January Rituals

I sense another "year of the eggplant" coming on

 

Alright, so we’ve had two-in-a-row 60 degree sunny days here in Knoxville this past week.  Last night, I couldn’t take it any more!  On the 5th, I had planted a flat full of seeds and placed them under my trusty grow lamp ($1 at Habitat).  However, only the eggplant were responding to my lovin’.

Last night, I sat down at the dining room table with my 3 little metal lunch boxes full of seeds, a toothpick, and a Sharpie pen (all the best gardening tools) to see what was going on.  I suspect I’ve been robbed of the joy of seeing the other seeds leap forth from the soil by a little pesky thing called damping off, because I see no evidence of seedlings below the surface of the soil.  Damping off is a fungus that can sometimes kill a seed before it germinates.  I’m not positive, though, because some of the seeds I planted were quite old and of questionable origin.  I stuck a few varieties of trustworthy peppers in their place and we’ll see what happens.  If they won’t grow, I’ll try a trick I was reading about where you treat the soil with chamomile tea to kill the fungus.

Damping off or no damping off, I love growing vegetables from seed.  There is nothing like the hope of a colorful and abundant garden when the snow is blowing and the ground is rock-hard under your feet in January.

De-sensitized Reality

Last weekend, Ellie and I walked (well, I walked and she rode her bike) downtown to the library.  We were sitting there in the kids’ room coloring together, and I overheard something that really impacted me.  At the table behind us, a woman sat reading a book to her young son.  It was a book about war and military equipment.  Now, I’m sure her son probably picked the book out and just couldn’t get through all the words on his own.  Nevertheless, I sat there dumfounded as this woman very calmly read to her son about bombs and carpet bombs, tanks and bombers, mines and “the enemy.”

At the time, it just made me angry to think about how disconnected people are from the realities of war.  To most people today, war is something that takes place on the TV screen or in the newsprint.  Yet here I am working daily with people who have been affected in horrible and indescribably ways by the terror …the reality of war; people who have been beaten, shot, raped, bombed, witnessed family members executed in front of them, and been driven from their homes and their country.  I just can’t hear certain things in the same way anymore.  I can’t hear this woman describing how this one type of weapon is used to “destroy the enemy” without thinking about a man I know who lives a haunted life now precisely because he destroyed the enemy.  I can’t hear it without thinking about my friend whose face, back, and shoulders bare the reminders of the day his face was put through a glass display case and he was beaten into a coma by his fellow countrymen in the midst of civil war.  All of this and I myself have never been to war (thank God!) and still have no comparable grasp of its horrors.

Then this incident comes to light this past week with the Marines urinating on their dead counterparts, and again I’m taken back to the children’s room at the library.  God, it just sickens me to think that people actually believe that pissing on someone’s dead body is the worst thing that happens in war.  My wife found the following blog post towards the end of the week that I feel is really well written and whose author hit upon this same sentiment I’ve been feeling. It can be found in its original format at:  http://gawker.com/5875468/piss-on-war, and I believe the author to be named Hamilton Nolan.

Piss on War: Death, Desecration, and Afghanistan

A video emerges showing US Marines pissing on three Taliban corpses in Afghanistan. The outrage machine grinds into motion. The media bestirs itself from its slumber. Americans momentarily pay attention to the war in Afghanistan again. Politicians rush to add their names to the chorus of identical statements. All inflamed over the least bad thing that soldiers do in war.

Do you know what is worse than having your dead body urinated upon? Being killed. Being shot. Being bombed. Having your limbs blown off. Having your house incinerated by a drone-fired missile that you don’t see until it explodes. Having your children blown up in their beds. Having your spouse killed. Having your hometown destroyed. Being displaced. Becoming a refugee. Having your entire life destroyed as a consequence of political forces far, far beyond your control.

War is horrible. War is sickening. Wars started for supremely righteous causes are just as horrible and sickening in their consequences as wars started for less than righteous causes. Politicians who sit in office chairs and start wars and wave flags as young men and women go off to kill and die and be psychologically and emotionally damaged for life are the most sickening of all. Politicians start wars and are rewarded with an appearance on weekend talk shows and Very Respectable Discussions with Very Respectable media figures and jokes at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner and appearances on Leno and ghostwritten self-glorifying memoirs and lavishly catered fundraising parties with corporate executives. They should be rewarded with outrage. They should be rewarded with scorn. Starting a war is a monstrous, monstrous crime against humanity, as we know when it begins that no matter how cleanly it is conducted it will result in thousands upon thousands of bullets smashing men’s skulls and arms and legs blown off by shrapnel and mothers and children incinerated by high explosives. And every extra day that a war is perpetuated unnecessarily is a crime anew.

And we as a nation could not be more bored by the unceasing industrial strength violence being carried out in our names in nations where none of us will travel, or vacation, or think about much at all as long as sports and American Idol and Downton Abbey are on TV. We skim past those stories of the latest bombing or drone strike or gunfight or civilian massacre. We joke about the personal foibles or funny accents or minor gaffes of the politicians who hold it in their power to stop war, but won’t. We’re bored and petulant and self-absorbed until that video of some soldier pissing on dead bodies comes along, at which point we can have an outrage contest and feel good about ourselves for being more outraged than the next completely uninvolved person, for a day or two, until the big game comes on.

Here’s what else happened in Afghanistan this week: “The Department of Defense announced today the deaths of four Soldiers who were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. They died Jan. 6 in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked their vehicle with an improvised explosive device. Killed were: Staff Sgt. Jonathan M. Metzger, 32, of Indianapolis, Ind.; Spc. Robert J. Tauteris Jr., 44, of Hamlet, Ind.; Spc. Christopher A. Patterson, 20, of Aurora, Ill.; Spc. Brian J. Leonhardt, 21, of Merrillville, Ind.”

“The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Pfc. Michael W. Pyron, 30, of Hopewell, Va., died Jan. 10 in Parwan province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to the 25th Signal Battalion, 160th Signal Brigade, 335th Signal Command Theater, East Point, Ga.”

“The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Pfc. Dustin P. Napier, 20, of London, Ky., died Jan. 8 in Zabul province, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained from enemy small-arms fire. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment, 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Fort Wainwright, Alaska.”

“The Department of Defense announced today the deaths of three airmen who were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. They died Jan. 5 in Shir ghazi, Helmand province, Afghanistan, when their vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device. Killed were: Senior Airman Bryan R. Bell, 23, of Erie, Pa. He was assigned to the 2nd Civil Engineer Squadron, Barksdale Air Force Base, La.; Tech. Sgt. Matthew S. Schwartz, 34, of Traverse City, Mich. He was assigned to the 90th Civil Engineer Squadron, FE Warren Air Force Base, Wyo.; Airman 1st Class Matthew R. Seidler, 24, of Westminster, Md. He was assigned to the 21st Civil Engineer Squadron, Peterson Air Force Base, Colo.”

And all of the dead bodies on the other side. We just don’t have the names.

Piss on that.

The Swipe of a Hand

I spent New Year’s weekend in rural northeast Alabama at a camp I’ve been to numerous times in the past 6 years.  Last April, severe tornadoes came through this area, and the camp was one of the areas that was hit.

I’ve never visited an area that was ravaged by a tornado before.  We could see swaths of damage here and there as we made our way down the main roads at dusk.  However, as we arrived at the turn off for the camp, I was speechless.  As an outdoorsman and a horticulturalist, I’ve seen nature do some pretty wild things.  But this was like nothing I’ve ever experienced before.  It was as if a giant had taken its hand and swiped it over the land in the way a child parts the water in a bathtub.  I was told the camp estimates it had 40,000 trees destroyed …yes, 40,000, on one property.  Here’s what it looked like.

A Few of My Favorite Things

I spent a period of about 15 years where Christmas was not a day I looked forward to.  Something deep in me is really jaded against the blind materialism and capitalism-at-all-costs mentality that has come to surround this beautiful day.  It wasn’t like that when I was a kid.

The last two years has been different, though.  For whatever reason, whether it be limited means or sheer exhaustion by the holiday madness (that now seems to begin no later than November 1st), I’ve made a conscious decision to be intentional with Christmas.  Yes, I will admit to having set foot in “the great white Satan” store this month -which I promptly stepped back out of.  I will also admit to flipping through sales advertisements and feeling the occasional pull of wanting something just because it looks glamorous in glossy print.  However, I’ve really worked at being aware of how I feel at this time of year, so as not to let my knee-jerk reactions to the world around me turn me int o the Grinch.  This intentionality has helped reveal a few of my favorite things.

This year, I’ve been pondering Mary as she was pregnant with Jesus.  As I sat and pondered her yesterday, I was struck by all the things God has impregnated my own life with over the past year.  Some things have been seen through to the birth where I now watch them grow, while others continue to gestate.  I’ve been in the midst of a big, ongoing project at work, the end goal of which is to employ & empower friends of mine who are struggling to gain a foothold in America.  I’ve been pouring myself and my dreams into this -allowing myself to dream again being a miraculous birth of its own!  My wife and I purchased a house in August, then navigated several months of bank-mandated renovations.  We received the final approval and release from the bank in the days prior to Thanksgiving (and a Thankful day it was!).  I’ve undergone some really personal changes in my “life lenses” in this past year, changing the way I look at myself and others.  All of this pondering has been a wonderfully centering way to enter into today.

Since my daughter was born in 2006, my wife and I have made at least one homemade gift for her each Christmas.  This year, her toy kitchen went into the trash when moved from our old apartment.  We didn’t think she would miss it, but in the last few months she’s taken a new interest in helping us cook and in wanting her own kitchen again.  So, for the last few weeks, my wife and I have been crafting this up-cycled one from an old nightstand we found at a local thrift store.  Ellie was quite fond of it when she pulled the sheet off this morning.  I love pouring myself into these handmade, special gifts for her.

E's Christmas kitchen

Another one of my favorite things at Christmas is spotting businesses doing the right thing not because it’s profitable, but just because it’s the right thing.  Yesterday, I stumbled across two places here in town that were doing just that.  I found a self-service bike pump & repair stand next to our local cooperative grocery store that I’d never seen before.

bike station

I like that was truly usable (nice big pump and a solid components that weren’t flimsy) and that it was free.  I like that a company that promotes organics and sustainable living put its money where its mouth is.

Also, there was the local, seasonal ice skating rink.  It was closed yesterday evening even as Market Square surrounding it was alive with Christmas Eve shoppers.  I suspect they would’ve been packed had they been open, yet they were foregoing the extra revenue and give their employees a night off.  I applaud those kinds of business decisions and present them as proof that doing business doesn’t need to come at the exclusion of one’s values.

Life Cycle -an original poem

Bright sun, piercing frost

Softly crunching underfoot

Still morning, littered with leaves

The last to flutter to their winter home

My methodical steps, the soothing whistle of a songbird

The only sounds amidst the massive oaks and poplars

Alone in my thoughts, seeking out your face

In serene places, wrought with the work of your hands

You whisper truth, yet it becomes laced with lies

muddied with hypocracy, spoiled by thoughtless words

Can these shambles be straightened, this stagnant pool of my heart made pure and potable

The songbird comes to see its reflection

And leaves behind a seed of life

That plants itself firmly in my hot mess of  a life

Growing slowly but surely, as the heat of summer approaches

When its neck turns back to the ground

Shedding new and diverse seeds all around me

And the cycle of life and truth and learning repeats itself

over and over and over… If I chose to allow it.

A Moment in Time

Over Thanksgiving, I was showing someone some pictures on my computer.  In the process of locating the ones I was looking for, I came across numerous others I forgot I’d taken.

There is something so magical about photography for me; something I cannot put into words about capturing a moment in time that will never again be re-lived.  I thought I would take a moment to share a few of my favorites with you.  These are original photos, that I captured myself.  I hope something about one of them speaks to some place deep within you.

foreign & captivating places

FLPCI 2008

FLPCI 2008 Colorado Blue Spruce

Black Eyed Susans

Redwood National Forest

Badlands South Dakota

Badlands

Yellowstone elk

Aspen Grove

The first time I laid eyes on the Pacific

Northern California coastline

Fawn Grove, PA ...so many memories held tightly in this place

Spring in the South

First steps on a frosty morning. House Mtn. TN

Peter Piper picked a peck…. My adventures in first-time canning

Getting Ready!

Done & Done!

I am stoked!  My helper, Shiloh, & I canned up two pints of pickled peppers on Friday night.  It was my first time to personally can something up.  Now I’ve got the fever.  The peppers are beautiful, and I can’t help but pick up the jars and admire them at least once a day as I grab things from the pantry.

Ronnie’s Last Stand

Ronnie the Rooster had become a legend at my parent’s house in western NC.  When they started keeping chickens a few years ago, my dad was confident that he wanted a rooster to be a part of the flock.  With that decision came many a dark and quiet morning shattered by Ronnie’s shrill wake-up call.  Maybe he just had an incredible work ethic and really wanted to make sure we were all awake and none of us were slackers, but I swear that bird would squawk incessantly till 2 o’clock in the afternoon!  On the other hand, it could have just been that he was overrun with adoration for the 5 sultry hens who shared his pen and whom he & he alone was responsible for keeping company with.

Ronnie had at least one thing stacked against him since his first winter spent on that suburban homestead.  Mom and dad were trying to figure out the needs of the chickens as the temperatures dropped that first year, he was the unfortunate recipient of frostbite on his comb.  Poor guy!  I think the hens looked at him differently from then on, and I suspect he knew it.  Alas, time heals many things including black, nasty, crusty rooster combs.  By the following Fall he was good as new again, as was evidenced by his contribution to a flurry of tail feathers being lost by the hens.

This past weekend, we stopped to see my parents.  Dad and I were looking over the chicken tractor and I said, “Hey, where’s the rooster?”  Dad said slowly, “Well, I ran over him.”  I was thinking no way he was serious (because that would make for two birds he’d managed to run over …the first one with a lawn tractor, no less)!

Yes, though, it was true.  Ronnie had managed to continue his string of poor luck by hanging out at the back corner of the chicken tractor as dad dragged it to a new patch in the yard.  Let me just say that if you’re a chicken, you don’t want to hang out at the back of the pen while it’s being moved.  Ronnie found that out the hard way.

As we were driving back to TN that very afternoon, without me saying a word about it, Ellie suddenly had the realization that she hadn’t heard Ronnie the Rooster all weekend while she was staying with Gram & Pop.  She asked, “Where’s that Ronnie at Pop’s house?”  So, I gently tried to tell her what had happened to Ronnie.  At the end she said solemnly, “Well, that’s sad.”  I have since heard her share Ronnie’s fate with no less than 3 of her friends.  She always includes the phrase, “He got runned over,” and ends with, “Yeah, that’s sad, huh?”

And so, Ronnie the Rooster, this one’s for you.  We will never forget your charisma and your drive to rise early and pester the hens ’til late.

Ronnie the Rooster

If a Tree Falls in the Forest…

I’ve been thinking this week about nature.  One of the reasons I love horticulture, love being outdoors, love hiking and being in the woods is because these things put me face to face with items of nature that, though small, are so much larger than me.  It is a healthy thing to regularly remember our size in the world.  I don’t need to muddle the beauty of these photos, taken at the NC Zoological Park this past Summer, with more words.

 

Room for Imperfection

Lately, I’ve been really wrestling with imperfection.  It is everywhere.  First & foremost, I am imperfect.  I am an ISTJ on the Meyers-Briggs scale, and I was raised in-part by someone who strives after perfection.  I do not like being confronted with my own imperfection.

Even beyond me, though, the world is imperfect.  Everyone and everything around me is imperfect.  My wife is imperfect.  My child is imperfect.  My parents are imperfect.  My co-workers are imperfect.  My house is imperfect.  My car is imperfect.  My street, city, state, and nation are all imperfect, and something about this has been so unsettling lately.  I’ve reverted to being an angry person again as I’ve had all of this stuff stirred up in me.  I don’t want to be an angry person again.

What I’ve found though, as seems to happen regularly in my life, is that God is hedging me in, forcing me to face imperfection head on and asking me to be OK with it.

I love to read.  It’s very relaxing for me to sit with a book and unwind …when I allow myself to sit & unwind.  Last night, I was reading Norman MacLean’s A River Runs Through It.  I am a fly fisherman & someone who enjoys writing, and I find his words to be  poetic and inspiring.  There was a quote that stood out to me like the blaring siren of an ambulance.  He said,

“Something within fishermen tries to make fishing into a world perfect and apart -I don’t know what it is or where, because sometimes it is in my arms and sometimes in my throat and sometimes nowhere in particular except somewhere deep.  Many of us probably would be better fishermen if we did not spend so much time watching and waiting for the world to become perfect.”

OK, so that was one part of the hedge forming around me.  I’m also reading Donald Miller’s book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.  I love his honesty.  This morning, I read from a chapter entitled A Tree in a Story About a Forest.  In it Miller, talking about the story of Job, states,

“Job is a good man whom God allows to be destroyed, except for his life.  God allows Job’s family to be taken, along with his wealth and his health.  Job calls out to God, asking why God would let this happen.

God does not answer Job’s question.  It’s as though God starts off his message to the world by explaining there are painful realities in life we cannot and will never understand.  Instead, he appears to Job in a whirlwind and asks if Job knows who stops the waves on the shore or stores the snow in Wichita every winter.  He asks Job who manages the constellations that reel through the night sky.

And that is essentially all God says to Job.  God doesn’t explain pain philosophically or even list its benefits.  God says to Job, Job, I know what I am doing, and this whole thing isn’t about you.

Job responds, even before his health and wealth are restored, by saying, “All of this is too wonderful for me.”  Job found contentment and even joy, outside the context of comfort, health, or stability.  He understood the story was not about him, and he cared more about the story than he did about himself.

Miller goes on to talk about how he sat on the deck at his friend’s house all night after a heartbreaking experience asking God to show him what it meant to be a tree in a story about a forest.

As an outdoorsman, that analogy is very meaningful to me.  God is definitely hedging me in and forcing me to deal with imperfection.  And by “deal with,” I do not mean try to work harder to make everything perfect.  I must learn to sit and be still and be content (even happy) with being an imperfect tree in a perfect story about an imperfect forest.  It only makes sense when I stand back and let the author write it.