Monday, June 18, 2012

Dirt, Bodies, and Food: Our Reconciliation with Creation

Just had to share this mazing article below!  It is written by Norman Wirzba, a Research Professor of Theology, Ecology,and Rural Life at Duke Divinity School in Durham, NC.  http://divinity.duke.edu/community-student-life/divinity-magazine/spring-2012/dirt-bodies-and-food-our-reconciliation-creation  Thank you Tori Hastings for sharing! 

Every meal can be an exercise in practicing reconciliation with God's good, beloved creation.
Some of my friends, only half-jokingly, refer to me as “the theologian of dirt.” I quite like that description. It puts me in a good location and in good company, particularly if we remember the scene in Genesis 2 where God is in the garden with hands in the dirt, holding the soil so close as to breathe the warmth of life into it. What a shocking and profound picture of God. What a contrast to other ancient pictures of the divine as aloof or violent. God the gardener loves soil, enriches and waters it, and blesses its growth so that our years might be crowned with bounty (Psalm 65). As a matter of ecological order, if God didn’t love soil, along with all the plants and animals that depend on it, God couldn’t love you or me–because there would be no you or me to love. We come out of the ground, depend on it daily for nurture and support, and will eventually return to it. The day God ceases to cherish and breathe life into the soil is also the day we all cease to exist (Psalm 104).

Scripture is clear that we are supposed to share in God’s love for the ground. Adam is created from out of the soil (adamah) and then is promptly told to take care of it (Genesis 2:15). Human identity and vocation center on the work of gardening, because it is through gardening that we learn who we are (dependent on and nurtured by soil), where we are (in a vulnerable world in need of protection and care), and what the goal of our living is (sharing God’s delight for a garden-world that is beautifully and wonderfully made). By becoming gardeners we are given the opportunity to participate in–and thus learn to appreciate, even if only minimally–God’s attentive, patient, weeding, and watering ways with the world. The “garden of delight”–for this is what the Garden of Eden literally means–is our first home. It is the place where we discover God’s creating love made fragrant, tactile, audible, visible, and delectable.

Today’s widespread, systematic destruction of forests, fields, wetlands, and waters indicates that we have refused, sometimes even held in contempt, our gardening responsibilities. We have denied our origin in and dependence on soil. We have forgotten that soil matters deeply to God, and that it is the medium through which God daily shows love for creatures.

In what can be described as a fit of ecological amnesia and plain stupidity–or perhaps rebellion against our condition of exile–we allow soil to erode or be poisoned to death by the heavy use of synthetic fertilizers and increasingly toxic herbicides. Rather than living in sympathetic and harmonious relation with the earth and its creatures, we have often opted for neglect, exploitation, and war.

How this has come to be makes for a very complex story. One crucial and highly influential strand centers on a centuries-old disdain for materiality and embodiment. According to this worldview, what really matters about us is our souls. Embodied life, along with the dependence on soil and fellow creatures such embodiment always presupposes, is morally inferior as we make our way to a spiritual, otherworldly heaven. The philosophers Pythagoras and Socrates taught this view in their concept of dualism. For them, death is a happy moment because it marks the moment when the soul is finally freed from the pain, imperfection, and decrepitude of the body. It marks the beginning of the immortal soul’s eternal life of bliss.

Monday, June 4, 2012

Spashing into Summer!

Hi everyone.   

Our summer season is here and already filled with an abundance of our favorite fruits!   The Swiss chard is overflowing, the tomatoes are flowering, and the basil is bountiful!    We have also begun harvesting the onions and sharing the cured garlic with carrots to be pulled up soon!  Our final harvests and beds of beets, turnips, lettuces, peas, strawberries, and broccoli, will be soon replaced with peppers, eggplant, beans, sweet potatoes, and more tomatoes.    

Our planting at the 1st annual Wellness of Chatham Health Fair in Pittsboro this past month enabled us to share seeds of garden blessings and health awareness to all those who attended.   Our Mother’s Day Flower Sale harvested many donations for our garden as well.  Thank you everyone for your continued help and support!

We begin this month with our summer nutrition series, “Cooking, Canning, and Planning with the Garden of Concord”.    Beginning with PIZZA NIGHT on Friday, June 22nd we will share in fresh ideas as we enjoy cooking (and eating!) our garden veggies by using an assortment of Pampered Chef products led by Debbie Cook.  More info and dates to follow. 

As the temps heat up, we will be cooling down on Tuesday nights as we resume our “Water Fun Nights” from 6-7 with slip-n-slides, kiddie pools, and lots of giggles!  If anyone has any water play toys, pool, slides, etc. to share, please let me know!

We are also beginning “Tasty Tuesdays” this Tuesday, June 5th which will continue on the first Tuesday of every month.  We invite anyone interested in “trying out” the garden for an evening and/or anyone wanting to share in our harvest.  We praise God for the abundance in blessings and fruits He has provided our community garden and wish to share His love with many!   “Taste and see that the Lord is good!”  (Psalm 34:8)

Our next Garden Advisory Board meeting is scheduled for Monday, June 11th at 7pm.  Anyone interested in sharing seeds of ideas and helping them grow is invited!

Come grow with us this summer…it WILL be good!

-Donna Poe
Garden Coordinator