For Earth Month

The following is my column for this month's church newsletter.

Getting Outside

In the poem Native Trees by W.S. Merwin, disconnect from nature is described:

Neither my father nor my mother
knew the names of the trees
where I was born

How familiar a condition that is – while some of you may know a great deal about our native plants or animals, or this land in general, most of us do not. A study a few years back reported that children knew more Pokemon creatures than they did the names of animals that live in their local area. I would bet that many children can name more dinosaurs correctly than they could local species, as well. W.S. Merwin continues later in the poem:

Surfaces of furniture held
The attention of their fingers
And across the room they could watch
Walls they had forgotten

We spend so much of our time indoors! Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, has this to say: “Within the space of a few decades, the way children understand and experience nature has changed radically. The polarity of the relationship has reversed. Today, kids are aware of the global threats to the environment – but their physical contact, their intimacy with nature, is fading. That’s exactly the opposite of how it was when I was a child.” If this is a problem – I think it is, but you may not – what is the solution? If we do not feel connected, if we are ignorant of, if we are separated from, our natural home – the place on earth and in the interconnected web of life we occupy – how does this affect us and the way we live our lives? If children grow up knowing all the problems and the dangers and the guilt of environmental concern, but don’t know the joy of climbing a tree or collecting wildflowers or of having a special “place” they go to, how can they be loving stewards and protectors of the earth? Luckily, the solution can be something pretty simple. Go outside. Look. Listen. Get some guidebooks. Start a nature journal. Take a walk. Sit by a pond. Climb, or just hug, a tree. Explore. This year for Earth Day, give yourself and the children in your life the gift of nature, of loving a place, before you worry about all the rest. Think “Connect, Respect, Protect”, and make the connection come first. Get outside those walls you have forgotten are there, and focus on the trees more than the furniture.

Children's Art Post

I can't help it - I love the stuff my kids make. Here, Hypatia had a Homelink assignment from her Our Whole Lives class at church, to write and illustrate a story about herself and stuff she does. It was supposed to be a catalyst for a discussion about taking care of our bodies and being healthy. She chose to write about THE TOWER OF TERROR. (She always says it like that - all caps). It's a ride they went on when the grands took the kids to Disney Land, and I guess it was pretty rough - she cried hysterically afterward and it's left an indelible impression on her.

So that's her on the left, and her grandmother on the right. They are about to go on the ride - with no idea what is in store for them.

more work, but cute work

The World is Made of Stories

Reading and journaling are one of my spiritual practices, and I try to do both daily.

Picking up this book, I thought it would be a quick read. It's slim, and it's organized in short thoughts and quotes from others. But this book was a bit like taking the red pill in The Matrix - reading it I slipped into a different way of seeing things that was at times mind-blowing. Yes - this book was mind-blowing. I highly recommend it.

It also took me forever to read because I found so many passages I wanted to copy down into my journal. I do that with bits from books that really strike a chord with me - I copy them into my journal by hand. This practice helps me both keep that thought on record if I want to find it again later, and to more deeply process the thought in my own brain. I've always been the type of learner that did best by copying out things and then looking at them again in my own writing. (This is how I memorize stories to tell in church services).

So I found myself copying whole sections of this book - a task that made the actual reading of the book very slow. :)

Narrative is sometimes distinguished from rationality, mythos from logos. Yet reason is a storytelling style, a "second-order story", that needs a story to evaluate.

That we cannot get behind our stories is not idealism, which is a philosophical claim that the world is made of "mind-stuff" rather than "physical stuff". Idealism and materialism, like rationalism, are meta-stories: stories about stories.

We want to discover the master-story, the one true meta-story that includes and explains all other stories - but it's turtles all the way up too.

The biggest meta-stories are mostly religious: God, Brahman, the Tao. Such stories try to point at something that transcends stories. Yet a meta-story cannot get outside itself to explain the relationship between stories and that-which-is-outside-stories.

A Zen metaphor warns us not to take the finger pointing at the moon for the moon itself, but "the moon itself" is also not the moon.

-- David R. Loy, The World is Made of Stories

Handmade Home: Repurposed towels

This project is in the book by Amanda Soule: Handmade Home: Simple Ways to Repurpose Old Materials Into Family Treasures.

I've long been a bit of a fan of Amanda, and I am a regular reader of her blog, Soule Mama. Her first book, The Creative Family, is a wonderful inspiration for a lifestyle of creating and gentle mindfulness in family life. So I wanted to love this second book, as well.

Overall, it's a good book. It just didn't Wow me as much. A great book to check out from the library and browse for a bit, but not one I need to keep on my bookshelf.

But I do love this bath mat. It feels great under my feet, and I like finding a use for both this fabric (what was I thinking when I bought this, anyway?) and this old towel (the first towels we bought 10 years ago when we moved in together).

heaven on earth

For Jesus, the gifts and blessings of heaven - happiness, peace, contentment, ease, joy - are the natural fruits of being gratefully awake every day upon the earth. Everything promised about heaven is already here, in our midst - in the bread we bake, the seeds we plant, the small blessings we receive. Still, when the bone-weariness in us runs deep, when we are overwhelmed and discouraged by almost everything, feel pressured on all sides to take on more than we can bear, how can something small or quiet ever relieve such an enormous sense of powerlessness? We need stronger medicine, something enormously powerful, potent, and dramatic to lift us up and rescue us from our weary disappointments. We need to do great things, struggle and strain to achieve tremendous spiritual growth and accomplishment. Then perhaps we might gradually earn our way back into some vague sense of peace.

But Jesus said, "If you are faithful in the small things, you will be faithful in the large things". Every parent knows that our most potent interventions are in the small things - the wiped nose, the sweater hastily fastened before a child runs into the cold, the cup of hot chocolate upon her return. Heaven is born in this world, the small world of a good word, a kind touch, a loving glance, a moment of tender understanding. When we think of heaven, it need not be dramatic, grandiose, or even visible. Rather, look for what is small - the gentle rising and falling of the breath, a sip of wine and piece of bread, a prayer uttered quietly without hurry.

Spiritual practice teaches us not to look UP to find our true wealth, but rather to look here, now, to listen more carefully to the beauty, grace, and priceless value in the smallest of earthly blessings.

Wayne Muller, a life of being, having, and doing enough

Project Simplify: The Kids Stuff

(Before - the boy's room)

This week's assignment for Project Simplify was definitely the hardest one yet for me to complete. That's because it tackled the kids' rooms, and involved their participation. It's been a stressful week, making them sort and clean their stuff, but I'm happy with the results. It feels good to get rid of some of the excess toys, and they also found treasures they had lost.

(Before, the girl's room)

And, then the After: