BLOGS
Mast Years and Compost
This year will be a mast year. At least that’s what scientists are predicting. The thing about mast years is you can’t really know if you’re in one until it’s over. It’s only in looking back that you know.
Mast years are years when trees produce a bumper crop of fruit or nuts all at once. It’s a communal act; all the trees in a given species mast together. Somehow, they all know within themselves, “This year will be the year.” We still don’t fully understand it. But they know.
Creating awareness through text banking: a euphoric experience.
My faith teaches me to be a good steward of God's Creation, which includes fostering equality for all. As a United Methodist, I believe in the Social Principles that are rooted in the Gospel to love our neighbors, to do justice, and to care for the vulnerable. Therefore, participating in a text bank to bring awareness to my community about elections that may impact our livelihood aligns with my faith.
Sacred Activism
Thomas Berry writes, “It’s all a question of story. We are in trouble just now because we do not have a good story. We are in between stories. The old story, the account of how we fit into it, is no longer effective. Yet we have not learned the new story.” In the book Coming Back to Life, which serves as the foundation for group practices known as the “Work That Reconnects”, Joanna Macy and Molly Brown write about the “Three Stories of Our Time” - all of which are happening. Of course, these stories are just one way of making sense of what is occurring in the United States and other industrial growth societies, but I have found them a very helpful orientation as I find myself fluctuating between them on a daily - if not hourly basis.
Wasting: A Way Forward
In the Garden of Eden… do you think there was waste? Take a moment. Imagine it if you will. Scripture tells us that “in the beginning,” there was wild and waste—tohu va’vohu. The Spirit hovered and God brought order. In Genesis 1, we’re given a rhythm of forming and filling: Three days to form the spaces—heavens above, waters below, land in between. Three days to fill those spaces—with heavenly host, swarming creatures, beasts of the earth—and finally, humanity.
