Outbuilding Reflections

[Preliminary Thoughts: X]

You can measure the age of a farm by the number of its outbuildings. 

You see, barns get beat up and farm houses get dirty: you can’t age a farm by the the condition of those buildings. But a farming family—or anyone that takes growing food seriously for a while—needs ever increasing space to store things. Big things like machinery and small things like new hand tools. Dirty things like a tractor and clean things like harvesting baskets and lettuce green labels. 

If you look around a hundred year old farm, you’ll likely find a small building for every decade it’s been producing nourishment for the world. A milk parlor, a tool shed, a pump house, and a lean-to for hot summer days may be among them.

Size and shape are two variables that matter when planning an outbuilding, but so are orientation to the sun, materials, and location. 

Where and how one builds an outbuilding often determines whether their great grandkids will play make-believe in it’s shade at some point. That’s a tall order. And a lot of responsibility.

I look forward to reflecting on the nature of farm buildings in the coming year, what they tell us about our foods systems, our values, and our beliefs about the world. I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Value of a Linear Foot

[Preliminary Thoughts: IX]

I’m looking out over the railing of my deck to the back into the forest: a couple acres of diverse PNW foliage. It’s not beyond me that the wood on the deck is biological kin the the Cedar and Grand Fir that accent the forest. If pressed, I could tell you the value of one of those trees per assembled deck costs. That is, each one of those trees could be felled, milled, and used to build a deck almost identical to the one I’m looking over, and that piece of completed construction has a dollar value on the marketplace. 

And that’s an important connection to make. Natural resources aren’t born in Home Depot or Whole Foods; they are natural to a place and require significant labor to harvest and deliver. And in the case of my deck, they take even more work to assemble make useful. All that material and labor costs. 

But that’s not the only value of the tree. It’s worth far more than the measure of its linear feet of raw lumber. 

What’s the value of the air purification it provides?
The value of the oxygen it gives? 
The value of the annual return of organic matter it offers the soil beneath its canopy? 
The value of the shelter it provides the birds and other animals?
The shade? 
The storm protection? 
The anti-erosion?
The role it plays in the biodiversity of the forest?

Knowing the value of a linear foot of lumber is one thing; knowing the full value of a natural resource is quite another.  

This is true of natural resources like waterways and trees. It’s also true of people and communities. Culture and tradition. When we reduce value to the price something fetches at the store, we’ve missed most of the picture!

I look forward to doing some reflective work on trees and forest management this year. I appreciate all feedback.

Harvesting Nouns & Verbs

[Preliminary Thoughts: VIII]

Harvest is both a noun and a verb. 

If you’re like me, when I think of harvest as a noun, I picture a cornucopia. Remember those from grade school? They are the iconic symbol, along with a turkey, of course, of Thanksgiving. A cornucopia represents the gifts of the land after a long summer of growth. All the fruit of labor climaxes in pounds of rich-in-vitamin-A storage foods that will sustain the the farmer/homesteader/hobby gardener through the cold winter months. 

Harvest as a verb doesn’t get much airtime, and I think I know why. Nobody likes to admit (or understands) that getting from garden to garage is no small task. Sure, a pumpkin practically rolls itself into storage, but a carrot requires unearthing, washing, drying, and carefully protecting. Try 500 carrots, 300 beets, 50 head of cabbage—you get the idea. 

Vegetables don’t jump into the cornucopia. Nor do they jump into the oven. Nor do they chop and season themselves. The work never ends. 

Life is full of hard verbs, broken up with a few wonderful, iconic nouns. 

I look forward to reflecting this year on harvesting and the nature of life’s hardest work that never ends.

Agricultural Anti-Depressants

[Preliminary Thoughts: VII]

Seeds hold within them all the hope of summer, in the middle of winter. They are captured sunlight, encapsulated photosynthesis waiting to leap vertically in celebration when the timing (and weather) is right for a party.  Seeds are a type of agricultural anti-depressant. And they are such a helpful metaphor for life and faithfulness and truth. 

Seeds are more than metaphor; they are literally our hope for next season. Anyone that has saved a tomato seed from one euphoric tasting scarlet globe in August only to do it again from its offspring the next summer, will attest to the magic and power of such an experience. True agricultural sustainability (and delight) depends on the biodiversity preserving practice of seed saving.

I plan on exploring seeds as metaphoric and literal lessons about truth. It’s sure to be fun!

The Art of Animals

[Preliminary Thoughts: VI]

The word husband comes from the old Norse word “hus”, meaning house or house dweller. A husband was the head of a house, which included the possession, the people, and the land. So, one could be a husband (n.), but could also husband (v.), meaning there were certain responsibilities that must be filled to properly lead a home and land. 

There’s this other word that is very interesting to me: husbandry. The “ry” suffix makes a big difference. Those two letters are actually a word forming element that means “the place for or the art of.” 

To husband is to care for the people, place, and things within a domain. To practice husbandry is to practice *the art* of such endeavors. 

When done with intentionality and care, farming is an art. I think this is most evident (or, at least, the negligence of this is most evident) when it comes to “husbanding” animals. I anticipate learning a lot by reflecting on our relationship to animals. I agree with a farming friend of mine who said, “The best philosophy is done in the barn.”

What’s a Good Tool?

[Preliminary Thoughts: V]

A good tool should be direct, simple, and ergonomic. 

The tool is a technological means to an end. But that doesn’t mean it should distance the gardener from the task. Quite the opposite. Tools should increase efficiency while maintaining (or decreasing) distance. A good tool keeps the farmer in direct contact with their subject. 

A good tool is engineered with simplicity in mind. The more complex, the more can go wrong. The irony of complexity in gardening, especially when it pertains to tools, is that time is ultimately spent (lost?) on fixing the tool more than using it for its intended use. Along these lines, a tool should work with precision. Without pinpoint accuracy, a tool might serve other ends and thereby waste energy and time. 

A tool should be ergonomic, that is, it should work with and not against the body’s natural posture. Farming is a physical act as much as a mental one. Better to partner with tools than be opposed by them. 

I look forward to reflecting on the the need for direct, simple, and ergonomic characteristics of the good life too. What’s true for tools is true in relationships, vocation, and religion. It’ll be fun to learn from some of the best low-tech tools on the farm.

It Built that Apple

[Preliminary Thoughts: IV]

“Soiled” means to be dirty or stained. In a metaphorical sense it means to be stigmatized or disgraced. It’s a term with only negative meaning. 

But soil is not bad! To live on a farm is fundamentally to interact with soil. It’s quite literally the beating heart of every agricultural endeavor. A lesson learned quickly from farm life is that when it comes to food (agriculture), we the soiled ones, are only one step closer to the dirt than the patrons of the grocery store.  That being said, we can remove the preposition “on the farm” from the first sentence, and it remains true: to live is to fundamentally interact with soil. 

And yet it carries such negative meaning in our overly sanitized culture. Cleanliness is a virtue (and it’s next to godliness, as the saying goes) is it not? So, it’s not just semantics to wrestle with the use (and abuse) of the term soil, it matters to how we perceive others, how we understand and practice religion, and how we interact with our physical surroundings. 

Soil is good. And that apple in your fruit basket is “built” by it.
Yet we understand it as contaminated and bad. 
I look forward to exploring this disparity further.

Seasonal Changes

[Preliminary Thoughts: III]

We broke heat records last summer. 113*F in Arizona is hot but not newsworthy. In Western Washington, however, it means 30% berry crop failure, a spike in farm animal fatality, and major fish die-off. 

We broke cold records this winter. 3*F in Colorado is no big deal. In Washington, where I live and where there is no infrastructure to protect against such deep freeze, it's akin to a mini Ice Age. Entire species have a hard time recovering from such frozen torment. 

These records remind me that much of life, despite our attempts at building it how we want, preparing for our future, and engineering our success, is unwilling to be controlled. Not that we are helpless bystanders, but any manufacturing (i.e. build, prepare, and engineer) metaphor seems more misleading than helpful. 

The drastic changes in temperature offer a different metaphor: seasons.  Life happens, rarely fully unexpected but surprising nonetheless, in seasons. And like seasons, the good and bad must be experienced together. 

I look forward to reflecting this year on what deep truths we can learn about life by paying close attention to the ever-changing cycle of seasons.

Gardening as a Third Way

[Preliminary Thoughts: II]

A conservationist insists on leaving land alone. With a “bleeding heart” they enumerate the benefits of allowing land to return to a native state of rest whereby diversity returns and health is reestablished. 

A pure capitalist sees the land as a natural resource with potential value on the market. With a “cold heart” they propose harvesting the land for its value initially in timber and later for development. 

All conservationists don’t have a “bleeding heart” and all capitalists aren't “cold hearted” but each by definition desires a different outcome. 

A gardener falls squarely in the middle, manipulating the landscape for minimum “profit”. Might a gardener offer a third way—managing land toward diversity and health while also “extracting” value from it? Perhaps there is such a thing as a “gardening ethic” that is of great value in land debates.

All Gardens are Consumed

[Preliminary Thoughts: I]

There are many types of “gardens”. Gardens are designed, installed, and tended differently, but what I mean specifically is this: every garden has a different end. 

It might frame the sculpture in front of you suburban home.
It may be a play area for young children in the back yard. 
It may simply be drainage for the pool you recently installed. 

It seems the supreme segregator of all gardens is not shape, size, or location. Instead, it’s whether they are intended to provide edible foliage. 

All gardens are for consumption at one level. Some for the eyes. Others for the mouth. My garden is unapologetically for eating, and I’ve made a commitment to methodically remove any plant that doesn’t serve this purpose. 

This year I’ll be reflecting on the intersections between food, gardening, and spirituality, which means I’ll be spending a lot of time sharing about my yard (and the food I grow in it!).

Love Without Expectations

[Crisis & Awakening - XVIII]

This reflection is nearly my 30th attempt to name what a revival might look like without relying on religious jargon. I haven’t just avoided worn out language, as that would be easy enough by simply choosing different words; I’ve looked for traits of true awakening and transformation that are outside what our culture might deem “religious experience” but consistent with my own experience of renewal. 

As a last installment, I’ll name three related traits of awakening. 

An outflow of generosity without strings attached. An overflow of empathy with no promise of reciprocation. And a desire to offer open-ended help and support. 

The thread through each might be *an ability to love without expecting anything in return*. 

All revival will fundamentally be marked by this kind of love. Religious pageantry is unnecessary. Euphoric “trances” or extended periods of worship are not guaranteed. Spiritual zeal and excessive God-talk is not even promised. But a renewed sense of love-without-expectations for one’s neighbor with always be present. 

Changing Perception

[Crisis & Awakening - XVII]

Perception is the process of interpreting information. 

This process includes selecting information or stimuli, organizing it into our preexisting structures of understanding, and then interpreting it based on previously gather information and past experiences. 

The massive amount of information we take in every minute can be perceived as favorable or unfavorable, safe or threatening, healthy or unhealthy. While this process is mostly psychological, it affects our physical, emotional, and social realities. It influences our relationships, our sense of self, and our understanding of the world. 

And we draw conclusions from these perceptions. And they’re often wrong. 

Perception is not something that can be turned on or off. But uncritically drawing conclusions from our perceptions can (with practice). An awakening in the deepest sense is marked by a lack of interest in interpreting the actions of others. In other words, as we experience renewal in ourselves, we are less inclined to allow our perceptions and subsequent conclusions of others to affect our interactions. 

That’s because our awareness of the inaccuracy of our assumptions increases.

And our tendency to perceive unfavorably decreases.

Rise in Celebration(s)

[Crisis & Awakening - XVI]

There seems to be two types of celebration, planned and unplanned. 

A planned celebration might go by party, bat mitzvah, graduation, holiday dinner, or any other name you can think of that indicates an opportunity to commemorate an event, moment, or season. These celebrations are *organized gratitude*. 

A celebration can also be unplanned. Sometimes we can see it coming from the horizon and so choose to encounter it without much prep, and other times it surprises us from around a blind corner. In both cases, there is no formal event, no planned gathering, and no premeditated commemoration. But these celebrations are no less celebratory. In fact, often times the spontaneity adds a level of exuberance.  These celebrations feel like *spontaneous joy*. 

In our youth we prioritize spontaneity and unhindered play. Joy that "just comes” at the spur of the moment is golden and prioritized. As we age we see the value of planning, the need for ritual, and the importance of discipline. The gratitude embedded in predictable gatherings and celebrations is golden and prioritized. 

An awakening is not marked by one over the other. Rather, in an awakening we see a rise in both!

Reduction in Judgment

[Crisis & Awakening - XV]

I’ve always been a little confused about the meaning of judgement. As in, “Stop judging me!”  

I knew it was something like: imposing negative moral value on other's choices. I’ve realized it’s more complex and often more subtle. 

Judging is having an unfavorable opinion of other's decision or circumstance. It also looks like condemning mistakes (often without considering motive, cause, or contingencies). 

More subtly, judging can be criticizing dissimilarities, comparing what should remain diverse, different, and even complimentary, and separating what should remain together. 

A revival can look like a reduction in the impulse to judge.

Bunkers & Bombs

[Crisis & Awakening - XIV]

A modern bunker that can supposedly protect you from aerial bombing is constructed mostly of concrete and steel. Anything stored within must have a shelf life that is at least as long as the time between stocking it and the onset of attack *plus* the time between the attack and safe exit. 

The point is there is no way of knowing and therefore no way of knowing the minimum shelf life need. The solution is to basically stock a bunker with provisions that are stable indefinitely. 

What can possibly be the health benefit of food that is indefinitely stable? It doesn’t matter because health is not the goal; survival is the only thing that matters. 

In this way, fresh, raw, unstable, nutrient dense foods are antithetical to "bunker provisions”.  Survival and revival are opposites too. So are safeguarding and innovation. And hiding and renewal.

An awakening is not contingent on hunkering down but rising up and discovering the deepest sources of vitality and the richest sources of nourishment. (I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with concrete, bombproof walls.)

Like a Newborn

[Crisis & Awakening - XIII]

Despite popular belief, a revival rarely looks like outburst of emotion, extensive spiritual euphoria, and inexplicable miraculous occurrences. 

But it is not without encountering…  

The Divine.

The Great Mystery.

Deep Purpose.

The Source of Life. 

And often this looks like hearing the very voice of God. 

Like all revelatory insights, supernatural messages, and universal secrets, the message is a gift we hold like a newborn—powerful and fragile. The whole universe is captured in a small, pure, untarnished vessel of life. 

The message doesn’t need public outburst. Only private transformation (that in time is publicly witnessed). 

Just like a newborn, this voice always “asks” us to risk more, trust deeply, surrender ego, give into calling, love big, welcome strangers, draw deeper to yourself, give generously, rest more, and dare to wonder. 

That’s what revival looks like. Always.

Enjoyment & (not) Fighting

[Crisis & Awakening - XII]

Here are two *signs of renewal* I learned from strangers this week: 

The ability to enjoy each moment. This flirts with being trite, but let me add to it one component that makes it profoundly insightful (and rather difficult for me). Rest is a precursor to moment-to-moment joy. In other words, there is no joy in the moment when our mind is racing, our phones are chirping, and we’re running to the next thing. Slowing, even completely stopping, and letting our minds and bodies synchronize is the first step of truly resting. And rest is fundamental to deeply enjoying this very moment. 

Finding joy here and now cannot be fit into an already manic schedule. It defies busy-ness, because it requires rest. Rest is not necessarily a sign of renewal but it’s often a condition for it.  

Loss of interest in conflict. Often the cause of conflict is a) a miscalculated assumption of the other, b) an unresolved conflict within that is projected onto the other, or c) unhealed pain triggered by the other. In other words, conflict is often the result unhealth… in you, not them.  A sign of true awakening is curtailing our tendency to assume what others think/feel/intend and tending to our inner conflicts and wounds. 

Doing both drastically reduces our inclination toward conflict, which is the first step to completely losing interest in fighting.

Wild & Unreserved

[Crisis & Awakening - XI]

Here are two*signs of renewal* I learned from children this week: 

Wild ideas over small and sheepish ideas. Children are not bound by convention; their imagination is big and wild and free. It dawned on me that this is not the consequence of immaturity and a lack of wisdom; rather, it’s the natural way of thinking when one lacks a concern for protecting what’s “mine”. Self-preservation ironically feels empowering and free, but its effects are weakness of mind, lack of creativity, and a thin and feeble faith. Renewal looks a lot like youthful, big, audacious ideas. 

Unreserved public celebration and a loss of worry. Children haven’t lived long enough to create personas. Their social sensibilities are undeveloped and their ability to fear the future is minor. This doesn’t mean they don’e have fears and aren’t aware of their surroundings; it simply means they haven’t calculated the (perceived or real) consequences of their longterm social participation. So, when it’s time to celebrate, there’s no “prudent” and “tasteful” and “dignified” way to celebrate. All the worries of the world disappear, and it’s an explosion of unrestrained joy. 

Wild, audacious ideas. Unreserved celebration. 

Both are signs of revival.

In/Out of Control

[Crisis & Awakening - X]

Of all the lessons I learned in my childhood, the one that was consistently reiterated at school, home, and on the sports field went something like this: 

If you put in the work, you can succeed. 
-or-
With enough effort, your goals are possible. 

This lesson is predicated on the belief that we are in *control*… 

…of our development, training, and growth;…of our achievements, success, and future;…of our wellbeing, health, and happiness. 

An inner awakening, a soulful renewal, a spiritual revival displays itself in a different fashion. My observation is that when someone has entered a season of renewal they have an increased tendency to let things happen rather than make them happen. In other words, deeper health is comfortable being out of control—or, at least, letting go of control—and holding gently unforeseen outcomes. 

Perhaps, unlike what I learned, I'm not in control. (There’s a lot to learn in my response to that statement.)

Bodily Posture

[Crisis & Awakening - IX]

Sometimes an awakening is felt in our bodily posture toward others. Three come to mind. 

*Dancing* rather than running from others. The careless freedom that comes with dancing is vulnerable . . . and lovely. 

*Embracing* rather than distancing from others. Physical touch, especially in the form of hugging, is a symbol of security. It’s a prerational need that is never matured beyond. Deep in each of us is a hunger to be held and rocked. 

*Facing* and making eye contact rather than turning from others. To look at someone is to welcome them with your eyes; to be looked at without turning is to receive someone’s invitation to connect. 

All three bodily postures are a sign of healing and evidence of renewal.