Fields of Plenty by Michael Ableman

Just finished this book a few days ago. A fun story of a farmer touring sustainable farms for a summer. Interesting reading about the different farms from a farmer's perspective. He's very gracious and is able to see the hope and passion in each farmer's life. Here are a few quotes I like:

“People’s perception of scale is influenced by the relatively recent idea that farms should be big and far away from the communities they serve.... As a society, we no longer have a concept of what an appropriate community-based scale would be for our farms. They have become factories cranking out product, reducing valuable living soil to an inert medium for holding plants up in the air and turning independent farmers into cogs in a corporate machine.” p.119

(quoting Tom Willey), “ ‘We must consider it a scientific fact that you are what you eat, the same molecules that make up the food we consume become the molecules of our minds and bodies. So, unless you are your own farmer, you should choose one as carefully as you would choose your doctor or your pastor. Therefore, it is fitting that farmers, like doctors, lawyers, professors, and pastors, should command a high level of respect and income, commensurate with this level of responsibility. I consider it an honor and a privilege that you have chosen me to be your farmer.’” p. 74

Epic dinnerness!

Mac and cheese from scratch using raw sharp cheddar and blue, roast beets sauteed in butter and balsamic vinegar topped with blue cheese, roast broccoli and a sourdough baguette (not homemade). Can you say delicious?

Chocolate Chippers

Alisa eat your heart out. These may be the perfect chocolate chip cookie. Pastured butter, organic evaporated cane sugar, organic dark brown sugar, and I added a little whole wheat which stass actually prefers now. It gives it a little back bone and more complex flavor (actually can taste the wheat)!

Winter food

No local salad greens at the farmers market so I have had to resort to California greens... oh well, at least its only one state away. Used hood river apples and local blue cheese. The dressing was raw apple cider vinegar, olive oil, flax seed oil, and local egg yolk. Yum!!



Some tasty mexican food. Home made tortillas, pinto beans, local green onions, local greens, chicken (not local), raw milk cheddar cheese, and sauce using new mexico chiles, tomatoes and spices.

Listening to our critics

Lately, because of my warehouse job, I have been listening to music all day including (but not limited to) lots of punk rock. One common trait of punk is strong oppisition to government, religion, establishment, capitalism, etc. (which, among other things, is why I enjoy it). Usually when punk bands sing about religion they are specifically targeting Christianity, probably because it has been the dominant religion of the west. Today I listened to a few bands (Bad Religion, All, for example) brashly sing against the violence that many Christians turn a blind eye to, or worse, rally behind.

I think for many Christians it is easy to get defensive and start to make excuses for things, pass the blame onto someone else, or write off the critic as a bad person who is wrong. But I think that what we need to do is admit that our critics are right in their critique of Christianity. Many of the things that our critics say are very true. Some critics aren't always right and can be fairly belligerent but thats not the point. The point is that we need to listen, that we need to admit our problems, learn from them and ask our critics how they think we should correct these things.

I had this revelation a few years ago: That when I had arguments with people, they were usually partly right. This is hard to see of course because when our feelings get hurt or we're offended we usually act defensive and become stubborn beyond reason, and the disagreement never gets resolved. But in retrospect we usually see (if willing) that the person in disagreement with us usually has a point and is somewhat right.

In religion, most of us never make the next step after facing disagreement to actually consider the validity of our opponents' argument. We usually claim something like because our opponents are 'unbelievers' that somehow they just don't understand and will always be wrong. This just isn't true. Many times people on the outside looking in are very accurate in there analysis of us. Now, of course there are many things that we all will not agree on, but next time someone starts criticizing you or your beliefs, stop, listen, and consider their point.

I think we will find that once we come to terms with our critics accusations (that modern Christianity is too violent, too consumeristic, too judgmental, too far removed from Jesus's teachings, etc) we will be able to become reconciled to our critics and our world.

Everything must change

Just finished Brian McLaren's book Everything Must Change. McLaren is one of my new favorite Christian thinkers. His books make me excited to be a Christian again. McLaren has a chapter in this book on 'Theocapitalism'. A really interesting topic of how we have turned our monetary system into our God. He goes on to list a new set of spiritual laws in this theocampitalistic society. Provocative! Go read it.

He's not as quotable as Wendell Berry but he uses incredible quotes from others. Here is one of his, and one he quotes.

“But this insurgency can never use the weapons of the occupying regime; otherwise, it simply becomes another manifestation of it. So it is a merciful insurgency, a wisdom insurgency, a hope insurgency, a generous insurgency, a courage insurgency, a compassion insurgency, a faith insurgency, a peace insurgency.” p. 129

“Only a fraction of our sins are personal. By far the greater part are sins of neglect, sins of default, our social sin, our systemic sin, our economic sin. For these sins Christ died, and continues to die. For these sins Christ atoned, and continues to atone.... As long as evangelism presents a gospel centered on the need for personal salvation, individuals will acquire a faith that focuses on maximum benefits with minimal obligations, and we will change the costly work of Christ’s atonement into the pragmatic transaction of a salvific contract.... The sanctifying grace of God in Jesus Christ is meant not just for the sinner but also for a society beset by structural sin.” -David Lowes Watson and Douglas Meeks

Wenell Berry: Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community.

Here are some quotes from the book. Berry is an incredible writer; everything he writes down is so profound. Go out and get yer self a book!

Sex, economy, freedom and community:

p. 23 “In order to make ecological good sense for the planet, you must make ecological good sense locally. You can’t act locally by thinking globally.”

p. 40 “In a healthy community, people will be richer in their neighbors, in neighborhood, in the health and pleasure of neighborhood, than in their bank accounts. It is better, therefore, even if the cost is greater, to buy near at hand than to buy at a distance. It is better to buy from a small, privately owned local store than from a chain store. It is better to buy a good product than a bad one... do every thing you can to see that your money stays as long as possible in the local community.”

p. 77 “Freedom, of course, requires diversity of opinion. It not only tolerates political dissent but encourages and depends on it.”

p. 85 “But why God might particularly favor a nation whose economy is founded foursquare on the seven deadly sins is a mystery that has not been explained.”

p. 92 “Finally, if we want to be at peace, we will have to waste less, spend less, use less, want less, need less. The most alarming sign of the state of our society now is that our leaders have the courage to sacrifice the lives of young people in war but have not the courage to tell us that we must be less greedy and less wasteful.”

p. 99 “How can modern Christianity have so solemnly folded its hands while so much of the work of God was and is being destroyed?”

p. 104 “By denying spirit and truth to the nonhuman Creation, modern proponents of religion have legitimized a form of blasphemy without which the nature- and culture-destroying machinery of the industrial economy could not have been built--that is, they have legitimized bad work. Good human work honors God’s work. Good work uses no thing without respect, both for what it is in itself and for its origin.”

“This is blasphemy: to make shoddy work of the work of God. But such blasphemy is not possible when the entire Creation is understood as holy and when the works of God are understood as embodying and thus revealing His spirit. In the Bible we find none of the industrialist’s contempt or hatred for nature. We find, instead, a poetry of awe and reverence and profound cherishing...”

p. 115 “ Less is said of the Gospels’ bad news, which is that Jesus would have been horrified by just about every “Christian” government the world has ever seen. He would be horrified by our government and its works, and it would be horrified by him.”

p. 124 “The public political voice has become increasingly the voice of a conscious and self-serving duplicity: it is now, for instance, merely typical that a political leader can speak of ‘the preciousness of all life’ while armed for the annihilation of all life.”

p. 133 “The triumph of the industrial economy is the fall of community. But the fall of community reveals how precious and how necessary community is. For when community falls, so must fall all the things that only community life can engender and protect: the care of the old, the care and education of children, family life, neighborly work, the handing down of memory, the care of the earth, respect for nature and the lives of wild creatures.”

p. 143 “The basis of community sexuality is respect for everything that is involved--and respect, here as everywhere, implies discipline. By their common principles of extravagance and undisciplined freedom, our public economy and our public sexuality are exploiting and spending oral capital built up by centuries of community life--exactly as industrial agriculture has been exploiting and spending the natural capital built up over thousands of years in the soil.”