variety of which is known as miner's lettuce, a wild plant that grows freely in our garden and for which I have saved seeds. But this one was different. I gathered a couple of small plants from beneath the ferns and brought them home to put in a pot. We will see what it looks like when it is more mature, but I am sure it is a Claytonia, the roots, crown, and stems are identical to Miner's Lettuce, but the leaf shape is different, though the same density and texture. Miner's Lettuce has a sort of collar shaped leaf (think pictures of Shakespeare) with a tiny flower cluster in the middle. It also has wide diamond shaped leaves on the same plant which occur without the flowers. This Claytonia has longer diamond shaped leaves and no collar shaped leaves that I could see (though it was getting a little dark). I'll do some sleuthing and see what I can find online, it would be great if this is another edible to add to our winter selection.

As always, when foraging plants in the wild, harvest in a way that allows the plant to stay healthy and keep growing when possible, and when gathering roots, plants, or doing serious damage to the plant, never take more than 10% of what you see.

Well that's all for now. Geeky foraging rant over.

Peace,
Daniel

Merry Christmas

2010-12-30T14:11:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you are enjoying the holidays. Jocelyn and I are staying warm, but most of our relatives in the Southeast got a little snow. For those of you thinking this post is a little late, it's only the sixth day of Christmas!

In the past few days of quiet celebrating at home, Jocelyn and I have spent time eating lots of goodies like these homemade croissants filled with apricot jam we put up this summer and a brie style cheese.

Working on long planned projects like redeeming this hideous spray painted bookshelf that we found in an alley. Jocelyn and I spent several hours wallpaper pasting old book pages to it.

Staying out of the cold (this sleet is the closest we got to any snow)

And watching Christmas movies: Charlie Brown and of course, Millions, the film I would rate as my favorite Christmas film besides Love Actually. Seriously, stunning film full of delight, imagination, and faith. If you haven't seen it, there's still plenty of time between now and Epiphany to squeeze it into this year's Christmas festivities.

In addition to all this, we've talked with family and friends, shared a lovely meal with friends, went to the Midnight Christmas Eve service, and Jocelyn has been reading back through Harry Potter while I am finishing up my work on a project that ends on Friday.

In the meantime, I recorded audio of six of the poems I started at the MHGS Artist Residency a couple of weeks ago. I couldn't figure out how to load just an audio, so I put them in a video with their titles. Some are more polished than others, but I'd love any feedback you may have. You'll see that some are loosely interconnected where others are less so. Finally, apologies for the crappy audio, it should be clear enough to get the idea. Enjoy.

26 years old

2010-11-30T16:39:00.000-08:00

Saturday was my birthday.

I took a picture.

Then I found a picture from ten years ago.

Then one from ten years before that.

I think the lesson I have learned from this is: If you can't grow into your ears, grow your hair out.

Thankful I'm Not Flying

2010-11-19T11:44:00.000-08:00

I've come up with "A Guide to Preserving Your Rights at the Airport."

By now, you’ve probably heard about the naked scanner machines and body groping being done at airports in the name of security. These procedures are a clear human rights violation and should not be tolerated by the USAmerican public. First a couple of facts:

1. The vast majority of attempted terrorist attacks since 9/11 that involved airplanes were stopped by regular law enforcement agencies and other airline passengers, not the people with the rubber gloves and xray machines.

2. There is scientific evidence, from people other than the companies selling the machines, that show these machines disrupt the ability of human DNA to properly function and they also cause cancer.

3. According to the ACLU website, while the TSA claims they won’t be saving your naked pictures, they are requiring that all machines installed at airports be capable of doing so.

4. These machines are capable of taking extremely clear and graphic images of your genitals.

5. While they may not be saving these images from the computer, a TSA agent could easily capture the image using a camera phone.

6. These “negatives” or “ghostly images” can easily be inverted using a basic imaging software and converted to appear as a normal looking image—of you…naked (coming to an internet near you!). Also, they claim to automatically blur out your face to protect your privacy, how then could they prove in a court of law that the image (that they also claim to not be saving, so what evidence would they have?) is in fact you at all, are they going to have you strip down in court so the jury can compare your naked figure to that of the image?

7. In Europe, even the unconverted images of children are considered to break child pornography laws. Here, children as young as 12 are sent through the machines for someone in another room to look at them naked, where they could easily record the image and later share or sell it online.

8. You are allowed to opt out of the scan by saying “I opt out.” If you are pressed to go through the scanner after declaring your intent to opt out, you should report this to a supervisor immediately.

9. Should you choose to opt out of the machine, you will be subjected to an “advanced pat down.” In which your body will be touched, including breasts and genitals, in public. Also, even if you go through the machine you may still be patted down. Also, all children are subject to a pat down of their entire body, including genitals. You have a right to ask for this search to be done in a private room with a witness.

10. You have the option not to fly, to contact the airlines and register a complaint, to contact the TSA and register a complaint, to contact all of your represented state and federal officials and register a complaint.

11. These violations are unconscionable in a free society. They violate the privacy and rights of everyone. The same images or touches by anyone else would constitute sexual harassment or molestation, especially in the case of children. Violation of rights is not legal or okay just because the government is doing it, in fact that makes it worse.

12. For the 1 in 3 women and 1 in 6 men who have experience some form of sexual abuse, these “security measures” are an intense violation which may trigger stressful memories and reactions. Consider the embarrassment and emotional trauma this kind of public violation could cause to any child or teenager. Consider how much worse if this child has already been sexually violated in their life.

So all of this is heavy stuff. Now what do we do about it? Well, number one, contact all the people listed in step 10 and register a complaint. Second choose not to fly and call your regular airlines and tell them you aren’t flying and why, and that you want them to know that until they pressure the TSA to stop this, you will not give them any more money.

If you do have to fly, I have put together a great guide for the kind of legal and practical things you can do to help get this stuff reversed. The number one rule to doing this effectively is to always be calm and respectful as you do these things, remember that the TSA agents are people, and always use scientifically explicit language about genitalia, avoiding slang that could be considered vulgar. Most important, have fun!

1. When you are in the airport, talk to every person you meet at ticketing and security about why you are unhappy with these policies.

2. Talk to other passengers around you in line about their rights and how this is a violation of their privacy and person.

3. Feel free to print and distribute this guide or other information to those around you in line.

4. Wear T-Shirts with non-vulgar messages registering your complaint publicly. Examples are: “No radiation for me, thanks” or “please keep the government away from my groin.”

5. While standing in the security line, if you are comfortable with it, go ahead and remove extra clothing besides your shoes. Make sure you wear decent underwear—feel free to paint protest messages on your underwear or body as well. As long as you keep the essentials covered, you won’t be committing indecent exposure. You will be sure to generate attention, which is great! The TSA wants to expose your body for the sake of the public good, so why not go ahead and do it yourself.

6. Cheerfully greet each security person you meet. Offer to shake hands with them. If they are wearing a nametag, greet them by name like an old friend. If they don’t have a nametag, introduce yourself and ask their name. You can even say, “I just thought we should get to know each other before you feel my genitals.”

7. When they tell you to go through the machine. Kindly and LOUDLY (though not shouting) say, “I opt out of going through the RAPE-iscan machine, getting radiation, and letting you take nude photos of me, thanks.” (Many of these machines are called rapiscan, so make sure to take advantage of that poor boardroom decision by mispronouncing it every chance you get).

8. When they take you to the side to pat you down, you can ask for a private room and witness, but if you’d like to use your body for the sake of protest, do it in public.

9. The agent is supposed to ask you if you have any sensitive or painful areas that they should know about before hand. In response, say something (always loud enough to be overheard by lots of other passengers) like, “Yes Terry, my genitals and nipples are very sensitive and private sexual organs and I would appreciate it if you don’t violate my human rights by touching me there.” Follow this statement with a kindly smile.

10. When they do touch you somewhere that you don’t appreciate and have already told them not to touch, loudly cry out, “Terry! I told you not to touch my PENIS/VAGINA/NIPPLES! That’s private!”

11. When they are through, Loudly say, “Thank you Terry, for sexually violating me in the name of the government. I’m sure all my fellow passengers appreciate that you have personally touched my Scrotum (or other scientific term for a sexual organ they have touched).

12. For bonus points, have a friend who is dropping you off stand where they can get clear video footage of this from the security line and post it to YouTube.

13. If you do video this, send the link to all your representatives and your local news station.

Remember folks, terrorism is about making people feel unsafe. Nothing makes me feel unsafe like a police state, so lets do our part to say enough is enough.

Also, remember that a single airline flight can be worse on the environment than all of your home energy use for the year, so let the lousy experience you have at the airport remind you of the lousy things your travel is doing to the world you live in and think critically about the choice to fly at all.

Peace,
Daniel

Ecology and Economics from a Human Point of View Part 3: An Unlikely End to this Series, For Now.

2010-11-16T16:38:00.000-08:00

So I started what I thought would be a three part series about ecology and economics. I had written a few things for the final post, and then I came across a video today which said all that I could imagine and more.

There is so much to be said for art in communicating deep truth. The following short film provides poignant critique of our political, social, and capitalist systems. It targets ecological practice, development, capital markets, industrialization, advertising, and nationalism/patriotism.

God bless you Dr. Seuss. (I realize that Seuss is not all good, his history of racism is not to be dismissed, but I think he nails things here).

I thought I knew the extent of the story of the Lorax, having read it about 10 dozen times to my nieces, but the film version improves on the book by about 5 fold.

Please watch it first, and then see my comments below.

In a recent conversation, I had a friend ask me what I thought needed to happen in terms of moving our society toward sustainability, justice, equality, etc. After attempting to articulate what I would call an eschatological hope, I was asked by this friend, "do you think that can work?"

The only answer I had then is the same that I have now. "NO." And that's the only thing that makes it worth doing. That's what I would describe as one of the uniquely Christian positions that I hold. It makes no sense to believe that small groups of people living locally and loving their land and one another in a generous local community can make any difference in the face of the evils of global capitalism. That's impossible. And so is resurrection. So is the belief that God's Spirit will bring about a completely restored heaven and earth. But there it is. I believe it.

And it's fine that I can't do the impossible, because it is God's Spirit who does all of these things. But my life can be a participation in God's creation and a series of actions that serve as prayers toward the miraculous hope that I believe in.

This kind of living requires that we create liturgical rhythms for our community life that are prophetic to our culture, showing a new vision and way of repentance, while also offering the sacramental grace of love and care for all of humanity and creation.

In the story, the Lorax seems to do just that.

There is great irony that his message gets passed to the child by the Onceler. After all, how long had the Onceler been holding onto that seed, knowing what it took to restore things. But he wasn't the one to plant the seed. I think sometimes, that this is what Christian theology and the church can sometimes be like, holding within it the seeds of hope that could change the world, but waiting for someone else to come along who will actually do the repenting and work that is required.

I for one an not guiltless. I've done my part to keep evil systems going. But I want my life to be a repentance. I want to plant the seed I have now, so that when the next generation comes along, there is a tree in place, and they can eat the fruits, and plant more seeds, a be a little closer toward restoration than we are now.

Peace,
Daniel

Chester the Squirrel

2010-11-10T14:39:00.000-08:00

There's a bold squirrel living outside our apartment. We've been putting pumpkin seeds out on a wood round and watching him come up to eat.

Today, I took his picture.

Then, I made a video, complete with music (a song from Juno which youtube made me swap out, and I didn't care enough to find a way around it. So I replaced it with random banjo music.)

yep.

Ecology and Economics from a Human Point of View Part 2: We Can’t Buy Our Way to a Green Tomorrow.

2010-10-06T19:39:00.000-07:00

Here I continue exploring the connections between ecology and economics from Part 1. I explain how I think an ecological perspective of closed loop production in local contexts might help our economic theory.

When I was seventeen I took an Environmental Science course. It was my first semester at college and was required. I’m really glad that I did. This was before I ever heard the terms “climate change,” “certified organic,” or “greenwashing.” And it was riveting.

We took water samples in the river just below the local paper mill. We counted fish. I did a project on geothermal energy. We learned about designing ocean turbines. I also remember my professor talking about how New Orleans was a house of cards—a feat of arrogant hubris that was only waiting for a strong enough direct hit before it came crashing down. This was in 2002.

Several years later I was leading groups of students to do relief work in Pascagoula and New Orleans. I saw the water lines on houses. I walked through Lower 9^th Ward and St. Bernard’s Parish.

I learned that nature is not to be trifled with. And when we play too long outside her limits, we’re going to get hurt. Namely, because we are, whether we acknowledge it or not, a part of the natural world around us.

Over the past several years I have read a lot about agricultural systems. I’ve looked at models of what is commonly called “conventional” agriculture and “alternative” agriculture. I put these terms in quotes because, in the long view of human agriculture, it’s the organic methods which have been the convention and only in the last century have we given way to what is now called “conventional” agriculture, that is, regarding soil as a dead medium for petrochemicals.

As I have studied these systems I have found that there are a lot of fanatics on all sides. But what I have found that makes pretty straightforward sense to me is that the models of agriculture that find ways of not only mimicking, but intensifying, what nature does best are the models that bring the most health to all of nature, humans included.

I’ve also seen that where attempts are made to bypass nature, or speed up the process by introducing artificial elements into nature’s system, there is possibility for making quick money on a bright and shiny product, the price tag is always far too high when all the byproducts, systemic instability, and unsustainability are factored in.

So—we might say that nature seeks a dynamic living balance that causes cyclical equilibrium. But what does that have to do with our economics?

Closed loop systems—systems that can sustain their own life within a localized area—seek equilibrium within that system. They don’t regularly rely on outside inputs. They handle their own waste. They are less likely to have violent clashes with other closed systems in order to steal (or politically/economically “acquire”) others’ resources.

As I see it, economics is a fancy way of saying “the means (rooted in the material world) necessary to maintain a particular way of life.” These means don’t ever have to be converted into cash. They can be provided mutually within a community that lives in harmony within its ecological network, or they can be provided by a work economy in which labor and power are exchanged for material goods and converted to money which is then used to purchase the labor and goods of another.

On the surface, the end result is the same.

But economic systems that rely on import and export of services and goods suffer because they are systems which neglect the connection between the people and their place. As a result, these communities can buy food, medicine, clothing, entertainment, technology, and more from around the world. They seem to teem with diversity, innovation, ideas—but too often these gains are not what they seem and they come at the loss of the community’s ability to produce and appreciate these qualities within itself.

When we economically import all or most of our goods, we are required to submit to the values of the market. We, along with every other community that contains our same mix of box-marts, receive the goods that come most cheaply and uniformly off an assembly line. This rules out artisan products, fresh and tasty food, genuine artistic work which expresses the individuality of its creator, and things designed to fit our particular lives, bodies, weather, and work.

At the same time, the products of our labor rarely reflect our own passion, touch, artistry, and skill. We labor not to create something we are proud of, but in exchange for currency. We do not see our work reflected in improvement of the land upon which we live, instead we struggle with the feeling of given over our lives in exchange for second-rate goods that we then must determine how to dispose of.

So how do we get off this wheel? How do we stake a claim in our own neighborhood? And the question which has troubled me most: How do we re-localize our lives in a way that enhances our appreciation for diversity rather than creating insular communities which harbor fear of outsiders and those who are different?

Continued in Part Three.

--------------------

Taking Action: More Steps Toward a Local, Work Based Economy

Numbering is continued from Part 1.

5. Find out about where you live. Go to the library, talk to your neighbors, talk to older people. If you still live where your family has lived for a while, talk to older relatives. Find out about the people who lived there 100, 500, 1,000 years ago. What did they eat? What kind of homes did they live in? What architecture, and technologies did they develop in response to the land that you now live in? What stories are unique to your place? What struggles have occurred where you live? How do these occurrences still play out in your community in terms of religion, education, economics, gender and race relations? What foods have been grown there? Does anyone still grow these crops? All of this knowledge is essential for gaining understanding about how our communities can move forward into local ecological and economic sustainability.

6. Choose how you will use technology. This step may be the most radical, since we are practically force fed not only the latest versions of “essential” gadgets, but also the ways in which they are to transform our lives. If you want to “save the world” or just “stick-it-to-the-man,” the best way to do that is probably not through joining a facebook protest group, buying a snarky t-shirt, or dining out to help charity (this is one of my personal pet peeves. We won’t just give the money to help someone, but we’ll spend money on something we don’t need and feel better because a tiny portion is going to charity). No, I think the most radical thing we can do is to become late adopters. The new thing that everyone is getting may look pretty when Steve Jobs demos it, but we probably will keep on existing as the human race if we don’t rush out and buy it. And if we do buy something, how will we use it? How often? For how long? To the exclusion of what other activities and relationships?

Cartoon by Dave Walker.

Just because something “saves time” doesn’t necessarily make it worthwhile. What of the value of the time, labor, and natural resources that went into our latest toys? Is that being justly compensated? Is it sustainable? Was someone else, in another community subjected to slavery, unjust wages, unsafe conditions, or destruction of their land to bring me this thing which promises to make me more efficient and cool, but will in reality make me more of a slave to the production economy?

7. Learn to make something you need from the following categories: food and clothing. For food, take something that you have only ever purchased in a box or bag. This can be chips, pasta, crackers, cake mix, whatever. Learn how to make one of them, preferably the one you purchase most frequently, or which is imported from farthest away. Make it at least 4-5 times, just to make sure you have the hang of it. Now you have a new skill to teach to friends and to use to impress them (since you won’t be comparing iphone apps). How does the taste compare to your old box or bagged standby? How do you feel when you eat it?

Now for the clothing. You’ve patched those old jeans, darned those socks, and covered those corporate logos with your own anti-imperialistic slogans. Now its time to send some good karma out to those kiddies around the world who have been sewing on your buttons for all these years. Take your favorite item of clothing and use it as a pattern—don’t worry, the clothing companies haven’t gone Monsanto on us yet, they won’t come and claim genetic propriety and literally sue your pants off. Using old clothes as patterns works really well if your old favorite is falling apart, if this is the case, you can just take out the seams and use the pieces from the old garment as the pattern for the new. Cut generously and you can turn the extra into the seams, that way you have room to adjust it later for fit or growth. Go slowly with this one, and once you finish, wear it with pride, knowing that you can rest assured that your shirt/pants/scarf/socks/boxers/whatever was made with love and will be appreciated. At the same time, you learned something useful, have something to show off (except perhaps in the case of the boxers, but, that’s your business), and you created less demand for imported factory goods which are notorious for human rights abuses the world over.

Ecology and Economics from a Human Point of View Part 1: What Do We Mean By Economic Recovery?

2010-09-22T14:40:00.000-07:00

First, the disclosures: I am what you would call . . . unemployed. I have an undergraduate degree in Theology and English with a minor in Anthropology and a recently completed Master of Divinity—degrees that qualify me very poorly for talking about ecology, perhaps even less for talking about economics. Yet I am human and, as I see it, that requires me to be present to these realities, to think about them, and at times to say things.

What’s more, being human requires me to act. Thus I am writing this series of posts as a starting block from which actions have emerged and will continue to flow. Each post will be accompanied by steps for action. These are steps that I am taking or am beginning to take and which I believe are necessary for untangling all of us from the mess we have made of things.

As someone who is trawling the job market in search of gainful employment, I’ve had some time to think about the words “economic recovery.” This phrase seems to suggest that our economy was in a better place and that the current slow down (which some say is already over) is something from which we need to get better.

So, I suppose it would be helpful to know how we define a healthy economy. It seems almost as well known as the law of gravity, that in USAmerica we believe a healthy economy is a growing one. More money, more capital, more spending, more products, more power.

So then, I have to ask, where’s the limit? It seems this question which has been asked a lot in terms of ecology has been dared by only the infrequent rebels among economists. Indeed, for an economist or politician to even hint at the idea of slowing economic growth would be political suicide. In earlier times we would have used labels like “communist” to sideline such hucksters who dared to redefine our “American dream” by suggesting we ought not accrue and invest all the capital we can muster.

Colloquially, the argument runs like this: “I have the right to buy the best X that I can afford.” And if the law is growth, then perhaps this is true. But if the law is stability, equality, or even opportunity for all, then there comes a point when one person’s economic growth must come at another’s expense.

Because the earth we live on is finite, and the goods we consume come from the earth, then it follows that there are a limited number of goods to go around. Now this is the point on which nearly everyone has at last come to agree on. This is also the point at which we most often get derailed.

Rather than taking this simple truth of finitude and beginning to ask serious ethical questions about our economic practice, we start justifying our own greed by saying things like, “We haven’t come anywhere near the limits. Those limits are just what we know about. We’ll discover more reserves or an alternative soon, then they’ll look so silly for saying there are limits!”

Or maybe we are smart enough to admit there are real tangible limits, but we justify growth by saying, “Our economy has shifted from a goods economy to a services economy. We can grow limitlessly without the need to consume resources.” Um, really? I mean, I guess if you only think about downloadable music files and movies this works. But once you start thinking about the ipods, phones, and computers that play them (all products designed to need to be replaced within 2 years or less) then you quickly realize we still use a lot of stuff. And that’s not counting the food we eat and waste, the houses we build (far bigger now than 40 years ago), the cars we drive, the appliances, furniture, clothing, and accessories that now are dramatically out of style within a matter of months…oh yeah, sure we don’t have a goods economy.

Just because we shipped the factories oversees and we underpay immigrants to do our grunt work doesn’t mean we are any better than we used to be.

“Ah! But wait just a minute,” we say. “All those people in other countries and immigrants that we underpay, they are making so much more money now with global capitalism than they ever were before. Our capital is making them better off as well.”

Riiiight.

So you’re telling me that building your own home, raising your own food, making your own clothes and trading with your neighbors makes you destitute, while working 14 hours a day, renting in a slum, buying packaged faux food, buying manufactured goods and barely scraping by makes you wealthy.

Oh that’s right! We only count the monetary economy as having value, because that’s the one that gives us power.

So what are we recovering from? A slowdown in our growth? Or can we seize the opportunity to see the slowdown as the first step in our recovery from our growth?

I have no idea if we can make this radical shift. We've been gulping the slogans of industrial capitalism until we are slap-ass drunk on them, and I'm not confident that we are ready to face sobriety. But what I do know is that it will take a lot more work to get us where we need to be. Local, less monetized, economies can only happen with a return to local production of goods and good old fashioned work.

One of the anchors of our growth economy has been cheap energy, and it will take a great amount of energy locally to raise our own food, learn to make our own goods, and find ways of entertaining ourselves in ways that don’t consume.

This isn’t just some pining nostalgia for yesteryear. This calls for a return of USAmericans to work, not for the sake of the economy, but for the sake of our basic needs, the needs of our families, and our local community.

This kind of work pre-dates cheap oil and plastic. All of my great-grandparents were fairly fit people, not because they ate low fat diets and exercised 5 times a week. No they all ate Southern food, much of it fried, much of it seasoned with pork and lard. These folks were skinny because they worked. Hard.

USAmericans in general eat more than we work off. We spend ridiculous amounts for healthcare that cannot stave off the sicknesses we’ve gained by our dependence on cheap energy and poisoning of our own food, homes, and environment with our cheap petro-chemical driven economic growth. Perhaps the most radical form of alternative energy will be putting our own bodies back in contact with the earth, doing work, meeting our own needs rather than relying on an economic answer of working for the economy and trusting it to provide our food, clothing, and shelter. We might even feel a little better for it too.

-----

Taking Action: First Steps Toward A Local, Work Based Economy

I'm one who tends to be driven by my ideology. I make changes and stick to them, but I am also one who realizes my changes work better if I start slow and build into them. So we'll start with these not-so-radical steps as a way of building rhythms that will sustain us for the harder steps to come.

1. Grow some of our own food. This doesn’t have to be a grand endeavor. We started small with a community garden plot of about 90 square feet. If you have a yard, now’s the time to sheet mulch over your grass and get it ready to plant for spring. You should be able to do this for free. Borrow a shovel if you need to. Ask around and find someone who will share their seeds with you, and plant something that you will later eat.

2. Patch up our old clothes. If they don’t fit, see if there is a seam that can be let out or taken up. If we don’t have any clothes that need mending, then we haven’t worn them long enough. Let's do everyone a favor and don’t buy any more clothes until we actually need more (which should be after several repairs). Don’t know how to sow? That’s okay, practice on old clothes used for exercising, gardening, or sleeping in. With time we’ll get more comfortable with doing this work. Even shoes can be repaired. We can ask for help from friends, go to the library, and check on line for help with projects we have never tried.

3. Play a board game, preferably a long one with potentially no ending. I know this sounds silly, but let's do it. We'll take notice when we start to get bored with it and talk about that with the other players. Keep playing. Childhood play is how we learn to work. We’ve let our attention spans get so short with “multi-tasking” and rapid assaults of information, that we don’t have the ability to think slowly, strategically, and enjoy ourselves in something that has a very slow return on our time invested. Practice this one—it costs a lot less than other forms of entertainment, we’ll talk more with our family and friends, and we’ll learn to think and see more slowly—a habit we’re all going to need if we hope to change things.

4. Let's rethink gift giving. Don't we all have great things we don't use or need that others might find useful? Or can we make something special, like a homemade meal, a quilt, or artwork that would have more meaning than something that's going to get sent to the thrift store or landfill? If we want to be really generous and still be radical, how about giving a gift that helps someone else in their own road to a sustainable, local life. Possibilities include Co-op memberships, CSA season vegetable shares, Helping someone plant a garden, sharing seeds, or even use the money you would spend on a gift to help someone pay off their student loans or mortgage a little sooner so that they don't have to be chained up to the corporate economic machine any longer than they have to be. (And besides, let's face it, unless you currently live under the same roof as someone, you don't know them well enough to pick out a gift they'd really appreciate)

(to be continued in Part 2)

Religion in America

2010-09-09T11:33:00.000-07:00

I'm usually behind on the news.

For the past few weeks I've heard faint rumblings about the "ground zero Mosque" issue. Now today I hear about a pastor who plans to burn the Quran. (Update: He apparently is holding off now)

As someone who grew up Pentecostal in the southeastern United States, let me just say, this kind of hateful, inciting action reflects the absolute worst of a toxic concoction of racism, bigotry, and religious zeal that is a poison to USAmerica.

Now before I go further, I should clarify--I have no great love of USAmerica. I appreciate the freedoms that I have, but I know all to well that it's not because of "the brave men and women who have gone and fought for me." Instead, most of the freedoms and PRIVILEGES that I enjoy now are the result of slavery and racial oppression, stealing an entire continent from the people who lived here (and whose descendents are still among the most oppressed people in the world), unjust "free trade" and unregulated capitalism, oppressive labor conditions for immigrant workers, and an excess of access to education, jobs, and social mobility that I get just because I am white and have male genitalia.

So yeah, I'm not what you'd call "proud to be an American (sic)," but I don't see it going away in the immediate future, so I am invested in calling this nation to root out our hate. Especially when we mask it in our religion.

One of the great supposed freedoms of USAmerica is the freedom to practice religion, though, I have to say, that has gotten very twisted up through the years. As I understand it, the constitution prevents the setting up of a government mandated religion. This has also been interpreted through the years as meaning that we are free to practice and NOT practice, any religion we want (so long as it doesn't directly harm another person). So here's where the water gets muddy.

The Park 51 building--what some are calling the ground zero mosque--is a building, not at ground zero and not primarily a center of worship. It is in fact a community center that has a space for prayer. Now some people are offended because the religion claimed by these folks is the same religion claimed by the 9-11 attackers. Following their logic, the community center should not be built so close to a site where a hate crime happened that was perpetrated by people of the same religion. Given the above caveat about freedom of religion--that it doesn't hurt someone else--it could be argued by some that having an Islamic community center so close to ground zero could cause psychological damage to those harmed by 9-11.

Following the same logic, we should ban Christian community centers and/or houses of worship within two blocks of the site where a hate crime was committed by someone who professed any affiliation to the Christian religion.

Wooo--we'd better start bulldozing YMCAs--fast!

I mean seriously folks. Can you not tell the difference between "extremist" Muslims and average, fellow USAmerican citizen Muslims?

Here. Maybe this will help:

An average USAmerican citizen Christian reads their Bible once a week or so, goes to church a few times a month, thinks theirs is the right way to heaven and that theirs is the only God to serve, and thinks those of other religions and atheists won't make it to heaven.

"Extremist" Christians burn other religions' holy books to incite rage, because they can't stand the thought of someone practicing a religion other than their own and they lack the basic decency and boundaries to respect other peoples' decisions.

Get it?

9/11 was extremism and doesn't reflect on other Muslims any more than that Quran burning pastor down in Florida reflects on the average person with a fish decal on their car (If you find yourself saying that you think the pastor in Florida is right, you might be an extremist and I'd recommend you read the four gospels, take a couple of theology courses, and get into some personal therapy). I mean really, would you burn someone else's family photos? Then why would you burn a book that they cherish and consider holy? You don't have to like it to respect it.

So...back to my original point: I think the uproar over the Islamic community center started with religious bigotry and quickly got picked up by political activists (mainly on the right) who wanted to stir up voters in a midterm election year and thought the best way to do that was to play on religious fervor fueled hatred. And it is sad, and not so shocking, how many USAmerican Christians have fallen for it.

Why are we allowing fear and hatred to upset us and make us more fearful and hateful? If the image that came to mind of the average Muslim was a white family of four that drives a minivan and homeschools, would we be so afraid? If that image would make us more comfortable, then I think we can confidently point out that the problem is not that Islam is inherently dangerous, but that we have a deep seated inability to name that we are uncomfortable and need to do more work to be able to respect and live with people who look and live differently than we do.

I for one have no desire for the state to tell me how to worship and certainly not who to worship. For that reason I will never claim that this is a Christian nation. It is not. And I am so glad for that. I want the freedom to believe what I want, and that means that I will give others the same freedom. And if a Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Atheist, Pagan, Wiccan, or any other group wants to Legally Buy a piece of property and build a community center that also contains a place for people to pray: 1) It's none of my business, and 2) I encourage it.

I don't think intollerance, burning Qurans, protesting buildings, or being hateful to people of the Muslim faith is going to honor any victims of 9-11, is going to make anyone feel any better, or is going to stop future terrorism. In fact, we all know that these are the kinds of things that terrorists use to turn more people into extremists.

Its hard for terrorists to incite rage when USAmerican Christians have their Muslim neighbors over for dinner, when Christian pastors meet with Muslim Imams to talk about peace and helping the poor in their community, if Christian community centers and Muslim community centers pooled their resources and shared the same space in order to help more people in their communities, and if USAmerican Christians welcomed a Muslim community center near the site of 9-11 as a symbol of peace and reconcilliation.

Sadly, most of this doesn't happen. And I blame bad theology. It's not that theologians have been doing a shit job. It's that most average Christians don't listen to or read their theologians, and thus they operate out of a theology more shaped by political manipulation of Christian-sounding ideas than out of a carefully considered practice of the Christian faith.

Let's clear the water: the average Christian may think Muslims are going to hell. But lets face it, you won't keep them out of hell by making their life on earth a living hell. So get off that moral high horse. Also, hatred toward your neighbors is the exact opposite of what Jesus taught, and when asked, he specifically said that your neighbor was someone who practices a different religion. So, if you are one of those Christians who's afraid of hell, you're in a lot more danger of it by being hateful to Muslims than by being loving to them.

Not that I think good theology manipulates behavior by wielding hell at people, just saying that the logic breaks down real fast if you are of that persuasion.

So, do me a favor, if you hear someone talking about the "ground zero mosque" or the pastor burning a Quran, be courageous and say something on behalf of human decency, compassion, and reconcilliation. We won't change things by being hateful and we won't change them by being silent.

Peace.

A poem to share

2010-09-04T20:53:00.000-07:00

So I was asked to say a little something at the Vespers service at MHGS last night. They hold this service at the beginning of the school year and walk everyone through the seasons of the church calendar that the community will be observing over the next year. I was asked to speak on the season of Lent through Holy Week. I was given the charge of including the phrase from a Mary Oliver poem, "grow rich, grow sweetly wild"--oh yeah, and 3 minutes to do it in.

Given that I've been reading a lot of Wendell Berry, I wanted to also use his phrase, "practice resurrection." I think you'll also see his narrative style cropping up too. And, of course, those of you who know it will recognize the quote toward the end as being from Paul Steinke. Enjoy.

In the eastern mountains, where I was born,
There was a forest that stretched a whole continent’s span.
The first people to live there, made their life under the trees.
They would burn enough down, to plant a season or two’s crop
In the rich, ashy soil.
Within a couple of years this spot would be taken back,
The forest life metabolizing that fiery death into its network of branches.

---

It all begins with a line of ash.
Soot mixed with oil leaves a streak down the middle of my brow.
Before I can even realize what’s taken place, another line creates a horizon
Which soaks into the creases of my face.

From dust you have come and to dust you will return.

I hold my body together and I ache.
For forty days, I remember the pain
Of trying to contain: All. These. Ashes.

---

Why does holy week come at the end of a fast?
Does it take six Sabbaths to remember at last, that on the Seventh day,
God rested?

---

But I do not want a God who rests.
Not in a week of betrayal,
When disciples scatter
And silver is exchanged.

And not when the forests are shorn like ragged sheep
And we rip the tops from mountains
So that we can keep fueling our machines
All because we have forgotten that we too were created.

---

Friday comes and death
Is heaped upon death.
The ashes of Lent foreshadow the cross.
And Saturday looms
Weaving silence across our souls.

---

Nothing takes so long as space between germination and growth.

---

Why does God rest on this day?

---

The Jack Pine cone can lie on the forest floor indefinitely.
Preserved in Resin, its seeds await the fire that will turn its
predecessors into
Soot rich loam.

Then, upon that barren landscape, seeds will fall.
Released to grow rich, grow sweetly wild upon a place claimed by death.

---

Lent is metabolized in Resurrection;
The redemption of our bodies and the fullness of repenting that
We have far too long believed that death is too big to be swallowed up in life.
And yet…

---

Jack pines, a meal of fish on the beach, and a stranger on the road tell the tale
--Though we did not recognize him in our grief.

Seeds are dying to become trees.

---

We cannot cope with resurrection until we have eaten death.
Between fasting and betrayal comes a feast.
Joining us, through death, into one body, broken for the world,
Bread and wine help us bear the death that is to come.

---

Our bodies break down and decay.
Our ashes are the fulfillment of a prophecy began
When God scooped up a little bit of dirt, as if to say,
“Death will never be the end of the story.”

---

And so we play.
Scattering seeds that spring from death,
upon mountains of pain that range across our souls.
We hope, and tend this wild growth,
Practicing resurrection.

Braiding Garlic

2010-09-02T16:07:00.000-07:00

There are few things more pleasurable than sitting on your couch and looking up to see several beautiful braids of garlic hanging on your wall. One of those few things is looking up and seeing garlic that you planted 10 months ago, harvested, dried, and braided, hanging on your wall. Sigh...

Since we moved to West Seattle a little over a month ago, Jocelyn and I have been settling into our new apartment. We are loving the space. The 1970s kitchen appliances, the fireplace that looks like Darth Vader's helmet, the wall of West facing windows--it's lovely.

An older friend is in the process of downsizing some things in her life and sold us and another friend a whole lot of firewood for a great price. With our super cool summer, we've had a couple of evening fires. It's nice to look out onto our patio and see a huge stack of wood. I'm just glad I didn't have to split it.

It's hard to believe that I graduated 2 months ago now, and in less time than it will take for us to grow more garlic, Jocelyn will be finishing her Masters program as well. It will be nice for us to both be done with school.

While I have been busy setting our new house in order and looking for a job, I have taken up reading all of Wendell Berry's fiction. I have read many of his essays and a little of his poetry, but last spring I read the novel Jayber Crow for a class. I am hooked. Every short story makes me either laugh out loud, cry, or both. This man can tell a tale. Seriously, he must be one of our national treasures. Jocelyn and I can't wait to see him when he comes to Seattle next spring!

Well, this is enough rambling for now. I have pickles to can and dinner to put on...

Peace.

Southern Stereotypes and Becoming Good Samaritans

2010-04-29T10:46:00.000-07:00

In terms of the online world, I'm about 24 hours too late on this one, which translates to about a decade in the real world.

If you frequent any of the major homepages, you likely came across mention yesterday of one Tim James, an Alabama Republican hopeful in their gubernatorial (such a fun and silly word) primary. Why do I mention this fellow today? Because his ad "Language," is simply infuriating--and just as infuriating are the ways that it is being perceived. Before I climb up on my soapbox, here's the ad:

Now there are two main problems I have with this. The first is the worldview espoused my Mr. James. In the ad, he (very) thinly veils his prejudice against non-English speakers with a folksy-yet-threatening "this is just good common economic sense." Taken at face value, he is suggesting that the monetary bottom line should lead to widespread state-enforced discrimination.

I don't know if Tim James has ever attempted to learn another language, particularly as an adult, but research shows that the most basic grasp takes 1-3 years of study, and proficiency takes closer to 7 years. Surely he isn't suggesting that it makes economic sense to insist that the thousands of legal immigrants living in Alabama (bolstering their economy through their spending and their labor in the auto manufacturing and agricultural sectors) should be forced to wait until they have enough proficiency to take a written test in English (2-4 years at best) before they are taught road safety and licensed to drive. The last time I was there, I did not notice a vibrant statewide public transportation network, so I'd like to know how he plans to get these people to and from their jobs.

Looking beyond the face value of what he says--because really that is just silly--he seems to be doing a pretty good impersonation of past Alabama governors, a la the 1960's. Note to non-white, non-English speaking Alabama residents, try not to meet this candidate on a remote dirt road.

So this is where my second problem comes in. Tim James is putting a public face to the deep rooted problem (dare I say sin?) that has long haunted the South. Words like racism, ethnocentrism, and prejudice come to mind, but really, it boils down to a very, very old problem, a problem Jesus addressed in what we now call the parable of the Good Samaritan. It is perhaps better named as the "who is my neighbor?" parable.

The South has long dealt with this question of who is in and who is out. Who is the "we" in Tim James' commercial? Here we have a white good ol' boy who's great-great grandparents likely owned slaves and drove countless Native Americans off their land (note: he doesn't say, "this is Alabama, we speak Cherokee and a dozen other languages that have been spoken in this state for the last thousand or so years"). What makes this man, himself from immigrant stock, a part of the Alabama "we" any more than the recent influx of legal immigrants into the state?

Yes, Tim James shows this face well, but the real shame is the new media outlets' national portrayal of all of this. By prominently displaying the ad, they have both continued to spread the idea that this kind of thinking is typical of Alabama. While it is present, I dare to say that most residents of Alabama can see right through this as political bullshit. Furthermore, very few of the news outlets that I saw covering the story were willing to openly state that despite Mr. James' statements about this being an economic and "safety" issue, this is clearly both Tim James' racism and his base appeal to rekindle old wounds and sin in the hearts and minds of his constituents.

(Never mind the fact that he could never deliver on this promise, given it would cost the state greatly in federal funds and even more through losing employment of immigrants and prosecution of unlicenced and uninsured drivers)

So, if you are still reading, here's my point: The media has furthered the stereotype that Alabama is a state of bigots, and at the same time has unleashed one very bigoted man on the national and international scene as an ambassador of hate on behalf of the South, while not even calling him out directly for this. In this way, they have conspired with James to further promote racial and language prejudice across this nation by refusing to name this as one person's participation in the systemic evil of prejudice.

In reality, there is a lot of prejudice, not only in the South, but throughout this country and the world. The media is certainly not above it and in their unwillingness to name this as racism and prejudice, they further the problem.

The solution to this kind of prejudice is something I have seen awake and alive in the dozens, if not hundreds, of people that I know and love who are from the state of Alabama. I have seen men and women who have taken seriously Jesus' charge of loving both neighbors and enemies. These people are so very human. They grew up in the shadow of oppression and have wrestled with how they have been a part of racism and prejudice. Some of them have lived through more of this story than others, but I see in them so much hospitality, generosity, repentance, and redemption. I have learned from these beautiful and imperfect people what it means to love your neighbors, to open your home and life in hospitality to those who are different than you.

These countless people that I have met--from Mentone to Florence, from Mobile to Birmingham to Huntsville, and countless places in between--they are the faces, most of them white and English speaking, of hope for a beautiful redemption of the story of prejudice that has scarred Alabama, the South, and the entire U.S. The national news outlets will not be putting them on the front page. These folks will not be heralded as typical of Alabama. But I know that they are. These people often fail to name their faults, often still harbor prejudice in their hearts--in other words, they are like every one of us--but they are also working so hard to live out the hospitality and kindness to strangers that Jesus spoke of in the parable of the Good Samaritan.

So please, when you think of the South--When you hear someone speaking English in the beautiful slow drawl of Alabama, don't just think of the prejudice spouted by people like Tim James, but think about the people who are taking care of their neighbors, welcoming new immigrants into their communities and helping them feel at home, people who don't always say and do the right things, but people who are trying to grow in their capacity to love God and neighbor.

Peace,
Daniel

Daniel's Integrative Project

2010-04-28T11:32:00.001-07:00

Just a quick post today. I recently presented my integrative project (MHGS version of a master's thesis) for my MDiv program. They just posted the videos and a link to the paper on the website, so, you can just watch the video, or you can also read the project if you have a lot of time to squander. Also, while you are there, you MUST check out my friend Kj Swanson's brilliant work on the popular book and film franchise "Twilight." I can't say enough about both her paper and presentation. All my other friends also have wonderful presentations that I would encourage you to watch, but Kj's took the cake.

Enjoy: http://experience.mhgs.edu/2010/04/integrative-project-presentations/

Now is the time to get your CSA shares for the Summer

2010-04-02T10:20:00.000-07:00

If you have thought about it, why not go ahead and do it this summer? Sign up for a Community Supported Agriculture farm share.

Don't know where to find one or get started?
try www.localharvest.org it's a great way to find CSA farms, farmers markets, buying clubs, etc.

Can I really afford organic produce?
YES! Jocelyn and I have found that at $30/week, our Farm box supplies enough produce that the rest of our grocery bill drops to around $40/week (that's buying organic dairy, oil, flour, etc. and eating meat about 1-2x's a week). Throughout summer we have enough produce not only for meals, but for snacking as well--nothing cures the munchies like fresh sugar snap peas! Many weeks we froze or canned extra produce, took large dishes to potlucks, or donated extra to the local foodbank. Not bad on $30 a week and many programs cost even less (remember, we get the large share from our farm, they do have a smaller option as well).

Not sure about the hype around organic?
Do it for the taste. I promise you, this alone is worth it. Beets, the vegetable of doom that I hated as a child, I have come to love when recieved fresh along with tested recipes from the folks who grow them. The same is true of your favorites as well--remember what food tasted like out of grandma's garden?

Most CSA's have a discount if you pay in full at the beginning of the season. This makes the discount even better. It also helps the farmers to make the initial investments early in the season on seeds and supplies, and gives them a buffer if they need to repair equipment, etc. If this doesn't work for you, you can often make payments throughout the season. There are even a few week-to-week programs.

Gardening on Rooftops and On the Radio

2010-04-02T09:36:00.000-07:00

Okay, so we aren't virtually gardening with radio waves as the title implies, but we are gardening on a rooftop here in Belltown and we were featured on a local radio station just yesterday. Here is a link to the radio show blog site where you can listen:

http://greenacreradio.blogspot.com/2010/04/blog-post.html
and here's a link to the station page where you can download the program and hear some of the other topics covered by the show in the past:

http://kbcs.fm/site/PageServer?pagename=green_acre_radio

As you can tell by listening to the program, it's a really cool project that is actually putting feet to much of the hype floating around about "green" this-and-that--a conversation that seems to often happen more on the internet than in real neighborhoods. This project is a beautiful collaboration that I have only recently really stepped into. It started out with Sustainable Belltown (SB) and Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) working together to create more sustainable food gardening in Belltown while also helping the city develop a pilot project for rooftop systems to then hold up as a model to use throughout the city. Our project is a small scale retrofit, meaning that it is a small scale container system that can be added to most rooftops without overloading the structural capacity of the roof.

(This is not a full roof system, and can intuitively be applied on rooftops or balconies that are already supporting lots of people, tables, grills, etc. Obviously, if doing more, one should consult an engineer or the building's architect to be sure about safety concerns.)

What the radio show does not make obvious, is that this would be completely impossible without the collaboration, active participation, and fiscal sponsorship of the management company and staff at the Centennial Apartment buildings. Multiple folks there have made this possible and they took a risk last year of believing that this was worth their effort and finances as a way to give back to their residents and the neighborhood. I have worked some in the past few weeks particularly with one of their staff members, a gentleman named Markham, who has been a huge force in making this happen.

The Centennial is a great example of a private business that has decided to expand their bottom line to include doing something great in the neighborhood, and guess what? When people come to check out apartments in their buildings and find out about the foodbank gardens, it is starting to become a contributing factor for people to want to rent from the building--what a great win-win for this company that has decided to help make the neighborhood a little more human and earth friendly!

So, I knew about the project when it was started up and the containers were managed by a couple of wonderful gardener/residents over at Centennial. Now that the project is underway in earnest, I am working through SB to track data and help develop a case study that SPU can use for future developments and recommend to existing building owners. Being a garden nerd, I am also helping set up a system of managing the beds, educating residents on gardening basics, and setting up the process of growing, community building, and food donation so that it will be successful for years to come (ambitious, I know).

Some of the benefits of the system include: reduced rainwater runoff, community involvement and connection between gardeners and residents, fresh local vegetables for the local foodbank (helping reduce the carbon footprint of a local non-profit), increasing awareness of place, generating excitement and inspiring other projects, bringing food production into the line-of-sight for city dwellers, educating first time gardeners about a) how easy it is for them to grow food and b) how long it takes, and difficult it can be to grow food, thus building respect for those who grow most of our food and making us a little more willing to pay equitable prices for the labor and produce of food grown well with respect of the earth and our bodies.

As you can see, I am excited about this project. It is something I did not start, and I hope I will not see end, yet I get to play a fun and helpful part in doing something that makes our neighborhood a little better to live in. In the process I have met some beautiful people, had some great conversations about how we can connect with our neighbors and understand ourselves as people living in a community together, and learned a lot about what it means to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God, our neighbors, and the earth.

Peace,
Daniel

Ambition and Greatness

2010-03-05T12:04:00.000-08:00

When we tell people that after we finish our grad school education, one of our greatest ambitions is to be small-scale farmers, sometimes we can see the waves of shock, followed by perplexity and then bemusement that roll across the faces of our friends, co-workers, and classmates. I was thinking about this the other day, knowing that when we decide to leave Seattle and I have to give a reason for leaving my job, I'll say "Well, you know, greener pastures..." and I'll mean it quite literally. This is the irony of gaining access to the more respected, powererful and elite places in society only to decide to become part of the most denigrated or just un-thought-of ones. And it reminded me of a Japanese folktale that has stayed with me each day since:

Once there was a poor stonecutter who spent his days toiling long hours on the mountain, and one day, of course, he found a magic lamp which would grant his wishes. He considered carefully all day, and that night, he wished to be rich like the men who bought stones from him for their gardens. Immediately, he was transformed and woke up to find himself in a large house filled with luxurious things and surrounded by beautiful landscapes. And for a while, he was happy.

Until one day as he was traveling on the road, a Prince came by and he had to make way for him and all the horses and attendants that followed. So he wished to be the most powerful Prince in the world, and his desire was fulfilled just as before. And for a while he was happy.

Until one day, he was out in his gardens, and the Sun was beating down so hot that his flowers withered no matter what attentions he gave them. He realized the sun was more powerful than he was, even as a Prince, and so he wished to be the Sun. And for a while he was happy, bringing both blistering heat and gentle warmth anywhere he chose.

Until one day, every move he tried to make was blocked by a Cloud which threw shadow on all the land he tried to light. And so he wished to be a Cloud, and for a while he was happy.

Until one day, the Wind blew too hard and he realized he had no control over where he was pushed about by the gale. And so he wished to be the Wind, and for a while he was happy.

Until one day, he came upon the Mountain and no matter how hard he blew, the Mountain was able to resist as nothing else on earth could. And so he wished to be the Mountain and for many long years he was content and happy, the most powerful being in the world.

Until one day, he felt a movement at his very roots. It was a stonecutter.

Lent

2010-02-23T11:23:00.001-08:00

So we are now in the season of Lent. This part of the church calendar is marked, like Advent, with the color purple. It is a season begun by marking ourselves with ash, a symbol of death and of repentance. I had the privilege of serving communion at school this year on Ash Wednesday. In our community, this is one of the high holy days. We are a people who hold the reality of death and suffering close to the surface. The week before, a friend led the service, inviting those present to write down their confessions to be burned along with a palm frond to create ashes for our service. His invitation was to confess not only our depravity, but our glory--to participate in repentance by turning from our sin and turning from our refusal to see the goodness of God at work within our lives.

I was somewhat surprised by the number of people who came to the service last week. Many of our students come from traditions that do not mark the beginning of Lent with ashes. Though I have received ashes the last three years, and celebrated Lent for the last seven, this was my first time to give ashes to others. I began the day by going with Jocelyn to the chapel of St. Ignatius on the campus of Seattle U. before the start of her work day. The service there is always moving. The communal call and response, the reverence, and the presence of the building itself combine to create a sacramental space in which I feel that I am a participant in something holy and sacred. And yet, there is a sadness in my going there. I walk forward and receive the ashes, reminding me of my mortality, but, being protestant, I fold my arms across my chest and receive a blessing while those before and behind me in the line receive Eucharist.

Much of my theology in the last several years has revolved around how I understand grace. This has transformed everything about my understanding of the church, and has raised Eucharist to a central place in my own spiritual life. Sharing an open table as I have led services in the MHGS chapel, I have felt myself entangled in an ages old debate about grace, but more, I have found myself untangled inside as I have been embraced by the God who has already set the feast before we ever arrived.

Standing next to a friend who offered the bread and wine to members of my own community. I held in my hands a small clay bowl filled with ash. The line of people seemed unending. Faces of friends, some of whom I personally know have been shaped by death, appeared before me. Looking into their eyes, I marked their foreheads with a symbol of death--joining them together in a journey into our own humanity and moving toward a richer understanding of our rebirth through baptism that comes with the Holy week of Easter. Somehow, the ashes seemed sacramental in their own right...dispensing the grace that says, "Be small. Be frail. Be human sized, at least for these next few weeks. Allow the grace of the God who sees and knows how you are marked by sin to be enough for you. Death and sin do not scare God; it's okay for them to scare you. You are not alone."

Afterward, I wrote these words about my experience:

Laying my fingers across your brow,
my ashy thumb poised as I
look into your eyes,
story playing out between us.
We have stood here a thousand times,
you crying, "bless me." And I
remind you of your death.

. . .

I soften my blow,
breathing first, as I gaze at your soul.
I inhale the history, herstory,
Your Story.
I speak, calling you
beloved.
"Child of God, remember,"
--And in that phrase
time unfolds and we are both
undone. You look away, but
we both know,
"from dust you have come, and to dust you will return.

Peace,
Daniel

A garden update

2009-08-10T12:23:00.000-07:00

So... Seattle has had record high temperatures this summer which means that our meager plantings that we showed you earlier in the spring have grown into quite a lush garden. While Jocelyn and I both have been very busy with classes, work, and student leadership, we have spent a good amount of time digging in the dirt, fighting off flea beetles, and munching on fresh veggie goodness. Without further ado, here are some pictures.

So this is what it looked like when we first got our plants in the ground. As you can see, our early crop of Potatoes was doing so well that we had to build up a little wall around it so we could keep piling up enough compost to keep up with it.
Before we knew it, those little chard sprouts in the front would have us inundated with colorful bouquets of heirloom rainbow chard that did not slow down until the temperature started reaching the 90's. I'm afraid that as it starts to cool off now, it is going to kick back into full production. As it is, we give bunches of chard away to strangers who happen to come by while we are picking it, and we have donated some to the local food bank!

Meanwhile the rest of the garden looked like this!
We were harvesting royal burgundy bush beans daily (they as so sweet, juicy, and crunchy that most of them get eating while we are working in the garden) as well as more lettuce than we could ever eat (we've sent more than 20 medium heads to the food bank) and a delicious spring crop of broccoli that was so lovely we decided to plant a fall crop as soon as we took the old plants out.
When our potatoes started to die back we got the joy of digging up potatoes. This was a first for both of us, and it truly feels like a miracle. You don't really believe that it's making those beautiful veggies beneath the soil until you start sticking your hands down into the ground and pulling out three or four nice sized spuds at a time. This crop yielded 5 lbs that were delicious, rich and creamy. We steamed up a bunch of them fresh and had them with just a touch of salt and butter. We'll finish the last of them this week, and we already have a late crop in the ground and it needs to be piled up this weekend, this time we are going for a small variety called buttercream.
Given last year's attempts at growing tomatoes in our partial sunlight window (yielding three tomatoes each smaller than an apricot), we have been delighted by the serendipitous weather that has made it the year for tomatoes in Seattle. Our little tomato starts that you saw us hardening off in the picture above started from seed and have now grown into a thick jungle of branches and vines full of now ripening tomatoes. The biggest producers are the Marmandes, which have large deeply ridged fruits. We have lost a few to mice that nibbled a few which then got infected with a dark mildew that caused a handful of fruit to rot, but we have since cleared out the problem fruit and will be spraying a nice pepper and garlic concoction over the plants to deter our little rodent friends. In the picture below you can see two of our first tomatoes along with some of our lovely carrots, deer tongue lettuce, and a few of our prolific cannonball zuccinnis (over 2o lbs already and they are still going strong, so strong that I had to cut out a whole plant the other day because it was trampling beyond its cage and smothering some nice little red onions that we hope to harvest in another month or so). This is just a small sampling of what is coming out of the garden this week.
As the heat has made the summer veggies flourish it has been great to see the squash, tomatoes, broccoli and brussels sprouts create a leaf canopy that has sheltered our carrots, onions, shallots, herbs and lettuces from the sun. By layering our plants through interplanting we have created a "living mulch" that retains a lot of soil moisture while letting the smaller and slower growing crops really get established. Now that we are beginning to pull out the broccoli and later the squash and tomatoes, we will begin putting in our fall and winter crops of parsnips, rutabagas, several cabbages, late broccoli, brussels sprouts, fall lettuces, and another round of carrots. We are also trying some new to us veg like kholrabi.
Also, an update on our CSA farm box that Jocelyn posted about. Here is a picture of one of our first boxes, all of it freshly picked from a local farm that practices organic methods. Our weekly boxes come with one or two bunches of beautiful flowers that often keep for a couple of weeks, so our apartment has been graced with fresh flowers for over a month now. We also have recieved large bags of fresh cherries and apricots that are heavenly. This means we are eating way more of fresh and healthy produce than we could have ever dreamed of affording to buy in a grocery and at the same time we are supporting a local farm that is employing local workers and responsibly caring for the land. That's what I call a win-win-win!And last (I know it's a long post!), I got new glasses after breaking my old frames. The new prescription is wonderful and I got the frames on Ebay and had a local shop fit the lenses. They are bamboo! Jocelyn got new glasses too, but you'll have to wait for more recent pictures to see them.Well that's all for now. Back to finishing up all my papers and tests from summer classes. I have one more week of writing papers, a week off, and then I'll be starting up the fall term and my internship. Crazy life. Joce is wrapping up her term this week too. Maybe we can enjoy a little Seattle sunshine in our week off.

A Lovely Song

2009-08-02T20:44:00.000-07:00

I dreamed you were a cosmonaut
of the space between our chairs
And I was a cartographer
of the tangles in your hair

I sang the song that silence sings
It's the one that everybody knows, everybody knows
The song that silence sings
And this is how it goes

These looms that weave apocrypha
they're hanging from a strand
The dark and empty rooms were full
of incandescent hands

The awkward pause
The fatal flaw
Time, it's a crooked bow
Time is a crooked bow

In time you need to learn, to love
The ebb just like the flow.

from "Armchairs" by Andrew Bird

I wish I had a little more time to reflect on the loveliness of these last two years. These few moments are snatched from the two monstrous term papers that are vying for my attention and words just now. But life does not wait for term papers, and love, as inexorable as the tides, pulls me into today. Into tangled hair and whispered thoughts. And miraculous zucchini, bold shallots, and carrots that walk.

The Most Exciting Three Letters of the Day: C-S-A!

2009-04-29T11:56:00.000-07:00

We've finally done it! After talking and researching and scoping out different farms at markets and online, we settled on the Boisefort Valley Farm as our CSA. For the uninitiated, CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture and it's basically a way for farmers to raise capital for the upcoming season and secure a market for all that produce once its ready to eat! You sign up at the beginning of the season to receive a weekly box of produce from your farm for a fee that usually works out to be between $30-$60 a week over the course of the whole season depending on your farm and the size of your share.

We're excited about this CSA in particular because
1) it's committed to local, sustainable agricultural practices (including being organic, but that's only one aspect of a pretty broad outlook)
2) the delivery site is at the Olympic Sculpture Park (not only beautiful, but closer to our apartment than any grocery store!)
3) they look like they have good variety and amounts of food for less on average than what we've been paying at the grocery store

It seems like a win-win for all of us. (Though Jocelyn's not sure what tune she'll be singing if it turns out that she doesn't like celery root no matter how craftily Daniel cooks it up. We'll just see how it goes.)
All things considered we're anticipating a wild ride on the local side of produce. Here's the website for the farm complete with gorgeous pictures and recipes (definitely counting on those to help out with the celery root experiments to come) : boistfortvalleyfarm.com.

Gardening

2009-04-23T12:27:00.000-07:00

So the big news of our lives of late includes Jocelyn starting grad school at Seattle University, and us getting our garden plot in the Belltown P-Patch after a little over a year on the wait list. While Jocelyn being in grad school is huge, I will reserve that for another post where she can write about how that is going. for now I will just say "Yay!!!" and congratulate her for doing so well thus far.

Ah, but the garden, well that I have pictures for. So, the rest of this post will be dedicated to our garden.

First, the basic rundown is that we have about 95 sq. feet of gardening space in the community garden that is located on the block that lies between our apartment building and my school/work. When we got the plot it had been allowed to go over with weeds through the winter and so we began working to clear it of grass, invasive mint, wild fennel (very aggressive stuff), and other common weeds. As we cleared, we came across scattered bulbs that had been left in by the previous gardener. So we dug up and moved to one corner of the garden all of the daffodils, hyacinth, tulips, and a few other unidentified bulbs and a some sort of flowering rhizome that was growing on a large rock.

Since we wanted to do a vegetable garden, the flowers got booted into a tiny shallow corner of the bed that sits on to of some large rocks that make up the base of our rock wall. Sorry to the flower lovers out there, but we are kind of leaving these guys to fend for themselves. There are plenty of other flowers in the entire garden to keep us more than happy--we're in this thing for food.

We spent 3 weeks clearing the bed of grass roots and double digging the soil. This entailed digging up sections of the plot a foot deep, then using a garden fork to loosen the soil below that an additional foot deep.

So we ended up working the ground 2 feet deep over about 95 sq. ft. That comes out to be about 7 cubic yards of soil that we worked. Whew. But in the end, I think it will pay off. We rebuilt walls that had fallen down, got rid of grass and mint runners buried over a foot deep, dug out all of the deep fennel roots, broke up pockets of clay, got rid of 3+ buckets of rocks, worked in organic fertilizer, and have two feet of light, fluffy, loamy soil in which to plant some happy vegetables, particularly all of our root crops.

Meanwhile, we have been starting our heirloom tomato seeds inside under a compact florescent lightbulb in our oven hood. This entails having a large bucket with a box on top of it sitting on our stove with the light on about two inches above our emerging seedlings.

So far we have had four come up and the first two are alreading starting their first set of true leaves!
We also have one seedling each of cilantro and basil that have developed their true leaves. We had a few more of each but they seem to have failed due to damping off (weakening of stem at soil level due to moisture etc.). The rest we have planted directly now that it has warmed up enough.

Finally, we have our brussel sprouts going indoors, and they are almost ready to transplant. We also started our potatoes inside, but as you will see in the video, they are now in the ground.

Back out in the garden, last weekend was planting time. Last Thursday we sowed the upper bed (about 5 square feet that we recovered from rocks and clay by building up with extra soil from double digging) with arugula, deer tongue lettuce, and four seasons lettuce (a bibb type), which are all beginning to come up now. The rest we planted on Sunday and have been watering to keep the seeds moist while they germinate.

Here's the arugula coming up, followed by a shot of the entire plot (taken from the west side).

The following video walks you through our garden plot, what we have planted, and finally through a tour of about half of the P-Patch where our plot is located.

As you can tell, we are very excited and proud of our little venture thus far. We are trying an intensive gardening method that aims for the highest yeild per square foot of garden through loosening the soil, avoiding stepping on the soil to compact it, and innterplanting plants together based on soil, sun, water, height, growing season, and rate of growth. We will keep track with weekly pictures throughout the summer and try to post a few times so everyone can see our progress.

Below is a list of what all we are trying to grow in our little plot this year. We will see how it goes!

arugula
purple carrots
orange carrots
five color silverbeet chard
deer tongue lettuce
four seasons lettuce
royal burgundy bush beans
stupice tomatoes
marmande tomatoes
indian stripe tomatoes
cannonball round zuccini
delicata squash
red onions
shallots
potatoes- we don't know the variety, we just planted some organic baking poatoes that come from the Northwest
brussel sprouts
broccoli
rutabagas
parsnips
cilantro
basil
italian parsley*
mint*
spearamint*
strawberries*
*these were all freebies that were growing in the plot already when we got it. Also we already harvested a good bit of wild miner's lettuce as we were clearing the plot, plus one small red lettuce that had reseeded itself in the plot.

Feeling Like a Pioneer

2008-10-13T13:35:00.000-07:00

It feels like Fall. Crisp, scented air and already anticipations of cosy nights and the bustle of the holidays. Jocelyn's been walking down to the Pike Market getting our produce fresh from local farmers who pile their veggies with an implicit pride, the outcome of careful work. The harvest.

We've made our year's supply of blackberry jam, packing it away as carefully as Laura Ingalls Wilder must have done. Daniel filled the coffee table with red, orange, yellow, and still green leaves gathered outside out apartment building. And just yesterday we transformed the left over wax from the stubs of old candles into some new ones. Here they are ready to light the long evenings to come! The red votives were a wedding present, so it was nice to be able to refill them.

Pictures--Yay!

2008-07-05T15:54:00.001-07:00

A few updates after a long hiatus.

In February we made the move from Seatac to Seattle. We are actually living in the neighborhood of Belltown. These pictures are from the Northwest Folklife Festival at the Seattle Center. It was really cool to be able to go to such a great event in our own backyard.

We have been waiting a long time for summer to arrive and I think it finally has, as of July. That's right, we've actually reached temperatures in the 80's.

In other news, we've both been busy with work and school. Jocelyn is finishing her year with Americorps and she has started searching for a new job. Daniel has been doing a lot of intensive classes over the summer, with a few weeks of up to 50 hours in classes.

In our spare time Daniel has been experimenting with making African recipes. Here's a picture of a Berbere spice blend that we have tried that is delicious with red lentils, chicken, and vegetables.

We have also been growing a tomato plant in our window. It gets a couple of hours of direct sunlight and about ten hours of indirect light. It has kind of gone through growth spurts and dying spurts, but I am proud to say that it has finally put on blossoms and now has three growing tomatoes. Yay!

And most exciting, Jocelyn recently got a new haircut. She is really enjoying the new style and as you can see in the pictures, it looks really great on her.

She donated what was cut off to "Locks of Love"--thus the ponytail in the last picture.

a long overdue update on life

2008-01-22T19:52:00.000-08:00

So we have made it through the darkest part of the year. About a month ago the sun was setting about 4:20pm. But we are back up to 5 o'clock now, so things are looking up.

The Christmas break was good. Daniel worked full time over the holidays while school was out, and Jocelyn changed her schedule to work days while her office was on a break from regular classes which keep her busy in the evenings.

We managed to make it out to Georgia to see our families for the new year. It was nice to be back for a few days before shifting back into our regular routine.

As most of you should know, we have been living just south of Seattle in Seatac for the past six months. While it is not very far from the city, it takes Daniel over and hour to get to work or school, and Jocelyn closer to an hour and a half each way. Needless to say, adjusting to life lived by bus schedules has been quite a change for us.

But we have big news! We are moving in February to an apartment in the heart of Belltown, one of the neighborhoods in the center of Seattle. We will be one block from Daniel's school, eight blocks from his work, and a 10 minute bus ride to Jocelyn's work. Aside from regaining enough hours to add an extra day in the week, it will be nice to be closer in to the city where we can have a little more access to friends, grocery stores, etc.

We will post pictures as soon as we can.

Peace,
Daniel

Pumpkins

2007-11-19T14:01:00.000-08:00

As you can tell. We have been having fun with pumpkins.

Peace,
DT

rain.

2007-10-17T18:48:00.000-07:00

The rain rolls in.

Whether we want it or not, it's here. The fog settles in each night, a cloud that swaddles the city in it's cold breath. As I walk away from our cozy apartment each morning, I always seem to be surprised. I expect the rain, I expect the cold, I expect the darkness--I don't expect it to be beautiful.

And yet, it is. There is something beautiful about this damp place we're calling our home for this time of our lives. Maybe it's the way the light rain mixes with the brilliantly colored leaves, knocking them from the branches that seem to scratch the belly of the endlessly stretching clouds.

Maybe it's knowing that as I walk away each morning, it's only to return each night, walking into the arms of the most beautiful, mysterious, and amazing person I have ever dreamed of knowing.

There's something to be said about severe storm alerts, the prospect of daylight savings moving back dusk to 4:30pm, and sloughing our way through work and school. But I'm not exactly sure what that something to say really is.

Maybe it's like the rain. It surprises me. In the thick of it, I feel it against my skin, impacting the way I see things and people. It changes the way I do life. But it also creates a palate against which the beauty of life emerges in intricate details and breathtaking vistas.

In all, life is good. I'm tired. I'm bothered. I'm in love. I'm hungry. I'm needy. I'm excited. I'm scared. I'm thrilled. I'm breaking; broken; undone.

I'm inspired. I'm motivated. I'm reeling.

I'm overcome. I'm enthralled. I'm so glad that I am not alone on this incredible journey.

How are things in Seattle?

It's raining--in every way imaginable.

Riding the bus, and other thoughts

2007-09-26T18:34:00.000-07:00

So throughout the week, my days start at 5:38 am. That's the time when my phone starts chirping, I crawl out of bed, and begin the first steps of my commute in to Seattle. I usually get to the bus stop about 45 seconds before the bus arrives, and then I doze or read for classes as my particular herd of commuters tunnels our way into the heart of the city.

At about a quarter to 6, I arrive at the intersection of Pike and 4th Avenue, where I bid farewell to the bus and walk down toward the waterfront and Pike Place Market. At the market, I work in the dungeon of a bakery making sandwiches and doing some basic kitchen prep work (I guess all those SLC Post Chapel Mixers are paying off).

I get off work around 11 each day, and then walk down about six blocks to my school. The school is settled in the midst of the Seattle Art Institute buildings, overlooking the waterfront of Elliott Bay. On clear days, the view from the school is phenomenal. Mt. Ranier is visible to the South and the Olympic mountains to the North. The Bay is directly out the back windows and from the front you can see downtown and the space needle. My classes range from 11:30am on some days to as late as 9pm on others.

At the end of the day I usually meet up with Jocelyn and we ride the bus home again.

The nice part of it all is that I get most of my work done in the daytime while Jocelyn is at work, so when we are at home, I'm not having to do a lot of homework.

The weekend begins at noon on Friday and usually includes a shopping day where we stock up on groceries. We've also gotten started on the trend of cooking big meals on the weekend so that we have meals to take with us throughout the next week.

The weather is definitely turning cold, and for those of you in the South, that doesn't mean it's dipping into the eighties. No, when I leave for work in the morning and at night I am wearing a coat and hat.

The fog is starting to move in nowadays, and that means that soon our precious sun that breaks through in the afternoons will be replaced by misty rain...for the next nine months.

In all, we are adjusting to Seattle life. Walking a lot. Riding the buses. Meeting some cool people. Growing and stretching in so many unimaginable ways. Terribly missing many of you. Drop us a note or give us a call sometime.

Much love to you all.

Peace,
Daniel

2007-09-06T15:16:00.001-07:00

still trying to get the video up. we'll see what I can do...

2007-09-02T20:13:00.000-07:00

Really this post is about bragging. Bragging about the huge, juicy blackberries that grow wild here and that we get for free! We've already picked about 3 and a half gallons of berries, and with them we've made a cobbler and a giant bowl of jelly, or as my sister Jennie would point out, jam....or is it preserves? Oh well. Smile. Enjoy the pictures and maybe if we streamline our production process, we'll start a cannery and for the low, low price of $19.95 some of those luscious berries could be all yours....

Our other bragging rights are about how we triumphed at moving our mattress up into our loft. It was a dangerous job, but we had a master plan. You'll just have to watch the video to know more. We'll post it as soon as we get better internet connection so stay tuned to that same bat channel...

The vase is a piece of that famous Navajo (or Dine as they prefer to be called) horse hair pottery. They heat the pot up and then throw handfuls of mane and tail hairs onto it. The hairs melt and make wiggly lines. Tail hairs make thicker lines and the ones from the mane make fine, spidery lines. Our vase has some of both kinds. A really nice honeymoon keepsake...

We have a theory that Wal-mart has a plan to ruin all the great sunset spots because it seems that every time we get near a Wal-mart about that time, it's always blocking the best view. I bet if the national park service would let them, they'd build a store right in front of the Grand Canyon. But thankfully they haven't yet; we checked while we were there. And thankfully the Seatac airport is already working on that here at our little homestead in the West. There's a shot of the sunset out of our loft window. If you look carefully, you might be able to see the control tower, but I think it's still a beautiful sunset. One of the few and the proud around here....

In one of the pictures, I'm talking to my little sister Julianne on the phone trying to describe what a spiral staircase looks like. I hope that the pictures of it help her out.

Love and Peace

Honeymoon Photos

2007-08-27T21:26:00.000-07:00

After a crazy summer that was a whirlwind of wedding planning, job hunting, preparing to move, and saying goodbye to friends and family, we got married on August 4th. The wedding was beautiful, and we had a wonderful time celebrating with close friends and family. Afterward, we began our honeymoon in the southwest. We traveled through northern New Mexico and Arizona, and took in so many amazing sights along the way. At my persistent prodding, Jocelyn kept a cinematic journal of the fantastic vistas along our road trip. It seemed as if around every turn I was pulling the car over to stop and soak in another sunset, rock formation, or random novelty (usually dead trees).
On our way we were frantically searching the internet to find a home for when we reached Seattle. After a summer of looking, calling, filling out rental applications, and starting over, we were feeling kind of discouraged. At the last moment (literally three days prior to our flight landing in Seattle) we found a place with availabilities in the price range we were looking for. We spent a miserable five nights in the Seatac Travelodge, and we are now finally settled in our new apartment, having unpacked our five suitcases and waiting for the rest of our belongings to arrive on a truck from Tennessee. Oh what a crazy story this will all make one day!
We will try to post more pictures and stories soon, but for now, enjoy these shots from our trip in the Southwest.