I’m an amateur gardener. I’m always figuring things out again for the first time, like that you can’t pack the tomato plants into the garden (so small and nonthreatening in spring, such monsters in August). This year, I tried growing corn and pole beans in my front yard. It was my play on the Native-American “three sisters” technique where the corn supports the beans, and the beans fix nitrogen for the corn. The third sister–squash–is supposed to trail along at... Read more
I’m not endorsing a candidate from the pulpit this year. In fact, I never have. Here’s why: By the time it hits the pulpit, I’m too late. We need to be in the practice of forming people in Christian virtue and character. If they haven’t caught on to virtue and character over the years of sermons, Sunday School, prayer, and long chats over coffee, they’re not going to get it from the pulpit. People are mightily wrapped up in their cultures–the... Read more
As the 2016 US election rattles into its final stretch, rural people and communities have gotten an ill-deserved bad rap. Commentators along the urban coastlines, seeking to understand rural voting patterns, cast rural communities as places of tremendous resentment, backwaters of poverty trapped in the past with all the past’s outmoded prejudices and fears. Perhaps you’ve seen the caricatures. Take a recent NPR report pointing to “rural resentment” toward cities and perceived liberal elites as fuel for the rise of outside-the-mainstream political candidates. A second article... Read more
Oh Lord, the whole earth is filled with your glory. Fire and hail, snow and frost, praise your name and obey your command. But do not forget the lowly zucchini, Oh Lord. Look down with compassion on the tomatoes, still just a shade too green to harvest. Remember, Oh Lord, how we thank you when we partake of the fruit of our little garden, And tell that frost to sing your praises somewhere else. Read more
Abba Moses said, “When we consider that He numbers the raindrops, the sand of the sea and the stars of heaven, we are amazed.”1 It’s been a rainy fall. The storm clouds have stomped about in the dark attic of the sky. The rain has uncoiled with a shake. We’ve squished our way into this new season, the soggy clockwork of autumn. Sometimes I pray about the weather, asking God to make some adjustments, but it’s hard to know what to... Read more
About a decade ago, I began praying the Lord’s Prayer daily. It changed my life. Here’s how: Our Father, who art in heaven – Jesus addresses God as “Our Father.” He brings all of us along into his filial love–the love of the Son for the Father and the Father for the Son. Through Jesus, we’re not just talking about The Father or His Father. Now it’s Our Father. And that’s awesome. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done – Jesus’... Read more
Shortly after graduating from seminary, I signed up for some unspecified “service” at a church convention in a big city. My assignment came in: go to the Alzheimer’s wing of a local nursing home and hang out with the residents. I had been imagining something with a little more pizazz–maybe playing with a bunch of vivacious and suitably multi-ethnic kids. I could go to the nursing home any day of the week. I wanted something more…life-giving. So I tried to change... Read more
Little Scurry laid her first egg behind the old recycling bin. (Note to self: lock chickens in run until they figure out the nest box). It was a tiny egg, a fragile brown the color of dust and pond water. She behaved strangely all morning, throwing sticks on her back and clucking about as the egg-laying circuits in her delicate pea-brain lit up. She tried to come into the house and managed to get herself wedged between the screen and glass door. And... Read more
It turns out you can eat corn smut. Who knew? The ancient peoples of Mexico, that’s who. They call it xuitlacoche, and they covet smut as a mushroom-y filling for quesadillas. I first discovered that you can eat corn smut in a radio program I heard last fall, and I’ve been half-hoping to see it break out in our tiny sweet corn patch ever since. I got my wish this year. As summer ripened, the corn tasseled and silked. Ears stretched and pebbled under green... Read more
The Mississippi kites are migrating. They’ve been wheeling over our neighborhood since spring, rising on thermals and diving on cicadas and dragonflies. They’re just big enough that I keep a watchful eye on our chickens–and our chickens keep an eye on the kites. The chickens have a distinctive cluck that means heads up! (Yes, I can speak a little chicken). The kites gather in the sky in gray whorls as they prepare to migrate to somewhere in South America. Their wings angle back like... Read more
The Doxology Project
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