On Being Missional?

"Strategic planning, never taught as a principle in the Bible, is at the very center of much of the work of today’s churches. Goals, missions, plans, and budgets are set, and all contingencies are avoided. Essentially, there’s nothing wrong with this, but what did we learn from that parable? The Samaritan was not obliged to do good. He permitted himself to be touched by the suffering of a fellow human and responded using what he had at hand. He didn’t ask questions – he loved and acted.
For more from this intriguing article, see:
 "The Unplanned Church: How a Brazilian congregation finds renewal by interruption"

 link: HERE


Juan de Flandes, Christ and the Caananite Woman, c. 1496

It Takes Good Soil

I harvested my first cantaloupe today. 

I ordered heirloom cantaloupe seeds from a  specialty supplier. They promised a delicious, sweet, fragrant fruit of superior quality. 

I started the seedlings in a flat growing tray.  I used sterile, fertile soil made that was formulated especially for starting seeds. I tended them carefully, making sure they got optimal sun during the day and were sheltered from cold weather at night.  When the seedlings were well-established, I transferred them to a nice, sunny spot in the garden. I faithfully watered them every day. I fertilized them occasionally, too. 

I don't know why I was so surprised when the vines first grew pretty yellow flowers, and then I noticed little cantaloupes growing! I was so excited!

I was expecting the fruit to grow much larger, so I thought harvest was a few weeks away.  But then, several days ago, one of them started to turn yellow. Yesterday, I thought I would check to see whether it might be ready to pick. To my surprise, when I touched the cantaloupe, it rolled right off the stem!  

I picked up the little thing in my hand and smelled it. It had a mild fragrance that smelled like a fruity perfume. I took it inside, along with the rest of what I picked that morning.

I could hardly wait to cut it! But I decided to wait and share it with my family for breakfast.

So, this morning when I prepared breakfast, I cut it in half, scooped out the seeds, and peeled and sliced the little thing. Then, we sat down to to eat this cantaloupe,  fresh from our garden. I was  imagining how much better it would be than the store-bought variety. I was so excited when I took the first bite of this cantaloupe I had grown in my very own garden!

Boom! What a disappointment! 

Not only was it not sweet, not fragrant, and not particularly flavorful, but the flavor it did have seemed to taste like chemicals! If it had been a store-bought cantaloupe, I would have thrown it away immediately! Instead of throwing it away immediately, I ate a few more bites and made my child take a taste. Then I said, "OK, we have tried it! We can put the rest in the compost heap!" 

But I also thought, there really is a lesson in life here. Not just for growing cantaloupe, but for growing anything! Here is the lesson: 

GOOD SOIL IS IMPORTANT! 

You see, I had planted the cantaloupe in sand. Yes, I had watered it.  Yes, I had fertilized it. But these measures were  not enough to overcome the original deficiency of the soil it was planted in.  I had supplied some water and some nutrients.  The plant survived, but it didn't thrive as it could have. It didn't receive the rich variety of nutrients and minerals, in just the right amounts, that would have made this plant strong and the fruit delectable.  Without good soil, it was impossible for the plant to reach its full potential.  

I now, if I may, let me carry this a bit further. It is not just fruits and vegetables and things we grow in gardens that need good soil. Children need good soil, too!  

Whether we are parents, or not, all of us have opportunity to help create the soil that the children of our world grow in.  Will we provide an environment where they will thrive, or will we merely throw in enough nutrients that they survive?  That is a choice we make not only as parents, but as a community and as a society. 

On a personal level, we can nurture children by supplying the good soil of positive comments, positive guidance, constructive discipline, encouragement of their interests and abilities, providing them with opportunities. On a community level, we can volunteer to help with activities related to children.  We can mentor.  We can tutor.  We can personally support the schools and teachers,  churches and community organizations that provide services to children. On a national and policy level, we can take positions and advocate for policies that protect our children and serve the interests of nurturing the next generation.  We can even (heaven forbid!) lobby on behalf of the social institutions that support and protect our children.  

Think about it. Our children are our future. They are relying on us to provide the soil that is needed for their optimal development. Yes, we can throw some fertilizer and throw some water on the seeds and think we have done a good job, but have we really? Have we really plowed the earth and created an environment that is nurturing for every child? Or have we instead merely paid lip service to the idea of doing what is right?

Practical Benefits of Growing a Kitchen Garden

I have a small, suburban garden plot. Why? I plan to blog on the topic of gardening for a while. This is the first installment of several.

There are many reasons for even a city dweller to grow some of their own food. Which reasons come to mind, for you? (Leave a comment!) For me, the reasons are both practical and philosophical. Let's start with the most basic reasons:

COST 

Growing your own food can save on your grocery budget, of course. If you are like me, and have only a small space in which to garden, budget issues are a good reason to focus your growing efforts on expensive foods. The smaller your space, the more closely you will want to focus on quality as opposed to quantity.

In my own garden, some of the things that I grow that are more expensive to buy in the grocery store are things like tons of cherry tomatoes,  fresh basil, colorful peppers, and sugar snap peas. 

Some expensive foods, like asparagus,  can be incorporated into your landscaping, planted once, and then will produce year after year.  Besides asparagus, other examples of plants in this category are blueberries and raspberries. 

I recently paid $3.50 for a pint of blueberries in a standard grocery store. A mature blueberry plant will produce several gallons of blueberries per year and produce fruit for many years. Further, in my region, early, middle, and late varieties of blueberries can be mixed. If blueberry varieties are selected according to a staggered ripening season, a home gardener can have fresh, homegrown (and free!) blueberries all summer long. 

Perennial plants and trees, like blueberries or apples, are not free, so there is an initial investment in plants. That leads back to the issue of cost effectiveness.  

To some extent, out-of-pocket costs on the front end of establishing good plants can be reduced by making a few trade-offs. For instance, a blueberry plant that is one year old from the nursery will be substantially less expensive than a blueberry plant that is several years old. The trade-off is that purchase of a smaller plant will require one to wait a couple of years for a more bountiful harvest.  

There is also a cost involved in getting started in growing plants that last for just one season, such as tomatoes, squash, and peppers. A beginning gardener will need some how-to books, tools such as a spade and hoses, soil enrichment, and seeds or starter plants. Indeed, in some cases it may seem that investment in things like raised bed materials, soil, plants, etc., can make the investment less than cost-effective. 

For this reason, set a budget and stick to it! Perhaps in year one, only invest in a few items and equipment, focusing on a few simple, low maintenance items that you love. If you are successful, find you enjoy gardening, and want to do more, then gradually invest more in equipment as time goes by (raised beds, soaker hoses, composting bins, gardening tools, etc.). After the initial investment in getting started, future costs will be lower. As with many things, the more years you do it the more you learn and the more efficient and cost effective you become. 

Reducing out-of-pocket grocery cost is not the only reason to grow your own food, however.

HEALTH 

Many home gardeners who have small space focus their efforts on growing crops that are known to have high concentrations of pesticides and other chemicals when grown commercially.  If you do a Google search for "dirty dozen vegetables," you will find web pages that have lists of fruits and vegetables that have high amounts of pesticide and chemical residue in them. One example is strawberries. Another of these vegetables, believe it or not, is potatoes. This is because commercially grow potatoes are treated with chemicals that prevent fungus and also prevent them from sprouting.

The ability to grow organic, chemical free food is a significant reason to have a home garden. I admit, I was not raised doing organic gardening, and I am on a learning curve. This year, some bugs attacked my greens. I responded by spraying them with insecticidal soap. (The label says it is suitable for organic gardening.)  Although I did use chemicals, I knew exactly what I had sprayed on my plants and when, and so I knew when it was safe to pick and eat them. I do not have the same level of trust with regard to chemicals used on commercial crops! 

Even if a gardener does not use organic techniques in growing a garden, we know what chemicals have been used on the crops, and when they were used. The home gardener can use this knowledge to understand when the food is safe to eat without fear of pesticide residue! 

As more and more information is learned about long-term effects of pesticides on the body and the dependence of  industrial agriculture on pesticides, this has become more and more of a factor for me, personally. 

TASTE

A third reason to grow your own vegetables and fruits, is simply quality and taste.  Growers who are producing foods for shipping and mass marketing are limited in the types of plants they can produce. Namely, plants produced for mass marketing must be able to stand up to rough handling by laborers, trucking over long distances, and must have a long shelf life once they are in the store. Delicate varieties of fruits and vegetables cannot hold up to this type of handling. 

Peaches are one example of a type of fruit where the difference between a variety grown for shipping and a variety grown for home use is striking.  There's simply no comparison between peaches that will stand up to shipping and the luscious, fragrant fruit that drips nectar when you slice it and would bruise if you looked at it the wrong way. 

However, there are many more fruits and vegetables for which the difference between  produce grown for mass production and the varieties available to the home gardener is striking. Some veggies, in fact, are not even available commercially. In my garden, I grow a couple varieties of plants that are not readily available in standard grocery stores, such as small white Thai eggplant and thin purple Chinese eggplant. An example fruiting in my garden right now is Swiss chard, which does not ship well. Here is a photo of some Swiss chard I recently picked from my garden:

There are many more reasons to garden, but I will talk about those in another entry another day! In the meantime, happy gardening!

Straw Bale Gardening: A Suggestion for Suburban and Urban (rooftop) Gardeners

This spring after reading an article about it in NY Times, I was inspired to learn more about the concept of straw bale gardening.  I ordered and read the book
Straw Bale Gardens: The Breakthrough Method for Growing Vegetables Anywhere, Earlier and with No Weeding by Joel Karsten.

The Girl Effect Fact Sheet

Something is not right in the world, is it?  Generally speaking, if one wants things to change, one must figure out what to change.  This leads to

THE GIRL EFFECT

As women have gained power and influence in the world, societies have changed.  This has begun to be noticed.  In general, sociologists began to notice, the higher the status of women in a society, the higher its overall statistics.  Across the board.  Life expectancy, health, education, etc.  Why? 

THE GIRL EFFECT

Learn about it!  I quote now straight from the Fact Sheet at http://www.girleffect.org/uploads/documents/1/Girl_Effect_Fact_Sheet.pdf as follows: 

Little research has been done to understand how investments in girls impact economic growth and the health and well-being of communities. This lack of data reveals how pervasively girls have been overlooked. For millions of girls across the developing world, there are no systems to record their birth, their citizenship, or even their identity. However, the existing research suggests their impact can reach much further than expected.

THE RIPPLE EFFECT

When a girl in the developing world receives seven or more years of education, she marries four years later and has 2.2 fewer children. (United Nations Population Fund, State of World Population 1990.)

An extra year of primary school boosts girls’ eventual wages by 10 to 20 percent. An extra year of secondary school: 15 to 25 percent. (George Psacharopoulos and Harry Anthony Patrinos, “Returns to Investment in Education: A Further Update,” Policy Research Working Paper 2881[Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2002].)

Research in developing countries has shown a consistent relationship between better infant and child health and higher levels of schooling among mothers. (George T. Bicego and J. Ties Boerma, “Maternal Education and Child Survival: A Comparative Study of Survey Data from 17 Countries,” Social Science and Medicine 36 (9) [May 1993]: 1207–27.)

When women and girls earn income, they reinvest 90 percent of it into their families, as compared to only 30 to 40 percent for a man.  (Chris Fortson, “Women’s Rights Vital for Developing World,” Yale News Daily 2003.)

Population Trends

Today, more than 600 million girls live in the developing world.  (Population Reference Bureau, DataFinder database, http://www.prb.org/datafinder.aspx [accessed December 20, 2007].)

More than one-quarter of the population in Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and sub-Saharan Africa are girls and young women ages 10 to 24. (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, “World Population Prospects: The 2006 Revision,” http://esa.un.org/unpp, and “World Urbanization Prospects: The 2005 Revision,” www.un.org/esa/population/publications/WUP2005/2005WUP_DataTables1.pdf.)

The total global population of girls ages 10 to 24 — already the largest in history — is expected to peak in the next decade. (Ruth Levine et al., Girls Count: A Global Investment & Action Agenda [Washington, D.C.: Center for Global Development, 2008].)

Educational Gaps

Approximately one-quarter of girls in developing countries are not in school.  (Cynthia B. Lloyd, ed., Growing Up Global: The Changing Transitions to Adulthood in Developing Countries [Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2005].)

Out of the world’s 130 million out-of-school youth, 70 percent are girls. (Human Rights Watch, “Promises Broken: An Assessment of Children’s Rights on the 10th Anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child,” www.hrw.org/campaigns/crp/promises/education.html [December 1999].)

THINK ABOUT IT

http://www.girleffect.org/uploads/documents/1/Girl_Effect_Fact_Sheet.pdf

 

Technorati Tags: girl effect,women's empowerment,women's rights,feminism,economic justice,sustainability

Food Justice

Stephen Ritz teaches in a challenging environment.  Many of his kids are homeless, have special education needs, and would be considered unemployable when they graduated, if they graduated.  Ritz has transformed those statistics, improved the odds for those kids, and turned this idea into a project that is feeding hundreds if not thousands of people. 

Haiti: An Opportunity to Advocate and Help

Are you concerned for Haiti, and want to get involved?  A group of Presbyterians will be traveling to Haiti from November 10, 2010, to November 19, 2010.  If you are interested in joining this group, you must respond immediately.  Applications to go on the trip must be received by October 25, 2010! 

As stated on the blog of the Presbyterian Hunger program: 

The goals of this Agricultural Missions delegation are to:

-  visit rural organizations and communities

-  assess the context, challenges and opportunities that face rural Haitians in consultation with Haitian leaders

-  build relationships of mutual respect, and

-  upon return to the U.S., advocate on behalf of rural Haitians and the member organizations of FONDAMA.

The cost is anticipated to be  $350-500, plus airfare (typically $600-$700). 

For more information, click HERE

 

photo compliments of Biswarup Ganguli,

wikicommons