Discerning the Violet

I went on a wild edibles hike, with the terrifically funny and extremely knowledgeable Steve Brill.

"You can eat blue violets and white violets," he said. "Stay away from yellow violets. They can make you sick. If the flowers aren't up yet, you can tell the difference by the leaf. The yellow violet leaf isn't quite as heart-shaped."

And so it went with a lot of other wild edibles. This plant is good, but watch out for its look-alike, which will make you sick (or worse, kill you).

It occurred to me that temptation is like this. It presents itself as a look-alike to what is good. If we take a moment to discern, though, we find that it is less heart-shaped than the real thing.


For more on my Wild Edibles Hike, visit my other blog

Blue Violets photo by L.L. Barkat.
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Eating Violets

Work Space: 3

Thinking further on stewardship and work, I liked this quote from Wendell Berry, on the difference between agribusiness and traditional agriculture...

To set this squandering, urban-industrial "agribusiness" against the elegantly conservative traditional agriculture is again to illustrate the difference between imposition and adaptation— between bigotry and force on the one hand and grace and skill on the other.

The Papago adapted farming to their country, and by that adaptation gave it— and themselves— the power to endure as long as the bonds between them and their land remained unbroken. The modern industrial farmers, on the other hand, have forced the country to conform to their way of farming.

So long as their technology and their surplus capital can provide shortcuts, such as pumping groundwater and transporting fuels, this way will "work." But it cannot work any other way, and the signs of its failure are readily apparent to anyone who will take the trouble to look.

I wonder, as I work, if I steward what is in my hand with grace and skill? Do I adapt myself to the needs of others, rather than forcing my way (all in the name of supposedly bringing a blessing)?

It is definitely a challenge to bring forth blooms with humility and sensitivity. And I suppose that when I do not, the signs of my failure might be readily apparent if I take the trouble to look.

Quote from The Gift of Good Land, p.64. Peony photo by Gail Nadeau. Used with permission.


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As you recall over the past two days, TheHighCalling.org is going on blog tour this week, to bring you special ideas regarding the work space. If the issue of humility interests you, try these tour options on for size...

Membership... become a member of TheHighCalling.org Becoming a member allows you to track issues of interest, like humility, right on the HC site.

Membership could also lead to GETTING PAID FOR ONE OF YOUR HUMBLE BLOG POSTS! Check it out.


A High Thought... Leadership by Light


Other tour rest stops...

Green Inventions Central
Gordon Atkinson
Gina Conroy
Craver VII
CREEations
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
Mary DeMuth
Karl Edwards
Emdashery
Every Square Inch
Amy Goodyear
Marcus Goodyear
Al Hsu
Jennwith2ns
Chalres Foster Johnson
Mike McLoughlin
Eve Nielsen
Naked Pastor
Ramblin Dan
Charity Singleton
Stacy
Camy Tang

Enjoy day three of the journey!

Work Space: 2

One of the best books I've read on work is John Beckett's Loving Monday.

In a chapter on stewardship, he reminds me, "Each of us has been given some measure of stewardship responsibility. Often it's so obvious we can't even see it." (p.126)

Then Beckett goes on to share an incident concerning Moses, when God asks him, "What is that in your hand?" Beckett says that Moses saw a plain old stick... one he had held through the desert to steady his steps. But "in God's eyes, it was something altogether different." This was the very stick that God chose to work through, to turn into a serpent before Pharoah.

So, ultimately, the question is, how do I use what is in my hand to nurture, challenge, speak out, and provide for others?

To answer this question, I guess I first have to look at what's in my hand.

Walking Stick photo, by L.L. Barkat.


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As you recall from yesterday, TheHighCalling.org is going on blog tour this week, to bring you special ideas regarding the work space. If the issues of stewardship and gifting interest you, try these tour options on for size...

Membership... become a member of TheHighCalling.org Becoming a member allows you to track issues of interest, like stewardship or gifting, right on the HC site.

Future benefits will offer inclusion in a social networking group on their site (where your blog may be specifically highlighted from time to time).


Audio Encouragment... Ticket to Joyride


Reflection and Prayer... Eugene Peterson, "One Heart and Soul"


Other tour rest stops...

Green Inventions Central
Gordon Atkinson
Gina Conroy
Craver VII
CREEations
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
Mary DeMuth
Karl Edwards
Emdashery
Every Square Inch
Amy Goodyear
Marcus Goodyear
Al Hsu
Jennwith2ns
Chalres Foster Johnson
Mike McLoughlin
Eve Nielsen
Naked Pastor
Ramblin Dan
Charity Singleton
Stacy
Camy Tang

Enjoy day two of the journey!

Work Space: 1

In The Soul Tells a Story, V.H. Wright reminds me that my work is not the be-all and end-all of life. Because my work is writing (which I am passionate about), and because writing is also a form of spiritual discipline for me, this is a difficult message to embrace. Yet it is true. As she says...

Your family is more important than this creative project. The creative project, after all, is something that comes from you, a product of sorts; your partner and kids are other human beings to whom you have made a commitment. So you will carve out a few times in a year when everyone is out of your hair and you can be near the woods. But the rest of the time you will juggle all your loves, some days more successfully than others. The work will still get done. p.78

The work will still get done. And so will the growth-in-God that my work facilitates. And, I suppose if certain things don't get done, that may be okay too.


Family Sculpture with Big Cat and Goat, by Sara, each figure less than a half-inch high. Photo by L.L. Barkat

Seedlings Invitation: If you write a post related to this post and Link It Back Here, let me know and I'll link to yours.

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Halfmom's Does My Work Really Matter?




Speaking of work, TheHighCalling.org is going on blog tour over the next three days, to bring you special ideas regarding the work space— including many aspects of work and family; gifts and leadership; excellence; integrity; attitude; professional relationships; and service.

Strikes me as a great resource for sermons, talks, and articles. Also, if you'd like to be encouraged, inspired, or revitalized regarding your work right now, consider these whirlwind tour options...

Membership... become a member of TheHighCalling.org


Clever Parable... A Lens on the World


Inspiring Interview... Eugene Peterson, on hearing God


Awesome Article... A Burning Bush Would Be Nice


Other tour rest stops...

Green Inventions Central
Gordon Atkinson
Gina Conroy
Craver VII
CREEations
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
Mary DeMuth
Karl Edwards
Emdashery
Every Square Inch
Amy Goodyear
Marcus Goodyear
Al Hsu
Jennwith2ns
Chalres Foster Johnson
Mike McLoughlin
Eve Nielsen
Naked Pastor
Ramblin Dan
Charity Singleton
Stacy
Camy Tang

Have a Great Trip!!

Verby Pick-Up Duck: bara'

It's been quite a while since we've gone hunting for verbs and played verby pick-up duck. So I thought I'd give it a shot again. (Ah, yes, pun intended.)

This time, I thought to play it in Hebrew.

I don't claim to be a Hebrew expert... I'm just studying along at my leisure. But it feels good to put myself to the task. Very good.

Our verb lurks in the good book of Genesis, 1:1... Bara'. Created. Meaning to form or fashion, birth, transform, make fat.

Surely, it's a proper spring verb, with all the blooms bursting and the ground swelling, and the new birds emerging from blue eggs and white eggs and eggs with speckles.

Indeed, in Genesis, a brief moment after bara', God is rather springily pictured as a wind or a fluttering bird (I'll not go into the linguistic explanation here... we're only playing verby pick-up duck.)

In reading John Walton's commentary, I was surprised to discover that this verb is not so much about God creating matter from nothing (we get that from Hebrews 11:3), as it is about God designing, bringing order, assigning roles and destinies. In the bible, bara' is only used with God as its subject.

So, going out on a limb, here's my question... Can we humans, in any sense, apply this word to ourselves? Could it be said that you or I bara'? Or not...


Photo by Pauline Stickland. Mom to Martin, God bless 'er.

(P.S... I did not plan this, but I see that my dear editor is thinking on this very issue today. How could I not link to her entry? (See post called "Who is an Artist?")


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Motu's Coffee

Provision

The more time I spend in my Secret Spot, the more I am startled by God's provision right in my own backyard.

Apparently, for instance, I can brew tea from pine needles (so says the man in Man vs. Wild). I can eat pine needles if there's a water shortage. They store up good amounts of water and have 10 times more vitamin C than oranges (again, so says the man). I do not know if this is true for all types of pine, but I'm going to do the research.

The other day, I harvested my first set of dandelion greens (watch for an upcoming recipe on my other blog). Soon, I'll be able to garnish salads with tender violet leaves, and sugared violet flowers. I can fry fiddleheads (the curved shoot of new ferns), as well as make tea with red raspberry leaves. And if I were to grow my grass long enough (which I almost did last year, for those who remember!), I could eat the seeds.

Considering these simple provisions, I realize that God freely gives me everything I need for life— body and soul. I just have to open my eyes, my mind, and my heart.

Needles in Tea photo, by L.L. Barkat


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Kim's Subfusion

Perspective

So my kids have been going outside too, sitting in the little "woods," writing poetry and gazing up into the pine.

I like this poem from Sara. There was snow on the ground when she wrote it...


It's not very cold outside
and it's beautiful
and it's peaceful
and the birds are singing
and then the dogs bark
and the distant sound of cars
and the rustling of birds in the trees
and I am in the forest
and it's real.

It's real. I wonder what's real to me, and to you... and how our perspective influences this reality...

Poem by Sara. Pine photo by L.L. Barkat.


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Maria's Suburban

Al Hsu's Discussing Suburbia

Charity's Subruralurbanite

Subfused

So, Charity and I are reading Al Hsu's The Suburban Christian together. And we thought that besides talking by email we might open up the conversation a little wider. So, here we are. Intro and Chapter 1.

As you can see in the picture above, this is the edge of my back yard. It has a rather urban feel that might be surprising, with all my talk about the pine and the ivy.

Indeed, I learned from TSC that I live in an urban suburb, or maybe an exurb, or possibly an edge city. The point is that I don't live in downtown Manhattan, which everyone agrees is urban (well, except that apparently the cities are now taking on suburban characteristics).

As I tried to sift through the definitions of urban/suburban (poor sociologists and bravo to Al Hsu!), I realized that maybe this is the most important point for me: I experience life here as if it were urban.

There are no picket fences. Horns and sirens and car alarms often pierce my days and nights. People toss beer cans, empty Doritos bags, and (can you believe it?) even old pairs of underwear onto my sidewalk and into my front hedge. I can walk to the post office, the grocery stores, the library, and a few establishments that sell overwear. It hardly feels like a "great place to raise kids."

In general, life here feels pinched, unless I look up, into my pine tree. Or down, into my ivy. Still, I've got the suburban feel that people who trek to the suburbs are apparently after... this is a place where I have no past. Most of my neighbors don't even know my name.


For more thoughts on this, read Trashwalk on my Green Inventions blog.


At the Edge photo, by L.L. Barkat.

Seedlings Invitation: If you write a post related to this post and Link It Back Here, let me know and I'll link to yours.

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Kim's Subfusion

Maria's Suburban

Al Hsu's Discussing Suburbia

Charity's Subruralurbanite

Bedecked

You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride, you have ravished my heart with a glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace. How sweet is your love, my sister, my bride! Song of Songs 4:9,10

Out in my Secret Place today, the whole landscape is wet... crystal drops poised on every surface, the whole world contained therein. Water drips, slides down branches in unrestrained play. The tree trunks are darker, the ivy greener, the bud tips brighter in this rain.

One raindrop, large raindrop, "plops" into my red tea— a promise, perhaps, of cleansing, of renewal? Drink this cup, said He.

The pine needles are hundreds of lady's fingers, hanging with new-bought diamonds, life contained therein. Look here, the needles wave to the ivy. Look here, at what my beloved has given. A gift come down, bestowed by tears. Heaven's groom, who wept for me.

Easter Egg watercolor, by Sara. And another freewriting from yours truly, L.L.

A Well and The Word

Ever since I've been going to my Secret Place each day, I've been freewriting about it afterwards. Freewriting is one of those tasks that every good writing book emphasizes.

V.H. Wright's The Soul Tells a Story considers freewriting to be a well-dredging activity— the "well" being that secret place inside us that contains all manner of thoughts and passions, memories and dreams, that we are rarely aware of in conscious life.

I like how Wright comforts the soul who gets out a bucket and sends it down with a splash...

"If you are mastering your craft, then you won't need to panic when all manner of strange stuff comes up out of your well. You know that as time goes by your skill will take hold of all that stuff and make something out of it." (p.129)

Here's what came out of my well the other day, after I sat in my "woods" and read Psalm 15, which says, Keep your word, even when it costs you. It is just unpolished freewriting, but I wanted to share it. I'm also going to take Wright's advice and put a hold on the panic.


The air is cool. I'm in shadow. Though the sun is up, it is not yet shining into these "woods." Daffodils poke through frost-bitten ivy and a lattice-work of pine needles. One green spike has the suggestion of a yellow promise behind a skin-like veil. The forsythia bend, dangling tear-drop earrings, flashing tinkling green-swelled jewels.

Wood-winged bushes are green-tipped candelabras, the promise of spring's light in this shadowy corridor. The stalks of the bush are torches, bleeding green from the core. If I hold them, will I be stained green? Will I leave this place with green stripes on my hands?

Somewhere, the muted gunshot of a woodpecker sounds and echoes. Or, it is a snare drum from the trunk of some tree? Wood-winged bud tips are fleur de lis or the bud-tip of a king's scepter. Through the fence, a patch of snowdrops bows delicate faces— for the coming of a king? Above me, a rustle and a leaf falling down. A furry Zaccheus perhaps, up in the tree, come to hear a king's words. The sun is now pouring lightly into the wood-winged bushes which are casting shadows on the pine.

I read Psalm 15, "Keep your word, even when it costs you," and it strikes me that the explosion of these buds, this drumroll of life, is yet again the keeping of God's first words, "Let there be light." I remember, suddenly, that we are in the Lenten season, and this too is the harbinger of a Light bleeding green, bleeding the cost of a promise, of a word spoken so long ago... "Let there be light."

A raucous band of five white birds with grey tails has come to watch The King walk his road towards his word. In the haven of the maple, they settle into a low "chr-chr-chr-chr." It is the "oh, my" of the crowd above the procession... and the ladies with their green teardrop earrings sit motionless... and wait.

Through the Chainlink Fence photo, by L.L. Barkat

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Earth Month

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Yay! I did it!