The Currant Lemon-Thyme Journey Begins

I said I would send a book. Tomorrow it will be on its way.

Why not name the book's journey? That seemed fitting.

So I considered... what is growing in my yard now? Currants, lemon-thyme, buttercups and sage. Ah, The Currant Lemon-Thyme Journey. A little fancy, but why not?





I arrange herbs, leaves, flowers on top of wax paper, fold it over, tuck it in— after I sign a page to the first person on the journey. The book will move on, but the little bits of my yard can be kept, a memory of words and affection passing through.







I hope that each person along these travels will not only sign the book but also send a keepsake to the next reader. Something simple from her yard.



And so, the journey begins.


Garden and book photos, by L.L. Barkat.

God in Your Yards

This morning, up early— very, very early— the humid air reminded me of my grandmother's house. Something about the way the fragrances hung low, grass and earth and begonias just outside the door, mingling. Standing in the semi-darkness, I found Laura Boggess's first post on God in the Yard. Her words caught hold of me. Here is her beginning...

. . .

When I was a child I lived in the country. I did not know for many years that we were poor. I never understood that most folks did not live the way we did. We were happy to be tucked away, hidden from the world by the trees and the sky and the bubbling creek.

I never realized how rich that land made us until much later.

Are we in a depression?

My youngest asks me this not too long ago as we walk the streets of our suburban neighborhood.

Do you mean as a nation or as a family?

Our family…are we in a depression?


Do you mean emotionally or economically?

I quickly run through my head all the conversations his daddy and I have recently had. What has he overheard?

You know, with dad’s new job and stuff…are we not doing very well with money?

. . .

After I read Laura's post, I went back to bed. There were hours left to sleep, and I wanted to try. But her words stayed with me, and the words of some of her commenters, and the words of commenters in the past (about some of my other books). Words that remind me there are people who want to read, but books are costly.

I know this, and it is why I always donate copies to three of my local libraries. Last year, someone in Georgia got to read Stone Crossings because he received it through interlibrary loan. It traveled a whole coastline to reach him.

This morning, though, an idea began to form in my mind. What if? What if a book could be sponsored? It might allow more people to read, for a fraction of the cost, or no cost at all. Here is how I envision it working. It would be an experiment in community of course. It might not work. Still, what if?

Way 1. What if I offered to mail a copy of the book to a first responder? I could write a little note to this person. There are a few blank pages in the book just waiting for this. But the person would agree to hold the book only for a month, then pass it on, to the next responder I know about, or they find out about. In turn, they would pen a note on its pages, to the next person. Maybe, if people prefer to remain anonymous, we could write something like, "to a friend in Colorado," with the date.

When the blank pages are filled, and the book has been passed from hand to hand, I would ask that it be mailed back to me. Then we could give it away. (Oh, sure, I would like to keep it, but the spirit of this seems to suggest making a gift of it.)

I could sponsor a book in this way. But anyone else could too, handling the process similarly. We could be like a library system with a personal touch. It would mean a $5 investment to cover shipping, but that is a good $10-$15 in savings over buying it outright.

Way 2. Remember my friend in Georgia? He waited almost six months to receive Stone Crossings through the library loan program, and another blogosphere friend noticed and decided he'd buy my friend the book. This is another form of sponsorship we could offer. It's different from a giveaway, because it is specific... I want you to have this book. Even as I write this, I know who I'm going to do this for.

Laura's words this morning were like a seed, planting an idea in my mind. Our gifts could be like seeds, hopefully planting some kind of healing in each other. If you are someone who would like to receive the first drift-upon-the-wind, email me with your name and address, at llbarkat [at] yahoo [dot] com. Tell me whether or not you would like the book page signed to your name or just your state. I will send you a copy and ask that you pass it on within a month. If I receive multiple requests, I will pass the next name and address on with the book.

It could be a messy process. But I suppose farming never did come without a little dirt on the hands and feet.

Speaking of which, go on and finish reading Laura's post. You'll see what I mean about the feet when you get there...


Dandelion in Seed photo, by L.L. Barkat.

Silly Little Barriers to Doing Good

So here I am trying to do good at a party and not too far into the process I discover...

I face silly little barriers to doing good.

In this case, all I have to do is send a gift card with left-over credit on it, to benefit Gift Card Giver, but I get stuck before I even get in the game. Oh, I'd like to be able to say I get stuck for really good reasons (I'm out making the world a better place by curing the common cold or something). But no, this is the truth of it...

1. I have questions about the process. I'm not sure how to get answers and I have to take the time to ask the questions. (This makes me feel anxious. I don't like being anxious.)

2. I get answers, but they mean a little more work on my part (You mean I have to call the companies or go to their websites to figure out how much credit is left on the cards?! My personal lazy-factor awakes.)

3. I can't find a permanent marker in the drawer that should have a permanent marker. (How come these can be found by the simplest child in need of writing on a wall, but not by me in a moment of do-good crisis? My disorganization skills suddenly depress me.)

4. I have to find an envelope (which means a relocation exercise... envelopes are upstairs), I have to look up the address to send the gift-card to (this means finding the original invitation), and I have to use two stamps just in case one won't cover the postage (selfish syndrome at the pickiest level now appears).

5. I think... maybe I could use this card myself. (Selfish syndrome apparently has multiple faces.)

Then I look at the pile of cards (above) and I think about all they represent. The simple fact that I have so many different kinds of cards reminds me that every day of my life I have more than enough to meet my needs. The kings remind me of The King, who wishes I would put aside my silly little barriers to do his Kingdom work. The division cards say to me that it is, sadly, small things which often ultimately divide me from blessing others. The cup of cold water... well, how could I forget what Jesus said about that? Will I offer an umbrella, share my apple, act the part of a compassionate queen? Or will I settle for that little joker card off to the left?

Since I have no plans on the horizon for curing the common cold, I decide to take the plunge and do this instead. Good thing I don't have to lick any stamps. : )

If you would like to do good by having fun, check out the House Party going on right now at High Calling Blogs. Ann V is bringing cranberry slushies. And Ann K is telling stories. Hope to see there...

RELATED:
Win a Starbucks Gift Card at Erica's
Fun Video at High Calling Blogs
Fun Video, Take 2, at HCB
Sarah's A Card Game of Skill? Or a Game of Guilt?
Need Magazine's Making Use of Those Last Few Dollars on Gift Cards

For Better, For Worse: 5 Ways Blogging Changed My Life

Memes. I've always had mixed feelings about them. But right from the start I've always participated (okay, unless I forget, which I sometimes do... sorry to anyone whose meme I've forgotten to follow up on!)

Which brings me to this. I never thought I'd actually CREATE a meme. Well. I was thinking about all the ways blogging has changed my life, for better or worse, and I thought how I'd love to share these things with you... and have you share your blogging stories with me and others in the blogosphere.

Anyone who has followed Seedlings for any length of time knows: I'm not much for following meme rules. So it feels odd to create a few of my own— which, of course, you can feel free to break... maybe even SHOULD break, in honor of my informal meme-breaking policy.

Here are the rules:

1. Write about 5 specific ways blogging has affected you, either positively or negatively.
2. link back to the person who tagged you
3. link back to this parent post (I'm not so much interested in generating links, but rather in tracking the meme so I can perhaps do a summary post later on that looks at patterns and interesting discoveries.)
4. tag a few friends or five, or none at all
5. post these rules— or just have fun breaking them


Now for the 10 ways blogging has changed my life ...

1. Through blogging, I met author Scot McKnight, who changed my thoughts on how and when to develop book ideas. Consequently, I started developing my second book, God in the Yard, far before I considered seeking a contract.

2. My very first published article was about blogging. I couldn't have written it without being a blogger.

3. I met Marcus Goodyear through blogging. Now I write for his organization and participate in High Calling Blogs.

4. Because I met Marcus, I later met Lauren Winner at a retreat at Laity Lodge (I knew Lauren by email for three years but had never gone in a paddle boat with her, which I did at Laity Lodge.) I wouldn't have gone to Laity Lodge if I hadn't been working on a logo for The High Calling's Win a Free Retreat blogging project.

5. Andrea once blogged about Sabbath in such a convincing way that I changed the way I practice Sabbath. Now I often take a nap, I don't work, and I don't blog or check email on the Sabbath.

6. At one point, I blogged far too much. It was the first time in my life I understood, in even a vague way, the anatomy of addiction. Practicing a technology Sabbath on Sundays has been key to reorienting me at least once a week. And if you've been with me for a while, you probably see that I blog far less than I used to (sorry this means I visit you less!). As a bonus, I'm far more compassionate towards people with addictions. I just bought Mays' book Addiction and Grace, and I trust this will give me further insight into an issue I never cared much about in the past.

7. Christianne, who I met through blogging and later met face-to-face in Florida, taught me a few things about the heart. And about being grace-filled. In some ways, this converges nicely with what I mentioned in number 6.

8. Though I met Charity Singleton at the Calvin Festival of Faith and Writing, it was through blogging that I solidified my relationship with her. And eventually, when she was diagnosed with cancer, I was able to assist her a little bit, emotionally and financially. In return, she has unwittingly ministered to me, giving me a sense of immediacy and depth concerning each day's gifts.

9. Sara enchanted me with her commitment to The Compact. My Visa bill has trimmed considerably.

Okay, for better or worse, I tag...

Christianne
Ann Kroeker
A Musing Mom
Callapidder Days
Jim Martin
Brandon Satrom
Spaghettipie
Jennifer at Snapshot
Kirsten
Craver
Joy
Ted Gossard

Oops. I broke my own tagging rules. ;-) That's neither a few, nor is it five, nor none at all.


Brooklyn to London photo, by L.L. Barkat. (Very cool. There was this contraption down near the Brooklyn Bridge, where you could stand and see people in London and you could wave at each other, as if you were standing face to face with only a bit of glass between you. I had an ice cream cone and the people in London started licking the air, begging for a bit of my cone.)

STONE CROSSINGS:

Ted's book club post: Climbing: Justice

NEW LINKS TO THIS POST:

House of Lime's Friday 55 Da Count in Meme Form, Scot McKnight's Weekly Meanderings, Reading to Know's Tag, I'm It!, God-Writing's My Blogging Habits are Causing a Stir, Susan's Double Tagged, Arlene's How Blogging Has Changed Me, Nancy's For Better For Worse: Ahhhhhh!, Susanne's A Blogging Meme, Matt's 5 Ways Blogging Has Changed My Life, Kim's Mini Blog Celebration, Crow's I've Been Tagged, Brother Maynard's 5 Ways Blogging Has Changed My Life, Lisa's Blogging: For Better for Worse, Ellen's I've Been Tagged, Dawn's Tagged!, JD's Five Ways Blogging Has Changed My Life, The Upward Call's Because I Love to Blog About Writing, Becca's I've Been Tagged, Minutes to Memories Today's Assignment, Wendy's Five Ways Blogging Has Changed My Life, Futurist Guy's Five Ways Blogging Has Changed My Life, Lara's Grand Prize Meme Rule Breaker Blogging and Me Meme, Suey's Ways Blogging Has Affected Me (love the cartoon over on this one!), Ronnica's The Affect of Blogging, Mama Blogs A lot's It's a Meme: Just Do It, Tykerman's I've Been Tagged, Kathy's Blog-Tag-Fun, Tulsi's A Tag that is Not a Tag, Lisa's Blogging Meme, Spaghettipie's For Better or Worse, Dianna's I Was Tagged by Lara, Jill's Five Ways Blogging Has Changed My Life, Louise's Five Ways Blogging Has Affected Me, Jill again : ) 5 Ways Blogging Has Changed My Life, Allan's For Better, For Worse: Five Ways Blogging Changed My Life, Tony's I've Been Tagged, Rev J's 5 Ways Blogging Has Changed My Life, Mel's Awards, Giveaways and Memes Oh My, Frank's 5 Ways Blogging Has Changed My Life, John's 5 Ways Blogging Has Channged My Life, Will's Tagged: 5 Ways Blogging Has Changed My Life, Nick's Five Ways Blogging Has Changed My Life, Ann Kroeker's Monday's Meme-ish Musings, Liz's Blogging and Its Effects, Keith's For Better, For Worse: 5 Ways Blogging Changed My Life, Kirsten's 2 Memes: 4 Things and 5 Ways, Natural Systah's I've Been Tagged, Every Square Inch's How Blogging Has Changed My Life, Kelly's Memed Again, Gnome's Five Ways Blogging Has Changed My Life, Henry's Tagged: But I Can Break the Rules, Trish's Why I Blog Meme, Bruce's For Better, For Worse: 5 Ways Blogging Changed My Life (including zombie advice!), Craig's mildly cheeky Blogging Hasn't Changed My Life, Birthday's 5 Ways Blogging Has Changed My Life, Eddie's I Am Eddie and Blogging Has Changed My Life, Kim's Memage, Katie's Five Ways Blogging Has Changed My Life, Nora's Blog Tag, Kelly's Blog Tag, Bellezza's Books and Photography and Blogging, Oh My!, Ben's How Blogging Has Tweaked My Life?, Lynet's Five Ways Blogging Changed My Life, The Chaplain's Blogging Meme, Billy's The Blogging Meme, Ordinary Girl's Five Ways Blogging Has Changed Me, Gabe's 5 Ways Blogging Has Changed My Life, Tina's 5 Ways Blogging Has Changed Me, Erik's Blog Tag, Anna's 5 Ways Blogging is Changing, Affecting, Uplifting, destroying, corrupting, and encouraging my life..., Jandy's Blogging is Life-Changing, Tommy's Meme: Five Ways Blogging Has Changed Me

Charity for Charity

I like this photo of the ivy, up close. We feel differently when we lean in, look at the details, breathe within the same space as another living thing.

Tonight, I'm thinking we have a special chance to lean into the space of a friend. Just to be with her, through our gifts. See, I asked a simple question over on Charity's blog. I asked if she is missing work due to the chemotherapy treatments, and therefore missing pay. She graciously told me yes. A friend of hers who I've been in contact with behind the scenes also emailed me when she saw the comment. Here's what she said...

"We have taken action and set up the following... The account is called the Charity Singleton Fund at Forum Credit Union. The account # is 2010792. Donations can be mailed to PO Box 50738, Indianapolis, IN 46250-0738. Questions can be directed to Forum at 800.382.5414."

I did not ask Charity if we could come in close like this. I know her too well. So I'm just telling you. And trusting that in her sleepiness she'll forgive me for caring and for leaning in, and for letting you know how you can too, if you happen to feel compelled.

(Oh, and if you have more gifts of words, I know she's needing those right now too. Remember, I'll link your posts into the Lament post "scrapbook" if you share in this way.)


Ivy Up Close photo, by L.L. Barkat.

RELATED POST:

Carl's Take 10 For Charity
LL's Charity Among the Thorns (updates, for prayer)
LL's Lament:
a "virtual scrapbook" of love and support

Lament

This morning I was reading Louis Masson's The Play of Light. It spoke to me, even in my deep lament over Charity’s new journey with cancer.

Says Masson, “In our life…perhaps the days just after a loss are the most difficult to bear. It is time to question whether chance or providence brings lives together. One of my father’s cherished beliefs was that special people would appear in our lives when we were in need.” (p.74)

I turned this in my mind. Who has been brought to whom? Have I (have we) appeared for Charity in her need, or has she appeared for us in ours?

As the morning drifted onward, and I daydreamed while doing my daily exercise, I continued to mull this over. These thoughts took me to the attic to retrieve Michael Card’s A Sacred Sorrow, where I read, "none of us need to be taught how to lament. What we need to hear is that we can lament."

To this end, Card shared a quote from Job… "I will not speak with restraint. I will give voice to the anguish of my soul. I will complain in the bitterness of my soul" (7:11). "I insist on arguing with God." (pp.53-54)

I realize that while Charity's journey is intensely her own, it is also ours. We will lament together. And in this way, perhaps providence has both brought us to her, and her to us. To worship through the language of lament, to give voice to anguish and sorrow.


Watercolor by Charity Singleton. Used by permission (again).

If you post something to share your lament and your love with Charity (a song, a cry, a poem, a prayer, a psalm, a piece of art, whatever), please let me know, so I can link to your post in what could truly be called link love...a way to join together in support and sorrow.

LOVE LINKS:

Charity's Hard Times
Ted's Pray for Charity
Carl's A Lament Most Proper
Christianne's I'm Sad for My Friend
Tina's The Blogging Community
Christine's For Charity
Craver's For a Friend
Jenn's Still Sovereign
A Musing Mom's Retreat
Llama Momma's Words for a Friend
Stacy's Too Hard for Words
Charity's Greeting Cards, Hot Flashes, and the Search for a New Metaphor. Transitions. Countdown to Chemo.
LL's A Prayer
Charity's Update from Chemo 1
LL's Charity for Charity
Craver's Keepin' On
Nancy's Indy
Charity's Practical matters. Radiating with a New Metaphor.
Carl's Take 10 For Charity
Eclexia's Radiating with the Glory of God
Charity's Good Days and Bad Days
LL's Charity Among the Thorns (updates, for prayer)
Nancy's prayer for Charity
Shlomo's A Borrowed Prayer for a Friend
LL's Twice Given
Charity's Series of Events. Things are Getting a Little Hairy. Getting the Treatment. Entering the Season of Expectation.
Nancy's For Bob and Charity
Charity's The Presumption of Heat Pumps
Erin's It's About Something More... Or Perhaps Something Less
Charity's A Good Day. A Head Full of Hair in Glory. Good News. Bottomed Out. Back to Normal. Common to Man.
L.L.'s Prelude to a Prayer
Charity's Ancestral Visits
L.L.'s Postlude to a Prayer
Charity's Another Round. Sneak Peak. Surviving as a Community Event.
L.L.'s new Charity for Charity
Charity's A New Normal. Pressing Forward. A Renewed Mind. Charity's One Year Ago Today.

Blogworld: Community or Network?

Blogging provides community.

I wondered if my recent article, A New Kind of Body, implied that by its title. Some of the bloggers I interviewed suggested that blogging provides community. The thought sprang into our comments, in the last post discussion. I've said simlar things. "My blog community."

But, on reading John Gatto's Dumbing Us Down, I'm musing. Maybe the blogosphere cannot provide community. Maybe it can only serve as a network.

Now, John Gatto is writing about the educational system when he says the following things, but I see their application to blogging...

Networks...don't require the whole person, but only a narrow piece.... a network asks you to suppress all the parts of yourself except the network-interest part— a highly unnatural act though one you can get used to. (p.48)

The fragmentation caused by excessive networking creates diminished humanity, a sense that our lives are out of control...(p.48)

...when people in networks suffer, they suffer alone, unless they have a family or community to suffer with them....the "caring" in networks is in some important way feigned....And, as such, the intimate moments in networks lack the sustaining value of their counterparts in community. (p.50)

People interact on thousands of invisible pathways in a community, and the emotional payoff is correspondingly rich and complex. But networks can only manage a cartoon simulation of community and provide a very limited payoff. (p.52)

Networks make people lonely....With a network, what you get at the beginning is all you ever get. Networks don't get any better or worse... (p.53)

An important difference between communities and [networks] is that communities have natural limits; they STOP growing or they die. Unlike true communities, pseudo communities and other comprehensive networks like schools expand indefinitely, just as long as they can get away with it. (pp. 62-63)

Truth itself is another important dividing line between communities and networks. If you don't keep your word in a community, everyone finds out... (p. 64)

Gatto admits that he belongs to some networks. But only ones he considers "completely safe" because they "reject their communal facade, acknowledge their limits, and concentrate solely on helping [him] do a specific and necessary task." (p.52)

On the other hand, he rejects "a vampire network like a school, which tears off huge chunks of time and energy needed for building community and family— and always asks for MORE..." (p.52)

So. I turn it over to you: my blogging community (my blogging network?). What's the real deal? What kind of ties do we have here? And, ultimately, does it matter?


Tied to the Shore photo, by Andrew Denny of Granny Buttons

NEW LINKS TO THIS POST:

Llama Momma's Community

A Little Community

"The idea of a modest dwelling all our own, isolated from the problems of other people, has been our reigning metaphor of the good life for a long time. It must now be seen for what it really is: an antisocial view of human existence." (James Kunstler, quoted in The Suburban Christian, p. 116)

Ouch. When I read that in Al Hsu's sixth chapter, "Won't Your Be My Neighbor?" I felt uncomfortable. I like my modest dwelling in this very urban exurb where I live. I find respite in "cocooning" which is going "out less and stay[ing] home more." (p.118) Indeed, I find that staying home works to produce a sense of meaningful identity, not linked to the conspicuous consumption that TSC warns against in other chapters.

I'm also not sure that having a modest dwelling, and spending a good amount of time here, means I live without community. I say this after I spent yesterday with a grieving widow, while my back yard neighbor watched my kids, even though she was nursing a cold. And I say this after spending Monday evening with another back yard neighbor, as mutual support for our recent grief.

This isn't to say that my residential geography doesn't make connection more challenging. I don't have a front porch to sit on, as Hsu notes can promote a sense of connectedness in our communities. It is true that I don't know my front yard neighbors very well. They are actually down hill from me; whereas my back yard neighbors are on the same plane (an interesting study in how our geography affects things, I guess.) Surely, I have miles to go before I sleep on this one.

But the issue of hospitality versus isolation has been with us for a long, long time. I remember that Isaiah shouts a series of questions to the people of Israel, regarding God's desires...

"Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house... and not to hide yourself from your own kin?" (58:7)

In the end, I'm undecided. Do I have enough community? Do my neighbors want more from me? I don't know. Surely there must be a way to judge this. I'm counting on you for wisdom.



Apple in Double 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.

RELATED:

Amy Simpson's The Society Page

NEW LINKS TO THIS POST:

Al's Finding Community

Charity's Something to Share

Shaping Our Pain

I remember reading Freud, ages ago. And he seemed to be saying that humans live by the principle of pain avoidance. To some extent, he was right.

Yet it is ultimately unrealistic to live our lives according to this principle. Pain, unavoidable pain, is sometimes our surprising companion. We cannot escape it.

This past week, I began a journey through such inescapable pain. As did so many of my friends, my church community, who knew and loved the dear brother-father-husband-scientist-elder who passed away.

Around the middle of the week, one of these grieving friends shared a song with me. And I had, without knowing it, shared my poem with her. At the end of the week, another friend told me how she had taken the funeral flowers (with the widow's blessing) and saved the ones that were still fresh, to rearrange them in new designs. She wept and wept as she rearranged them. And so her tears and flowers bedecked our refreshment tables on Sunday. Each of us had begun to touch and mold our pain, through our own particular gifts and loves.

In The Burning Word, Judith Kunst notes that the Jews have long relied on words to shape and reshape their pain. Discussing the book of Lamentations she says, "This painful kneading of words and grief binds the poet to his despair, and at the same time it pushes him through it, toward hope..." (p.55)

I realize that I shape and reshape my pain through writing. In this way, I do not avoid my pain but am bound to it while also experiencing a sense of pushing through it. As I told my friend who shared the song, "I write and the mending begins."

(On a totally different note... today marks one year since Seedlings was born.)

Lilies 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.

Bread Dollars

Did you know that 80 percent of U.S. consumers would prefer to support sustainable farming? But their tax dollars actually work against the small farms that are more likely to use such techniques? So says Steven L. Hopp, in a sidebar in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

Why the incongruence?

It’s due to the Farm Bill, which subsidizes based on volume and crop type…which means that three-quarters of subsidies go to 10 percent of growers (the industrial-scale ones), effectively supporting soy and corn crops and making it hard for small farms to stay viable (including farms in poor countries across the globe...believe it or not, our policies influence "plenty or want" for vulnerable people beyond our borders).

To learn more, we can go to farmaid.org

Or, like the Christian organization Bread for the World is currently requesting, we can call our representatives and senators BY JULY 17, to have a say in how the new Farm Bill is settled.

What to say when we get our senator’s staff on the line? Something like…

- reform commodity policies that hurt small farmers in the U.S. and abroad
- invest in rural development

I figured it was worth bringing this up, since 80 percent of you might believe that sustainable farming is critical. And maybe 67.3 percent of you (that’s my hopeful number) might call your representative and senators today.

(Help me out, Lynet. How many people would that be?)

How to Find Your Senators and Representatives

To call about the Farm Bill, dial 1-800-826-3688. Connects you to Capitol switchboard. Ask for your representative's office to leave a message with his/her staff. Call your senators too.

OR, write a letter on-line to your local newspaper through the One Campaign: Make Poverty History. The site will send your letter (they provide a sample you can use) to any paper you click on (your local papers can be found by inserting your zip code).


Bread 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.

A Place to Play

I remember when I was new to blogging, and I read one of the big blogging gurus. He described his blog as a living room.

Every living room is different. In some, you can put your feet up. Others have plastic on the furniture. I like to think of mine as a place to play. To share, if you will, the songs of our hearts...whether these be fiddle, oboe or folk guitar.

At the risk of stretching the metaphor or being too sappy, let's say I especially love it when we play together. How I love the music! And at the risk of causing someone to drop his pick, I'd also like to share a small request. (Does this group take requests?)

Here it is. And I've done this myself, both here and on other blogs. Quoting the blogger or other commenters, as a way to track my thoughts and provide context.

But now I'm asking... could we perhaps engage in the art of the paraphrase? I'm finding that when we "quote" one another or quote one another, it feels a little more like debate than play.

Someday, when my book is finally out there, I hope you'll feel free to quote my text at length. But here in the living room, I really just want to chat, or jam, or improv... you know, just...play. I hope that's okay.

P.S. If you like my living room, you might like my Sun Room too.


NEW LINKS TO THIS POST:

Craver's Gettin' aLAWNg

Charity's Welcome to the Kitchen

Maria's Why I Blog

Commute This

It must be about THREE weeks since Eve tagged me with the Eights. Then Annette came 'round the other side and tagged me too.

So here's what I'm going to do.

Eight is a lovely number, but minus three is five. (I hope this is okay Eve, I've got to ease my life. [nice half rhyme, eh Mark?)

And I'll not speak of things of me, but rather things of Hsu. (For all inquiring souls out there, that name's pronounced like "she.")

Hsu says that we are "spaced out" (by this he means by distance). We drive to work, to church, to shop, and all things that befit us. Commutes have cost. I'll total five (see, Eve, I'm getting to it).

1. we gain more weight, and it's no surprise,
2. we favor independence.
3. To participate in community, we're less likely by the tens-es. (10 minutes behind the wheel; 10 percent less involvement.)
4. We're apt to laud "efficiency,"
5. though not in physical health, you see.
(Suburbanites have more, more, more... of lung disease and migraines, of belly aches, arthritis, and annoying bladder illness. [Mark! Half-rhyme alert on arthritis and illness! Full rhymes may appear based on regional accents.])

In all, my soul most honestly,
admitted to bane of efficiency.
For I rarely walk with family,
hand in hand through God's creation.
And it focuses me, most vigorously,
on "getting there" RIGHT NOW.

The conclusion is this. I must recalculate.
For being "spaced out" causes problems so great.
(And that is the end of my three less than eight.
Breathe deep and forgive, Mark, my poetry mate,
for the poetry blast, which to you gave a migraine,
or a belly-ache, as sure as molasses,
has come to conclusion, thank goodness,
at last-ess.)

[Phew, I'm relieved too. Rhymes have got to be almost as costly as commuting.]


Cars in Guatemala photo, by Dorothy O Miller. Used with permission.

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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Al's Countering Commuter Culture

Charity's Car Talk

Charmed Big

This week, Al Hsu's The Suburban Christian collided with Wendell Berry in my head.

Berry, discussing farming, says, "We need to confront honestly the issue of scale. Bigness has a charm and a drama that are seductive...but bigness promotes greed, indifference, and damage, and often bigness is not necessary."

Hsu feels convicted that most American homes give each occupant 718 square feet of space, while most Canadian homes provide 442 square feet, and Japanese homes offer 170. In other words, he questions the drama of the big house, which often carries with it the drama of a big mortgage payment (and the banks like this kind of theater... why is that?, Hsu questions).

So I wonder... does the big house and the big mortgage do what Berry claims in a different context? Does it promote greed, indifference, and damage? Is the bigness necessary?

Photo by Stefani M. Rossi Used with permission. Berry quote is from p.xi The Way of Ignorance. Hsu summary is from Chapter 2 of TSC.


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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Charity's Me Casa, Me Casa

Maria's Suburbia: A Home of One's Own

Al's Housing Size

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

Adios, All-You-Can-Eat

In our last discussion, Craver commented that he struggles to spend time with The Few, as opposed to The Many. I observed that this is symptomatic of our "All-You-Can-Eat-Buffet" society.

In other words, we have access to a lot of relationships, experiences, technologies, goods, etc. In such a context, it's hard to focus on our own plate, to savor and appreciate what's there... to willingly choose "smallness of scale," where we can attend to details with creativity and passion.

A few days after our conversation, I opened up Jim Merkel's Radical Simplicity. Merkel is a former arms trader, who now works for peace initiatives. He shares an experience where he watched an indigenous group solve a problem together. It struck him...

"The elegant simplicity of cooperation and hard work was poetry in motion. This is what you do when you don't have a bulldozer, don't have cheap gas, and don't have a permanent war-time economy. These intelligent, creative solutions were outside of my box..." p.32

Sometimes I think we would be happier if we said "adios" to the All-You-Can-Eat Buffet. So many people suffer from a sense of meaninglessness. So many people live in little boxes, that all seem to look the same. We even sell our lives for the privilege, going into mounds of debt; or we work long hours or even two jobs to preserve the box.

Then, in the process, our opportunities for cooperation, intelligence, and creativity fall aside.


If you post something about the All-You-Can-Eat phenomenon, tell me, and I'll link to you. Also, Week Two of the Relationship Exercise is now in the comments of the post "Relational Engagement." Be sure to check out Craver's new comment too... the continuing saga of Mr. & Mrs. Craver!

Sara's Creative Squirrel-Proof Birdfeeder. Photo by L.L. Barkat.

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Pancake Day