I Am Not Hamlet

Wendell Berry once wrote something to the effect that the beginning of stewardship is to know what is there.  Many of us talk a good game about caring for the Earth, but what does that mean?  Do you even know what inhabits the ecosystem of your backyard?  It is difficult, at least for me, to care for abstractions.  If you can concretely know what is around you, you might be more inclined to care for whatever is around you.  Here is my challenge: Clearly identify six to ten different species of plants and animals (and even rocks) that spend some time in your yard (your front yard counts too.)  You should include at least two plant species two insect species and two mammal or bird species.   You may not count pets plants that you planted yourself (or someone in your family) anything you can't identify So, for instance, I have a shagbark hickory, an American beech, three American elms, two mulberries, and a couple of red oaks all in various sta...

The more time I spend on the internet (which is too much if you ask my wife, and she's right) the more misanthropic I become.  If it isn't reactionary responses filled with scatological language, it's vapidity on vulgar display.  Then there are those posts, blogs, snippets, etc, that call evil good and good evil.  I've a mind to dump my CPU in the Rouge.  But then. . . how would I know what teenagers are bored because they've announced it on Facebook?

     Let a son come forth from your loins fashioned by God; first a sphere for his head; let his hair remind one of fresh-cut straw.  Let his eyebrows resemble caterpillars lightly treading his brow and a ghostly-pale path separate their twin arches.  Let his nose be straight, of moderate length, a button for perfection, with a smear of freckles across it and under his eyes.  Let his eyes, those watch-fires of his brow be cool with grey-light, or the steely calm of the barrel of a gun.  Let his countenance emulate joy: not innocence nor yet bliss but at once both.  Let his mouth be bright, small in shape--as it were, a half-circle.  Let his lips be thin like worms, yet eager to reveal a snowy, toothy smile.  Rounded like cobble let the Designer fashion his chin.  Let his neck be a small column supporting the inchoate mind inside the head expressing boyish charm.  Let his shoulders foreshadow the man to be, perfectly propor...

I'm reading Gary Holthaus' (mostly) excellent From the Farm to the Table: What All Americans Need to Know About Agriculture and find myself burning with anger at stuff I already kinda sorta knew.  "Studies show that each year of rising agricultural exports has shown a corresponding net decline in U.S and Canadian farm prosperity" and "The traders and the corporations make more from it [farming] than the farmer does" (128-29). That, of course, is only the beginning, he goes in to treatment of migrant workers, GMOs, and the joke that is NAFTA, WTO, and other puppet master organizations.  "Of all the grain that goes down the Mississippi on barges from the Midwest, only a tiny fraction goes to least developed countries, where hunger is the greatest...These grains are shipped to those who can best afford them, not to those most in need" (158). "What can a layperson make of all this?  At least this: as farmers or consumers, we have to take with ...

From David Berlinski's The Devil's Delusion : In 2007, a number of scientists gathered in a conference entitled "Beyond Belief: Science, Religion, Reason, and Survival" in order to attack religious thought and congratulate one another on their fearlessness in so doing.  The physicist Steven Weinberg delivered an address.  As one of the authors of the theory of electroweak unification, the work for which he was awarded a Nobel Prize, he is a figure of great stature.  "Religion," he affirmed, "is an insult to human dignity.  With or without it you would have good people doing good thins and evil people doing evil things.  But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion " (italics added [by author]).          In speaking thus, Weinberg was warmly applauded, not one member of his audience asking the question one might have thought pertinent: Just who has imposed on the suffering human race poison gas, barbed wire...

I had looked forward to reading Ron Hansen's The Shadowmaker as I've enjoyed two of his novels. This short book was different though, it was written for children. It concerns a short man who arrives in town "where nearly everyone was happy." He soon finds a way to sell something to a people who "have everything" and are completely happy. Hmmm...seems interesting doesn't it. Shades of the Faustian bargain, Needful Things or Melville's Confidence Man . And it is good--until about halfway through. Two orphans take over the business of the shadowmaker, who has convinced the townspeople to buy new shadows for themselves. There isn't much menace to the children, there isn't a comeuppance for the gullible townsfolk, and the Shadowmaker essentially franchises out his shadow business to the brother and sister into a repair shop for shadows. I wonder if Hansen thought the book was taking too dark a turn and decided to open the curtains. Wha...

The two go hand in hand don't they? If you're not already sick of this piece (because it was first posted by me on FaceBook) here it is again: http://flourishonline.org/2010/05/the-flourishing-church-transforming-a-church-yard-one-blade-of-grass-at-a-time/ For some reason I can't make this link "live."