Prayer, Hospitality, Community, Sweat, and Initiative

So yesterday I woke up early to pray and eat breakfast with my community. We all gathered in the family room and had a great time of prayer. While we were praying 'Empress' Mary came to the door. Natalia went and sat with her while we continued praying. We just met Empress Mary the other day through a guy that was crashing at our house for a few nights. She is also on the streets and we have been doing our best to find female friends to put her up since we can't really host women guests in a house full of guys. She dropped in to get a shower and spend some time with us. We all chipped in after prayer to make a big breakfast to eat together and had her join us. It really was an awesome morning and I realized later how opportunities to love people literally just knock on our door. I am so grateful.

Its getting hot in here....

So there is so much happening right now. Our friend Jason has just returned from prison and we are so grateful for his return! We have been trying to make some time to spend with him to catch up on all the fishing, eating, and just walking around he has missed out on over time. Also Erica and I have been working hard on our first catering gig for the Mama Africana Banquet this saturday. We are cooking for 150 people and are so excited to do it. This is a beginning for us as we continue down this journey with food. (If any of you need an event catered I would love the opportunity to serve your gathering in this way. Just let us know)

I have been teaching a class for the Underground Institute called Jesus and Urban Gardening. The class has 30 students and has met twice so far (out of 8 total meetings). Each week we spend an hour outside learning and practicing some basic gardening skill that are useful in the context of the city and our second hour is spent in our friend Derick's house diving into an ecological theology of liberation. This is by far the most personally challenging (and fulfilling) teaching experience I have had. I hope to do this much more in the future.
There are many other projects and undertakings as cliff tinkers in the kitchen and robby keeps tackling the heat in the house through creativity. But alongside all of what is happening there is an ongoing and challenging conversation and debate. Last night I walked into our smoldering hot house to find the guys sitting around and having what sounded like a pretty heated debate. It was about the AC. Some of us are uncomfortable but proud of that fact. Others, who are troopers, have wavering conviction or possibly more questions than conviction at all. How can someone put up with this heat unless they are driven too? As i walked in I heard one of our guys say something to the effect of 'Are we just supposed to come in here and die?' as if being hot (uncomfortable) was a deadly thing. I didn't jump in to the conversation but just kinda listened as they had it. I recognize that it is getting hotter every night and there is a really good chance that we will break and turn on the AC at some point in the near future but I hope we don't give in until we are able to call it a luxury. Until we realize that the majority of the world lives there entire lives without AC and they are not gathering in their houses at night to argue about the merits of it because it isn't a choice. The fact that we even have a choice on this matter points to our wealth and privilege. People throughout the world, and many up and down our own street don't have AC and they still gather together and enjoy each other, there lives are still beautiful and appreciated, and they live lives that are not consumed by this discomfort. It is my belief that as long as we can hold on, through our discomfort and frustration, God is faithfully purifying us. Breaking us from our addiction to comfort, freeing us from our dependencies, helping us walk in solidarity with the poor, deepening our community through the ordeal, and bringing what is ugly in us out so that we can deal with it together. It is so much deeper than AC. Some of us hold convictions strongly and are still insensitive jerks, others are struggling with strength in the face of trial, others bottle up frustration and allow anger to conquer them, some of us just don't care or think enough about what is important. These are not fingers to point but realizations about my own sin and ugliness and I sometimes recognize it in my brothers as well.

May the heat purify us, may the discomfort sharpen us, may the sweat cleanse our eyes, may our impurities be removed. God thank you for the rain that you sent to give just a few minutes of breeze the other night just as we were about to give in to our desire for AC. I can't help but feel your presence, your mercy, and your egging us on.

The Spiritual Discipline of Sweating

Tomorrow will be the first day of June and we have yet to use our air conditioning (except for home church nights and one weekend that we hosted a few guests). We have done everything we can to stay cool. We have drug the oven to the front porch so as not to produce heat in the house, we have put screens on every window so that we can have the house fully ventilated, and we have pretty much (by necessity) all begun taking quick and cold showers to cool off and rinse of all the funk, and we have all begun drinking more water. We are pushing ourselves to fore go this luxury for the sake of both our own formation as well as in protest to our consumptive and entitled culture that recklessly burns huge amounts of coal to keep our dens comfy. I thank God every time I see one of my sweaty and lethargic community members. They resemble the poor that I have seen throughout the world a little more each day. Yes, because they are hot and sweaty, because they can see air conditioning for what it is....Luxurious, and not a necessity. Each day they are a little more set free from their addiction to comfort. Each day they have to fight a little bit to keep going. Each day they get a little stronger as their conviction and discipline have to meet and wrestle a little deeper within. We have chosen creativity over compromise and I am proud of my guys and my gal. They are living as best as they know how in a way that they believe the world could sustain and I am in awe. It is an honor so sweat with them. I don't care what anybody says I know that sweating is spiritual.

From the streets, to an apartment, to a Kingdom

My Friend Dave was a middle class man that hit the streets as we are seeing more an more lately. He is always talking about the conversions he has been having. His first conversion he describes as an intellectual conversion that took place as he got to know people who were on the streets. His mind was radically changed as he realized that he could no longer blame these folks for where they were and could no longer call them lazy or sorry. He got to know them and the weight of their reality. He then had what he described as a spiritual conversion as he realized that he was becoming more and more dependant on God and finding God among his new friends on the streets. We have known him and walked with him through these experiences as well as him getting an apartment! That was a very exciting day. Now after many discussions, debates, and joining the Lake House home church Dave has surrendered His life to Jesus! His birthday just fell on a Wednesday night which is when home church meets so we made a birthday party out of it at a nearby beach where we baptized him too! Its been a joy walking from the streets to the kingdom with Dave!

The Changing of Seasons

I am preparing to leave within the next week and a half to go on quite a different adventure than the last couple years have provided me. I am nervous about this change. I do not like leaving because I know I will miss my brothers and sisters. I know the application of all I have experienced will be tried and I will have to toil in quite a different way. Living at the Lake House has been quite a different experience. Moving in I thought "How exciting. I'm living in community and experiencing a new environment with some of the most liberal Christians I have met. I can experience God in a new and more real way than I have before." And I did just that; it was awesome. In the beginning parts of me were pealed away. I have compared this to an onion. In the beginning I was challenged on parts of myself that I expected to be challenged on, the outer layers of the onion were pealed as expected. But then challenge and conviction came closer to the heart, parts of my life that were not up for grabs....they were mine to hold onto. And this hurt. Among all the joy and wonderful life that I have had living with these men, I have experienced the most convicting pain of my life. God stepped in and revealed things in my life that I had not even thought of. Areas of my life that were not as he wanted them to be. I dug my feet into the ground , the stubborn ass that I am. I would not move of my own accord, so I was dragged kicking and screaming through conviction and trial and purification. Goodness and righteousness is not a fairytale land , it is not even a place at all. It is a process of burning away the imperfections that exist within your life, most of which we don't even know exist. I thought myself much better than I actually was. And like any good refiner does, he heats up the metal that the imperfections may rise and be scraped away. This fairytale land of goodness that I thought would happen when moving into the Lake House was not the paradise that I had imagined. It became a fire that began a burning process that will continue throughout my life. It ignited, or maybe flamed a fire that began the refining process. God has taken parts of my life captive through these men and they have put up with my inaction, my fear and my stubbornness.

So, because of all of this, I thank them for allowing God to use them in this process. For not being afraid of staring me in the eyes and telling me I am wrong. I thank them for loving me in spite of the ass that I can be. I thank them for patience when all I want to do it flee the environment that hurts. I thank them for enduring the blame I have placed on them at times for the pain I cause myself. More than anything I thank them for allowing God to use them as a tool to help begin this refining process. So as I leave for the summer I pray that they will continue in the wrestling with God; that they will continue on this course of peeling away the layers of life that we have covered over ourselves in spite of the pain it may cause us. Continue to encourage, whispering into the ears of all those who are on the brink of running home to comfort that they were made for much greater and that should they endure the pain, God will bring peace into their lives in spite of the pain. Continue to be Barnabas to all those who are encountered, the sons of encouragement. Thank you for being my family, and I do love each and everyone of you.

And so to end this blog I must do what is expected and end with a quote by C.S. Lewis:

"Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of — throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself."

Integration: How do you rejoin society? Thoughts after 30 day local food experiment

Local Food, Sharing Groceries, and Creativity

So as my 100 mile food experiment has come to a close I realize that I am not excited to go back. I look at things around me in our house and just don’t want them. I don’t want to eat food that you unwrap and I don’t want oreos or soda or cake or cereal. At least at this point I seem to have a craving for the foods that I have been eating over the last month. It’s actually quite shocking. I knew I wanted to try to keep eating as locally as possible but never could have anticipated this strange aversion to foods that I have loved and craved. It’s just gone. So I kept my contribution to the houses food money back last month during the experiment so that I could get my own local food to eat. They were fine with that. But now the experiment is over and I need to contribute again and share groceries again. I do want to but am also conflicted about almost everything they normally get to eat. And that’s saying something because I live in a community that has a lot of food convictions already. They strive to find fair trade products and environmentally conscious products. I am still nervous because I read labels on packages and stickers on fruit. Over the last month I realized that all of the fruit that they eat comes from other countries all together (By the way I have nothing against trade with foreign nations but we just don’t need FOOD to travel like that) and all of the processed foods they buy are full of crap. There is nothing natural about Nature’s Valley. I want to share my convictions and continue to experiment with food and I also want to be sensitive to their wants and habits. I requested that my grocery contribution as well as Ryan’s contribution be set aside for us to take care of produce and butter. That means that at least we will get locally grown organic produce and real butter from a local dairy farm. They were game and I will purchase the food and eat it but will also see it used by the guys in the house as ingredients in their own cooking and recipes. As we discussed this option Robby brought up a really great question. Since local food is more expensive then how are we gonna balance this growing conviction with our core principles of hospitality and sharing? I really thought this was a great question for us to wrestle with. It’s one I could see myself asking if it was someone else making the request and I am really glad he put it out there for us to discuss. It is true that we will spend more on less food and it just isn’t enough to say God will provide (even though he always does.) We can’t be buying this food unless we are going to share it freely. We can’t buy food that we don’t have enough of. My response was that he is right but that we solve these problems by creativity rather than compromise. We are growing as much food as we can, I have places where I am looking to salvage ‘local trash’ (I don’t care where food came from once we start wasting it), and we also have a network of gardens throughout our community that we installed and can grow a row to supplement our grocery supply for meals we serve. There are ways for us to hold tight to both convictions rather that feel like they need to be pitted against each other. I am excited to learn new ways and I am excited to be a part of a family that is open to new ways. May God guide us.

Day 28: A few more food thoughts

Expense

I really wonder what it is that we actually pay for. We mostly pay for convenience I imagine. Prepared food , processed and packaged food. We like thinks like grab&go snacks or lunches and we like to be served ready to eat dishes. These are the things that we might pay a little more for. But then what about our groceries? We buy lots of ingredient type staples like dairy. We buy items such as eggs, butter (or margarine), milk, yogurt, and cheese. During this month I have found these items from a local source and bought them. First let me say that it was worth every dollar I spent on it and second let me tell you what it cost. A gallon of cow milk was $8.50 (goat milk was 12), a 1/2 lbs of butter was 7 bucks as was the ¼ lbs of gouda cheese. I just bought a dozen eggs for 4.25 and I believe I paid 7 or 8 bucks for a small ½ lbs tub of cottage cheese (which was amazing!). When I first heard these prices I couldn’t believe how expensive it all was but then I sat and thought about the prices that I am used to paying for such items. Take eggs for example, when I buy a dozen eggs at the store for 2 bucks or less I am getting eggs that have been mass produced (in industry farms) and shipped clear across the country to our supermarket for roughly .16 cents per egg. HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE? As I wake up each morning and go into the kitchen praying that there is something to eat I would gladly pay at least .35 cents for an egg! That’s what an egg cost’s when I get it locally at 4.25 a dozen. It’s actually a fair and realistic price. Not to mention I know that that money is going to sustain one of the few family farms in our area that hasn’t yet been taken out by these big factory scale food producers. I wonder if we might better value luxuries such as milk if we started paying these prices regularly. Where else would we need to pinch pennies? Maybe we would need to sacrifice all of the quick and convenient type ‘foods’ that we have grown so fond of. Maybe we would not leave a half a cup of milk lying around and maybe we would take a little more heat from our family when we did. Maybe we wouldn’t slam glasses of milk like they are water and we would see it more as a commodity than a carrier that is dumped after we finish the cereal that was in it. Maybe we wouldn’t eat cereal anymore. Maybe we have to bake more often with it to replace the snacks that we can no longer afford. Maybe these local farms would be able to thrive and we would delight in eating food that has come from within just miles of our houses. Maybe we would feel right about having seen the chickens that laid the eggs and knowing that they are well cared for animals. Maybe we realize that we have been paying too great a price for cheap and convenient food.  Maybe it’s time we actually assess the true value in our food. 

Pace

Another important thing that has happened as we have eaten locally is that I have slowed down tremendously. I don’t really think I have been that much less productive but I have definitely spent Way more time thinking about, finding, and preparing food. I am actually now a fan or the idea of a family member (of any gender) being set aside to just do these tasks like house wives were in the past. It could rightfully be a full time job to feed a family well. I needed salt and had to go to the ocean and get a bottle of water and then put it in a pan on my roof for the week to evaporate it and get salt. Do you think I am using too much salt now? It has tremendous value to me and I am using it as sparingly as possible. Erica just got a job that she has to show up at 7am so we were not able to make our breakfast in the mornings anymore. We had to either think ahead or go without. We have done both but thinking ahead is definitely a better choice. So in the evening while preparing dinner we have also begun thinking about breakfast for the morning. If we were to live on local, or even just seasonal food we would always have to think ahead. Recipes would change with the seasons and we would probably all start learning skills like canning and pickling so that we could occasionally enjoy an okra in the off season. Our pace would be drastically changed by food. I think that this is only a good thing. Our culture has become so driven by speed that convenience has been made a chief virtue in food sales. I wanna drive up to a window and get lunch without even getting out of my car, open the fridge and just unwrap breakfast, and I want someone to drop a cooked dinner off at my table. It’s not just that we don’t wanna prepare our food or even that we don’t know how to anymore but that we have devalued food to the point that it is just another task that needs checked off, unless it’s a moment of indulgence of course. We need to slow down and reconnect with the source of our food as well as the process of preparing it. We need to realize that vegetables are slow to come and too quick to go. We need to eat our pineapples, when we are lucky enough to have one, fully aware that each one takes two years to grow! We need to stop and eat together. We need to eat slower. When we do eat slow our bodies are able to let us know when we have had enough as well and we are that much less likely to be huge and unhealthy. We are unhealthy because of the speed at which we eat, the kinds of things we eat because we are on the move, and because we live our lives without resting, enjoying each other, or taking time to be with God. Our pace is killing us.

A Few Small Food Reflections after 26 days or Eating Local

Sharing

Over the month Erica and I have formed a strong bond over food. It is strong enough to make me cut my one egg in half every morning and drive the other half of it to her. It is strong enough to make me hesitate to eat something without knowing where she is, if she has eaten, and if there is a way I can share. There have also been weird expressions of this sentiment like when Erica accidentally ate a couple noodles while we were cooking a non local meal for our home church. She wanted so badly for me to have a few noodles too. I actually don’t know why but it seemed like it had something to do with being fair and something to do with not being alone in ‘transgression’. Whatever the reason the truth of the feeling of sharing and being together as it relates to food is clear and strong. It hit me yesterday that this is a really important and good revelation. Not that Erica and I need to eat together (though I am sure we will a lot) but that we would always have that impulse to share our food. There should never be, regardless of scarcity or abundance, possessiveness about food. It is to be shared. I am starting to wonder if it is even really that appropriate to eat alone at all. I’m not looking to pass new laws or anything like that but think it good to hold convictions with such inclinations or leanings. We should second guess such moments.

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