fallen things

   The older I get the more I think I about connections between happenstance and unplanned events. For example, there are the over ripened tomatoes, unpicked as I tended to my mother's death, and fallen on the ground with the first heavy rainfall in months - it came on the day of the funeral. I picked the tomatoes up off the ground this morning, sorry that they were looking so grim but then I thought I should just cook them all right away. And so it was that I found a recipe for homemade tomato paste. I chopped up the tomatoes and put them into a large kettle to simmer. After they were really soft I put them through a sieve and poured them into pans that I placed in the oven.
  After a while they had cooked down so that there was barely anything left. I scraped up the paste that was all that remained from 7 pounds of tomatoes and put it in four 4 very small jars that I processed in a boiling water bath. I always feel happy when I look at jars of newly canned food cooling on the counter. The recipe said I might get as few as three jars if I used really juicy heirloom tomatoes or as much as 6 jars if the tomatoes were thick but the recipe also called for a full 10 pounds of tomatoes when I only had 7 so I was pleased to get four jars. (I guess I should tell you that I burned some of the sauce when I laid down to rest and fell sleep and forgot about them so really four jars was great!)
  When I think about all the tomatoes it took to make the tomato paste and I then consider all the tomato paste in little tin cans in the supermarket and the amount of tomatoes it takes to make all that tomato paste,  I am surprised that anyone ever thought to cook the tomatoes that way in the first place. Then again, what else would you do with all those bits and pieces of tomatoes not nice enough to put on the shelf or even to slice up at home? It is then that I think that someone somewhere just like me once picked up fallen tomatoes, chopped them and put them in the oven or by the fire and when they remembered, the tomatoes that were left in the pan were a dark brick color and sticky like paste, but oh so nice to add to thin soups or sauces to thicken them for a cool weather meal.
  I like growing my own vegetables. If the weather gets too cold for the rest of the tomatoes to ripen I have a nice recipe for green tomato relish and another that I am excited to try for green tomato pickles.
Everything has a use. The fallen tomatoes that smooshed into the ground will enrich the soil for next year. Even our own fallen bodies lying in the ground are useful in the cycle of life.   
 

Ask the Animals: Some thoughts on the Feast of St. Francis

We celebrated the Feast Day of  Saint Francis of Assisi on October 4th. Francis was a man uniquely in tune with Creation whose life had a tremendous influence on the people of his time, and has continued to impact those who have encountered his teachings through the ages. The teachings of Francis, the saint of ecology, are being revisited as the Christian Community at large takes steps to adjust, refocus and reclaim pieces that have been missing in our modern theological understandings.

Until now we have for the most part approached theological understanding entirely from a human perspective - and yet the same God who created the human species created all living things. The same God who gave human beings "every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed to be food", also gave "to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to everything that moves on the earth which has life every green plant for food." (Genesis 1)  In other words, God provided for all creatures, giving them food to eat, and habitat that suited them while pronouncing all that had been created as good.

Christian teaching from the Letter to the Romans (chapter 8) tells us that all of creation awaits freedom from corruption. Not just human beings, but all of Creation groans as if in childbirth awaiting new life. And Jesus speaking to his followers reminded them to have faith that God would take care of them just as God takes care of the birds of the air and the lilies of the field.(Matthew 5). Over and over scripture reminds us that humans are a part of Creation, that God cares for all of Creation, and that God wants freedom for all Creation. That is astounding considering how people of faith have dominated and greedily claimed anything they found as their own for their own use.

Theologian Elizabeth Johnson took the title of her newest book Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love (Bloomsbury Academic, 2014) from the Book of Job where Job in responding to his critics tells them to ask for wisdom from creation – from the animals and the growing things around them. 

Ask the beasts and they will teach you,

The birds of the air and they will tell you;

Or speak to the earth to instruct you,

and the fish of the sea to inform you.

Which of all these does not know

that the hand of God has done this?

In God’s hand is the soul of every living thing,

and the life breath of all mortal flesh. (Job 12:7-10)

 The sense that humans can learn from creation is ancient. It may have been tucked away in religious texts gathering dust, but it is there nonetheless and when we begin to look we see this Creation Wisdom everywhere.

Francis of Assisi was in touch with this wisdom. He spoke to the animals calling them brother and sister just as he referred to the sun and the moon as part of his family, the family of creation. In his time he was likely viewed as a crazy man by those who ascribed to the logic of human superiority in all things – but now we look to him and wonder how it is that he was able to live as he did in spite of the social and cultural pressures of his time.There is good evidence that he did not eat animals (he was a vegetarian at the least) and his desire to live simply is renowned.

At the very beginning of his current encyclical, Laudato Si,(paragraphs 1 and 2) Pope Francis writes about Francis of Assisi saying:

"Saint Francis of Assisi reminds us that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us. “Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with colored flowers and herbs”

And he goes on to tell us that

"This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will. The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life."

He also refers to Romans and to Genesis.

This is why the earth herself, burdened and laid waste, is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor; she “groans in travail” (Rom 8:22). We have forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the earth (cf. Gen 2:7); our very bodies are made up of her elements, we breathe her air and we receive life and refreshment from her waters."

Elizabeth Johnson writes that “over the centuries for a variety of reasons…theology narrowed its interests to focus on human beings almost exclusively. Our special identity, capacities, roles, sinfulness, and need for salvation became the all-consuming interest. The result was a powerful anthropocentric paradigm in theology that shaped every aspect of endeavor. (Kindle Locations 263-265).

And while theologians were following this human centered path, the “biblical theme of cosmic redemption flew by in silence…The natural world was simply there as something God created for human use. Theology lost touch with the universe. "(Kindle Locations 268-269).

Today theologians are helping people of faith to rediscover their connection to the Universe as a whole and most importantly, the connections to all creatures, all life that collectively calls the planet Earth "home."

A self-centered focus on human kind has not only endangered or led to the extinction of many species, it has begun to jeopardize the human community as well. We cannot say often enough that we are all connected. We cannot endanger the water, land or air and the creatures that depend on them without endangering ourselves as well. 

If we spend time with animals that are in our care, or take the time to wander out into places that are not solely inhabited by human kind, we can watch and listen and learn from the creatures that inhabit Earth with us.  There we discover that death and life go hand in hand; that creatures generally seek life over death. That they enjoy sunshine and sunsets, drinking fresh water, caring for their young, walking through pastures, full tummies and sleeping next to those they love.

They are less inclined to argue politics but are not above creating a pecking order when left to their own devices. They eat until they have their fill if it is available but rarely eat more than they need except in captivity. They don’t make messes where they live… except of course in captivity. They are aware when danger approaches. They will attempt to escape from areas of drought, famine, fire or flood and are not concerned with legal borders or immigration. They are wisely cautious of human beings in their natural environment. They have an innate acceptance of death as part of life and do not fear death when it comes. In their naturalness creatures glorify Creation by being themselves, creatures created to live on Planet Earth taking what they need, allowing for their young and for other members of their species while freely moving about in the ways that they were created to do.

Last week when April, our Plymouth chicken died, my husband was left with the task of burying her. If you ever tried to dig a hole with five active chickens nearby you will know how difficult that can be. Chickens naturally assume you are scratching the earth with them or for their benefit. So as my husband was digging the chickens were being themselves, getting in the way, squabbling with each other over bugs and such, but when my husband brought April's body to lay in the earth, the chickens became quiet, standing still until the task was done. It was sort of eerie because we have been led to believe that creatures, especially those as lowly as chickens are not very intelligent.  Not so when we pay attention.

Theologians like Johnson are calling for a spiritual conversion that will change the way we relate to the Earth. Allowing ourselves to feel our connection to Creation in such a way that we are moved to act as the interrelated beings that we are. We are not isolated from Creation. We can't live behind some protected barrier untouched by Creation. We are part of the mix and until we begin to "grow up" and take responsibility for nurturing the relationship we have with all other parts of Creation, we will continue to jeopardize our own species and others as well. 

Johnson, like Francis of Assisi and Pope Francis invites human beings to fall in love with creation, which includes all of humanity especially the poor and vulnerable who reflect the fragility of the earth. These prophets and others from various religious and secular perspectives know that if people choose to change their lifestyles out of love, rather than being forced by obligation or necessity, they stand a far better chance of succeeding. And if this happens, the people and all creatures who are part of the Earth community may have at least a chance at being saved together.

Death Drops By

Thursday October 1st  2015
Death dropped by this day.
In the early morning hours my mother died. After a long life, (94+ years) death dropped in, a welcome visitor after years of diminished ability to speak, think or remember. In the days before, my siblings and I took turns at her side; speaking gently, playing music she loved, reading poems and scripture, and, depending on the child at her side, crying and pleading with death.
The passing of a mother is never easy. There lies the body that brought you forth. There the mouth that said both "I love you" and "Shame on you." There the arms that held you close and the hands that gently stroked or gave a deserved swat on the rear. (She came from a different generation.)
Memories flood and at times break the heart- the if onlys and what ifs can choke you.
But there are also the many memories that bring sunshine and those that help us to understand the past with more kindness and resolve to not only remember but do better or at least as well.
My mother has passed from this life to the next and lives on I believe in the many people she touched through her care and and concern, most especially the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren too, whose very selves came directly from her, as she came from those who came before in a never ending eternal life that has no beginning and no end, except of course in the matter of the stars from which we all descend.

It was a hard day in Oregon as students and teacher died at the hands of a gun toting mad man who took the lives of people he barely knew, if he knew them at all. I read this news a little at a time as it filtered in over my tiny pocket computer that is called a phone. My heart was already open wide with maternal grief at the loss of my mother and the need to hold my children close and then on the news there was this mother searching for her daughter only later to learn she had died before her mother was shown to everyone tragically seeking she who was no more. The unbearable grief of lives too soon ended, of death dropping by unscheduled to take those whose bodies could no longer contain promise and hope as it spilled out where bullets punctured and forced an exit. And still the sheriff of that small town kept his small town view that guns were good and shouldn't be kept out of the hands of just anyone who wanted a gun that could destroy so much even calling death unscheduled in a place where death would have happily passed by. There is something deeply wrong here.

At last in the afternoon I was able to lay down my head. My mother was gone. There was trauma in the news. My heart was racing as hearts do when grief is rolling like waves through the soul unrestrained because of the emptiness where previously there was a border that held it in. I am old enough to know that time will shape the loss of my mother into the understandable, the acknowledged order of things that we expect. 94 years was a very good span of time for a life but still my body reminded me that grief is never easy.

At night fall I went out to lock the chicken coop. April, our Plymouth Hen lay quiet just inside the coop. I stooped down to touch her and realized by her rigidity and the faint warmth that death had just recently made another stop that night. I picked her up and placed her body where it could be safely kept until morning when we could bury her. I had no more energy to offer sorrow, but with the discipline of time knew that her body would attract other creatures where none were wanted. 

Death again: integrally part of life, yet rarely welcomed when dropping by.

                             My mom as a young woman. G. Patricia Orazio, 2-12-1921  to 10-1-2015

Anticipation

  Much of the community that I participate in is anticipating the visit of Pope Francis with great hope.
This year's record heat during June, July and August along with the drought and the accompanying wildfires have brought home to people like never before the dangers inherent in a shifting climate. The inability of Congress to work together to address the issue in concert with other nations creates a cloud of despondency that has been steadily drifting toward national despair. Then along came Pope Francis with his down to earth way of speaking truth and his willingness to wade right into the world of power and money politics. His courage is inspiring people to consider hope again. The impact of his actions and speech is seen inside and outside the Catholic Community. People of faith from widely different religious traditions seem to be claiming Pope Francis as a prophet of hope in a time when doom is frequently peddled from every media outlet. He challenges people on both sides of the political debate as he encourages people to consider that there may yet be a way out of the mess we are in. Some critics believe Pope Francis has not gone far enough. (I am thinking of Ilia Delio for example). But I think that this Pope is creating a bridge between old ways of thinking and the new. He still speaks 'traditional Catholic' but he does so while acting in ways that show people how to integrate current thinking into the tradition. 
"We are connected!" he says over and over again. "Everything is interrelated." Pope Francis is calling to people to look at the world from a different perspective. Away with reductionist thought and its mechanical way of looking at the world as if humanity and all of nature were made up of distinct and replaceable parts. The new paradigm is holistic -- a view that alternative medicine, systems thinking, and field theory have been demonstrating for some time now. We are in fact connected. We need to behave differently now that we know this.
Pope Francis is willing to speak to the United States Congress and the General Assembly of the United Nations because he knows that unless men and women everywhere begin to work as one people, related and connected to each other in everything that they do, the crises we face in our world today can only get worse. He is intent on getting nations to make real and reasonable commitments when they gather in Paris later this year; commitments that will address climate change and alleviate the suffering of people who are already being hurt, displace or dying as climate disasters increase.

What we do matters not only for our own lives but for all the lives that are interconnected across space and down through time. Love, gratitude, simplicity, charity. If we live our lives with these principles life will be much better for ourselves and others as well.
I will keep my fingers crossed, hoping and praying that this Pope can inspire the leaders of our nation to action for the common good.      

Orange Day

We don't always live to see the fruit of our work in community, but today, was a stupendous day.
The Orange Line of Trimet's light rail system opened after many years of effort on behalf of the community by volunteers, and with extensive public and private collaboration.
Today was a day to celebrate; to remember the elected officials who used their political capital to move forward a project with enormous benefits for the future while wading through a tide of negativity from those who could not grasp the vision of a community with viable transportation alternatives.
The first in the nation, the Tillikum Bridge will be open to mass transit, bikes, and pedestrians --- but NO CARS!
All day yesterday communities and neighborhoods along the light rail path decorated, preparing for the many orange parties that are taking place even as I write. Musicians, food vendors, strolling clowns and buskers mixed in with the crowds wandering through displays, games and gathering places where people rejoiced that the line is now open.
I can hardly contain my joy. It is a very happy day.

 

Where are the welcome signs?

Like most people around the world who saw the picture of Aylan Kurdi, the three year old whose body washed up on the beach in Turkey, I was very disturbed, haunted by how small and helpless he was. Aylan died along with his 5 year old brother and his mother, and scores of other refugees who remain nameless to us, while trying to get from war torn Syria to prosperous Europe. In his immediate family, only Aylan’s father survived, and he has gone back to Syria vowing, to stay beside the graves of his family until he dies. He believes there is no longer any future for him.

The picture of Aylan’s body went viral on the web, moving people of compassion to reach out to assist the migrants as nothing else has been able to do. Some people felt the publication of the picture was wrong as if it was taken only to capitalize on the death of a child. But until the photograph was widely seen, most of the very vocal people in Europe seemed to be those who were anti-immigrant.

According to a recent online news story, hostility toward refugees from local people is grounded in fear. People are afraid that the migrants will endanger the cultural and social ethos of Europe because the migrants are not Christian Europeans. Yet in Christian churches today congregations listened to readings that highlight Jesus' call for an inclusive community, a community where all are welcome, where healing and hope are for everyone regardless of ethnicity, creed, economic status or other characteristics that marginalize or mark people as outcast. Of the recent refugees, a large number are coming from Syria, a land where Jesus traveled, healing and teaching people, while working to form an inclusive community. 

During the period right after WWII when cities in Europe needed rebuilding, there was a labor shortage so immigrants were welcomed with open arms. Of course, at that time the immigrants were mostly European. This time people are afraid because the refugees are Congolese, Syrian, Iraqi, Libyan and Malian. People are afraid that their governments and their way of life will change because of the influence of the newcomers on local politics.

The people who are migrating however, are not arriving intent on changing Europe. They are attracted to Europe because they see stability and a chance for a better life for themselves and their families. They are coming at huge cost and taking enormous risks. They pay exorbitant amounts of money to ride in overloaded boats from Turkey to Greece. Once they land they have to come up with more money to pay smugglers to guide them through the back country through Macedonia and Serbia before reaching Hungary with the goal of gaining entrance to Germany through Austria.

It is a long arduous journey on foot that can take weeks traveling in all sorts of weather with little food, water and rest to sustain them along the way. But, for the migrants, the journey to Germany and other prosperous western nations is a voyage of hope.

What compels these people to take such risks with their lives and the lives of their children? In Syria there is a brutal civil war that has been raging since 2011. But behind that war is another disaster – which should be no surprise since Pope Francis and others tell us repeatedly that everything is connected.

In an online article by Michael Casey, CBS News March 2, 2015, 3:02 PM I learned that from 2006-2010 a record drought caused by a changing climate exacerbated by human activity, ravaged Syria. It destroyed agriculture in the breadbasket region of northern Syria causing the cost of livestock feed to increase by 75% while killing nearly all the herds. Without the ability to earn a living, farmers fled with their families to cities, where poverty, government mismanagement and other factors created unrest that exploded in the spring 2011. 

 

Since this is Labor Day weekend, I want to emphasis that having basic needs met, including the need for good work, the kind that allows a family to survive, is a human right. Without water the crops of even subsistence farmers failed. The only reasonable, responsible thing for a farmer to do, especially with a family to care for, was to seek work elsewhere. In the cities the only available work for many men was to join the army… something that happens in poor areas of our country as well.

Writing in Laudato Si” #25 Pope Francis has this to say: "Many of the poor live in areas particularly affected by phenomena related to warming, and their means of subsistence are largely dependent on natural reserves and ecosystemic services such as agriculture, fishing and forestry. They have no other financial activities or resources which can enable them to adapt to climate change or to face natural disasters, and their access to social services and protection is very limited. For example, changes in climate, to which animals and plants cannot adapt, lead them to migrate; this in turn affects the livelihood of the poor, who are then forced to leave their homes, with great uncertainty for their future and that of their children. There has been a tragic rise in the number of migrants seeking to flee from the growing poverty caused by environmental degradation. They are not recognized by international conventions as refugees; they bear the loss of the lives they have left behind, without enjoying any legal protection whatsoever. Sadly, there is widespread indifference to such suffering, which is even now taking place throughout our world. Our lack of response to these tragedies involving our brothers and sisters points to the loss of that sense of responsibility for our fellow men and women upon which all civil society is founded."

We are not in Europe but we do have migrants coming from the south and they come for similar reasons. I am sure that there are Europeans who have looked askance at some of this nation's immigration policies – the ones that send unaccompanied children trying to reconnect with family or relatives in a safe environment back to wherever they came from, policies that separate families for years, policies that are protectionist in the extreme or make all migrants out as criminals. And now some might want to look askance at the policies in Europe. But none of us have any place judging the other. 

Hungary is working to build a 100 mile wall along its border to stop the entrance of refugees from Serbia but there are some in this country who would like to build a 2000+ mile wall all across the southern border. In Germany, the neo-Nazi’s are on the rise. In our country the language against immigrants can be equally as tough. We don’t have a single picture to ignite our compassion, but there are many stories of relatives from families in our midst who lost their lives seeking a better life in the states.  

The United States of America is a nation of immigrants. My ancestors came here seeking a better life. When the land will no longer support a people, then they must be allowed to go where they can survive. In the affluent part of the world it is important to remember that the wealth we have has come from many different parts of the world and our way of life has at times contributed to the shifting of weather patterns and the subsequent unrest and need for migration. The least we can do is to welcome those who come to us, desperately seeking their fair share of the world's resources. 

End of the Season

The weather has changed significantly. It is a little early for fall but we had a very early hot summer so the cooler weather comes with some relief. I walked through my garden this morning and picked the almost ripe tomatoes that will surely ripen while sitting in a basket on the kitchen table. There were beans of course and a few green peppers and ground cherries ready to pick, along with many green tomatoes that can ripen slowly until the cold weather sets in. I like green tomatoes sauteed and added to scrambles and sauces so it is never a problem to use them up. The corn stalks could come down except that the beans are wound around them and still producing. The sunflowers are ready to drop seeds so I will bring them in later today and spread them on a screen to dry.

There is comfort in the rhythm of the seasons as they come and go, something to rely on when the world of humans becomes unsteady or chaotic. The fall as the ending time of my garden has been a time for me to think of the coming and going of human life; of my parents, my mother who is quite elderly and all who have gone before me. I think of my own life and ponder the effect of time and seasons. There is something orderly to grandchildren growing, budding into the people they are meant to be, of the young adults blossoming, and the older generations gently greying until it is time to fade away. It is the order that is meant to be.

A week ago the younger brother of my son-in-law was killed by a falling tree. He was too young to die; a father of two little girls, a husband, a man well liked, he had much to live for. His death sent ripples through the whole family, sorrow first but also anxiety because his death reminds everyone that life can change in a flash. There is no rhythm to bring comfort to his parents or siblings, spouse or children. Such an ending is out of order and leaves too many questions about the mystery or meaning of life. Only time can wrap a cushion around their pain - never taking it completely away - just providing a buffer so that life can continue. 

And so we gather together and speak kindly. We remember that we love each other and that life is precious, a gift that we are given for a time, a season. We hug a little more, respond a little sooner, take more time to be with the people we love, knowing that we don't ever know how long we have.