Also, I wanted an excuse to post this picture.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
The End
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Quic, Worship Bout to Start!
So I know the last post was supposed to be the last post, but I'm at debriefing and I thought that may warrant its own post. I also need to respond to Greg's comments about religious experience and disciplined contemplation. Since I'm at Caraway (which exists in a different dimension), I can send a post via email but can't browse the interwebs to post a comment
On the debriefing: I didn't save anyone this summer. I may have helped make better disciples out of our kids, but this aspect of evangelism is entirely outside what I call the "decision calculus" of the Evangelical Phenomenon. So I may be a little bit of a fish out of water right now.
Now that we have glossed over debriefing, let's get down to business. Greg wants to hear about Christian faith and religious experience as they relate to my time at Hyaets this summer.
First of all, my experience at Hyaets has probably had a negligible effect on what I have faith in. I still believe in one God, the father and the all- mighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, and so on. My experience may have changed how I live my faith. I may be coming up with better answers to the question of "how does someone who proclaims to follow Jesus best live?" But answers to this question are more within the reach of human reason than questions of faith. And human reason is the domain of philosophy and the other sciences.
We now turn to the question of religious experience. The reason I don't like talking about religious experiences are because I'm not sure I have ever had one. I refrain from talking about Jesus and faith-y things not because I'm uncomfortable talking about Him, but because I know very little about Him, other than the account of his life rendered in the Gospel and the fact that I ingest Him by virtue of the Holy Eucharist.
Perhaps I don't pray enough, but God does not interact with me regularly in truly knowable ways.
Take these questions asked in the Personal Debriefing guide that I have been using to guide my reflections this evening. "What has God said to me about life in the place I know live? About my walk with Him? About His heart for the world? About the work in the place I served?" These are as loaded questions as any. They have the same aura of disingenuous prattle associated with statements that begin with "Jesus has laid it on my heart to say," or "God has used me to." How does one KNOW that God said this to you or laid that on your heart or that He used you to do such and such? Hmm? Did he come to you in a dream to pierce you with a flaming spear as he did to St. Theresa? I think not, at least not in the VAST majority of "God said" or "used" or "laid it on my heart" utterances. So what will it take to solve this problem?
I think the problem can be solved simply by pointing out to the Emperor that he has no clothes. Part of my Christian walk has been realizing that God only interferes in the world through mysterious and self-limited ways, such as the Sacraments. Of course, you have genuine mystics within the heirarchy of the Church. But we have to realize that we cannot all be so good. There is not a priesthood of believers, but a body of Christ in which we all have distinct roles. We must not all assume the role of "priest."
That is why I, personally, don't talk about things in Jesus terms.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Life Goes On
So, originally I had planned on waiting until Monday to offer my closing comments for the blog, but I am on the choo-choo train heading from the CLT to the 919. Long story short, I thought now would be as good a time as any to reflect and go ahead and write something down.
First of all, I’m in shock that my assignment is over, that the summer is almost over, and that a new academic year is about to begin. I had not been thinking, for whatever reason, that there would be life after Hyaets. With that said, I would like to thank (in order of appearance) Jason, Holly, Kelia, Joanie, Greg, Faith, Helms, Jacob, Anna, Joe, Judith, and Molly, as well as all of our kids, for putting up with me this summer. I probably said “I’m Gucci,” more times than allowable for a white boy from North Raleigh and cracked far too many bad jokes. Hopefully I will be seeing some of these people at the fall youth retreat in September.
On a mystical note, I am beginning to consider it a MIRACLE that I ended up at Hyaets this summer. Only after my plans for the summer fell through did I turn to BCM summer missions, two months late, to find a position at a place called Hyeats amongst the picked over mission sites. And even before that, my first choices were to go to Kiana, Alaska or Washington, D.C. Not to disparage my friends who served at these sites, I’m pretty sure that I fit in much better at Hyaets than I would have at either one of the other sites. I remember my campus minister suggesting Hyaets as a possibility and me not being interested. It wasn’t until later, after I had already interviewed for the position that I realized Hyeats could possibly have something to do with philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre’s call for a new monasticism at the end of his book After Virtue.
Though I’ve outgrown MacIntyre’s sledgehammer method of philosophy since I first read After Virtue over a year ago, I remain convinced that its arguments have singlehandedly shaped my worldview more than any other written work, except maybe the Bible. The central tenets of After Virtue; that the Enlightenment project failed, that social science lacks predictive quality, that liberal society is acquisitive and individualistic, and that a theory of the human telos and the virtues is necessary to reclaim moral philosophy; these claims still enthrall me. Hyaets provides a humbly Christian yet intentional antidote to all that MacIntyre describes as wrong with the world. Though as reflected in this blog’s commentary on the 12 Marks, Hyaets and other communities like it sometimes get it wrong, they are often on target and often seem to be guided by the Holy Spirit. I am heading back to Raleigh filled with hope for what the late Pope John Paul II described as a “new springtime of the Church,” reflected in a “global civilization of love.” We live in times that are often dark, but we must not let worldly darkness extinguish the light that God has infused in each and every one of us.
I don’t like to talk about religious experiences as such a lot, so I’m going to close with a “secular” note about the practice of philosophy, the sector of my own life that I feel has been most affected by my experiences of the past nine weeks. (I apologize that I can’t speak as to whether my experiences have “saved” me.) Hyeats has opened the door of my mind to a practical and in-and-of-the-world method of “doing” moral philosophy. I’ve realized, as Alasdair MacIntyre once did, that the armchair has its limits. Philosophers, especially ones whose subject is ethics and morality, need to engage the world and other people’s lives if their work is to have any relevance. I owe this idea Martha Nussbaum, who often suggests that philosophers need to spend significant amounts of time reading novels, learning about/experiencing less-developed countries, and attending to fellow humans in order to round out and enrich their contributions to the field. To realize Epicurus’ description of philosophy as an “activity that makes use of reasoning and rigorous argument to promote human flourishing,” one must be active. This summer, being active meant relocating to the hood, sharing resources with my friends and neighbors, and welcoming the stranger. If anything, this summer has been a time to begin cultivating habits of activity in the world, with maybe a little bit of Jesus thrown in there too.
Pax et bonum.
First of all, I’m in shock that my assignment is over, that the summer is almost over, and that a new academic year is about to begin. I had not been thinking, for whatever reason, that there would be life after Hyaets. With that said, I would like to thank (in order of appearance) Jason, Holly, Kelia, Joanie, Greg, Faith, Helms, Jacob, Anna, Joe, Judith, and Molly, as well as all of our kids, for putting up with me this summer. I probably said “I’m Gucci,” more times than allowable for a white boy from North Raleigh and cracked far too many bad jokes. Hopefully I will be seeing some of these people at the fall youth retreat in September.
On a mystical note, I am beginning to consider it a MIRACLE that I ended up at Hyaets this summer. Only after my plans for the summer fell through did I turn to BCM summer missions, two months late, to find a position at a place called Hyeats amongst the picked over mission sites. And even before that, my first choices were to go to Kiana, Alaska or Washington, D.C. Not to disparage my friends who served at these sites, I’m pretty sure that I fit in much better at Hyaets than I would have at either one of the other sites. I remember my campus minister suggesting Hyaets as a possibility and me not being interested. It wasn’t until later, after I had already interviewed for the position that I realized Hyeats could possibly have something to do with philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre’s call for a new monasticism at the end of his book After Virtue.
Though I’ve outgrown MacIntyre’s sledgehammer method of philosophy since I first read After Virtue over a year ago, I remain convinced that its arguments have singlehandedly shaped my worldview more than any other written work, except maybe the Bible. The central tenets of After Virtue; that the Enlightenment project failed, that social science lacks predictive quality, that liberal society is acquisitive and individualistic, and that a theory of the human telos and the virtues is necessary to reclaim moral philosophy; these claims still enthrall me. Hyaets provides a humbly Christian yet intentional antidote to all that MacIntyre describes as wrong with the world. Though as reflected in this blog’s commentary on the 12 Marks, Hyaets and other communities like it sometimes get it wrong, they are often on target and often seem to be guided by the Holy Spirit. I am heading back to Raleigh filled with hope for what the late Pope John Paul II described as a “new springtime of the Church,” reflected in a “global civilization of love.” We live in times that are often dark, but we must not let worldly darkness extinguish the light that God has infused in each and every one of us.
I don’t like to talk about religious experiences as such a lot, so I’m going to close with a “secular” note about the practice of philosophy, the sector of my own life that I feel has been most affected by my experiences of the past nine weeks. (I apologize that I can’t speak as to whether my experiences have “saved” me.) Hyeats has opened the door of my mind to a practical and in-and-of-the-world method of “doing” moral philosophy. I’ve realized, as Alasdair MacIntyre once did, that the armchair has its limits. Philosophers, especially ones whose subject is ethics and morality, need to engage the world and other people’s lives if their work is to have any relevance. I owe this idea Martha Nussbaum, who often suggests that philosophers need to spend significant amounts of time reading novels, learning about/experiencing less-developed countries, and attending to fellow humans in order to round out and enrich their contributions to the field. To realize Epicurus’ description of philosophy as an “activity that makes use of reasoning and rigorous argument to promote human flourishing,” one must be active. This summer, being active meant relocating to the hood, sharing resources with my friends and neighbors, and welcoming the stranger. If anything, this summer has been a time to begin cultivating habits of activity in the world, with maybe a little bit of Jesus thrown in there too.
Pax et bonum.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Mark 12 of 12: Disciplined Contemplation (or Not, Rather)
Mark 12 is a Commitment to a Disciplined Contemplative Life. Momma always said, "write what you know." So for this reason I am not about to write a post about disciplined contemplation. I know very little about discipline. At Hyaets, we make room for disciplined contemplation at prayers four times a week. But for me, these times are usually spent watching the community's two toddlers run around the room. This is not to say that prayer time never fosters prayerful moments for me, just that there is not much discipline about those moments when they do come. I entered the summer a bad prayer person and I am leaving for home a bad prayer person. If you would like to read more about contemplative prayer in the terms of the New Monasticism, please read Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove's beautiful essay on this ancient practice aimed at receiving the mind of Christ.
We're almost to the end of the road, I plan on checking in tomorrow when I get on the train and on posting some closing remarks on Monday.
Pax et bonum.
We're almost to the end of the road, I plan on checking in tomorrow when I get on the train and on posting some closing remarks on Monday.
Pax et bonum.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Peace-Griping versus Conflict Resolution (Both Part of Mark 11)
Fred Bahnson's essay on Mark 11 (Peacemaking in the Midst of Violence and Conflict Resolution Along the Lines of Matthew 18) is one of those that falls short of convincing for me. I think my reaction to the essay reflects my experience this summer. At Hyaets, I often tire of hearing the anti-war line. To me, a lot of pacifist talk comes across as dogmatic and absolutist. In fact, sometimes it begins to sound like BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH. Yes, Jesus said "love your enemy" (Mat 5:44), but does that mean that killing your enemy in a state of war is necessarily wrong? I don't have an answer. War is a reality of life on this earth. Has been for a long time. War's presence among us does not make it right, but we cannot allow ourselves to ignore the moral and practical difficulties that arise from that presence.
Allow me to focus here on Bahnson's essay, as I believe his views are pretty well representative of the Christian peacemaker complex.
Bahnson states that Christians support war because of a belief in a "dualist public/private morality." But this argument is certainly an oversimplification. Even if we see the Kingdom of God as more than a personal belief in each individual's heart and as a political reality in dialogue with personal faith, the questions of the possibility of military action remain.
Take for instance the following situation, one similar to current international realities. You have two countries with two sovereign governments, respectively. Both countries have standing armies, although one of the countries is far stronger militarily than the other. The weaker country is controlled by a corrupt government that actively uses violence against certain ethnic groups within its borders. These actions are consistently in violation of the moral law. If the stronger country has an opportunity to effectively put an end to the corrupt regime in the weaker country by use of violent force, is that country permitted to do so? Is it obligated to do so? In this situation we are pulled in two separate direction by the opposing goods of nonviolence and the rights based claims of the oppressed people. Surely there are no simple answers to these questions. But the extreme pacifist would say that in no circumstances is violence permitted, including those above.
What really irks me is those who would prefer to avoid such difficult and important questions and take an absolute stance on nonviolence. Bahnson quotes Dietrich Bonhoffer, one of the greatest theologians of the 20th century: "Humanly speaking, we could interpret the Sermon on the Mount in a thousand different ways. Jesus knows only one possibility: simple surrender and obedience. He does not want it to be discussed as an ideal; he really means us to get on with it." I find it hard to accept Bonhoffer's view. The mysteries of our faith such as the Trinity are revealed to us through Scripture and Jesus, God's word made flesh, but other doctrinal elements must stand the test of reason. And "love your enemy" is not one such mystery, but part of a system of truths accessible to human reason and understanding. To usher Christians into a habit of surrender and blind obedience to Scripture would probably create more problems of interpretation than it will solve. I think a more adequate treatment of the dictum "love your enemy" would be to consider loving one's enemy to be always morally better than hating one's enemy, which is not permissible. This interpretation will not, of course, translate into one never being permitted to use violence against an enemy.
Far from discounting Jesus' teachings, my intent is to situate those teachings within a schema which makes sense. It makes much more sense for love of enemy to be classified as a moral good rather than a maxim of moral obligation. For if it we ought to love our enemy to the fullest in each and every instance out of a sense of obligation, how would this view manifest itself in relations between nations? Would U.S emissaries bring made-in-the-USA cookies to the Taliban in Afghanistan? Would President Obama welcome Osama bin Laden into the White House for dinner and conversation? These are some of the ways we show love at Hyaets, and if these signs are among the best ways to love another, would we not also want these signs translated into an inter-national scale? I could go on, but the absurdities are making my head spin.
To accept nonviolence as a good and to seek the good brings practices of conflict resolution into the picture. Conflict resolution is something we see happening often at Hyaets. Hanging out with kids in the neighborhood, we often act in accordance with the instruction of Matthew 18:15 when conflict arises. We pull a kid aside and point out to them their error. This opens the door to forgiveness and restoration. We see this happen almost everyday. It is at the same time both beautiful and mundane. Beautiful, because it is part of the plan laid out by God for our interactions with other humans, and mundane because of its frequency. So while the pacifist stance appears to me as mere hogwash, pursuing love for our enemies through sensible conflict resolution seems, one, practical, and, two, much more in line with the demands of reasonableness.
So this post is a mess - obligation is always messy - but I don't really have ample mental or physical resources to remedy this situation. My train home leaves in exactly 36 hours and I am exhausted, though these two conditions have little to do with each other. Bed time for Matt.
Pax et bonum.
Allow me to focus here on Bahnson's essay, as I believe his views are pretty well representative of the Christian peacemaker complex.
Bahnson states that Christians support war because of a belief in a "dualist public/private morality." But this argument is certainly an oversimplification. Even if we see the Kingdom of God as more than a personal belief in each individual's heart and as a political reality in dialogue with personal faith, the questions of the possibility of military action remain.
Take for instance the following situation, one similar to current international realities. You have two countries with two sovereign governments, respectively. Both countries have standing armies, although one of the countries is far stronger militarily than the other. The weaker country is controlled by a corrupt government that actively uses violence against certain ethnic groups within its borders. These actions are consistently in violation of the moral law. If the stronger country has an opportunity to effectively put an end to the corrupt regime in the weaker country by use of violent force, is that country permitted to do so? Is it obligated to do so? In this situation we are pulled in two separate direction by the opposing goods of nonviolence and the rights based claims of the oppressed people. Surely there are no simple answers to these questions. But the extreme pacifist would say that in no circumstances is violence permitted, including those above.
What really irks me is those who would prefer to avoid such difficult and important questions and take an absolute stance on nonviolence. Bahnson quotes Dietrich Bonhoffer, one of the greatest theologians of the 20th century: "Humanly speaking, we could interpret the Sermon on the Mount in a thousand different ways. Jesus knows only one possibility: simple surrender and obedience. He does not want it to be discussed as an ideal; he really means us to get on with it." I find it hard to accept Bonhoffer's view. The mysteries of our faith such as the Trinity are revealed to us through Scripture and Jesus, God's word made flesh, but other doctrinal elements must stand the test of reason. And "love your enemy" is not one such mystery, but part of a system of truths accessible to human reason and understanding. To usher Christians into a habit of surrender and blind obedience to Scripture would probably create more problems of interpretation than it will solve. I think a more adequate treatment of the dictum "love your enemy" would be to consider loving one's enemy to be always morally better than hating one's enemy, which is not permissible. This interpretation will not, of course, translate into one never being permitted to use violence against an enemy.
Far from discounting Jesus' teachings, my intent is to situate those teachings within a schema which makes sense. It makes much more sense for love of enemy to be classified as a moral good rather than a maxim of moral obligation. For if it we ought to love our enemy to the fullest in each and every instance out of a sense of obligation, how would this view manifest itself in relations between nations? Would U.S emissaries bring made-in-the-USA cookies to the Taliban in Afghanistan? Would President Obama welcome Osama bin Laden into the White House for dinner and conversation? These are some of the ways we show love at Hyaets, and if these signs are among the best ways to love another, would we not also want these signs translated into an inter-national scale? I could go on, but the absurdities are making my head spin.
To accept nonviolence as a good and to seek the good brings practices of conflict resolution into the picture. Conflict resolution is something we see happening often at Hyaets. Hanging out with kids in the neighborhood, we often act in accordance with the instruction of Matthew 18:15 when conflict arises. We pull a kid aside and point out to them their error. This opens the door to forgiveness and restoration. We see this happen almost everyday. It is at the same time both beautiful and mundane. Beautiful, because it is part of the plan laid out by God for our interactions with other humans, and mundane because of its frequency. So while the pacifist stance appears to me as mere hogwash, pursuing love for our enemies through sensible conflict resolution seems, one, practical, and, two, much more in line with the demands of reasonableness.
So this post is a mess - obligation is always messy - but I don't really have ample mental or physical resources to remedy this situation. My train home leaves in exactly 36 hours and I am exhausted, though these two conditions have little to do with each other. Bed time for Matt.
Pax et bonum.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Green God. Green Community. (Mark 10: Care for the plot of God’s earth given to us...)
In his essay on Mark 10, Norman Wirzba suggests that intentional communities will be marked by the following four attributes: gardens, responsible shopping and support of local economies, generously designed households, and celebratory practices. I'm going to go through the ways in which I've seen these attributes reflected in Hyaets, then offer some thoughts on finding good reasons for caring for our plot of creation.
Gardens
Hyaets is gardens. It is an unwritten rule of the community that one must plant a garden to be fully part of the way of life here. Some members of the community get pretty into the whole garden thing. Greg and Helms contribute to a blog called Farm City Folk (http://farmcityfolk.wordpress.com). A blog about farming. In the city. Yeah. They are pretty hardcore. I'm not going to go down the list of all the things that grow in the Greg/Helms garden, but its pretty extensive and incredible and I'm sure they would be more than happy to tell you about it themselves. There are many an evening when much of what is on the dinner table in our house was harvested from the backyard. And then you have Jason, who knows about edible plants one can find in the wilderness (or on Tuckaseegee). And then you have Anna, who studies herbal medicine. Yes, Hyaets is chock full of people who love tending to the earth.
Responsible Shopping and Support of Local Economies
Quick story for you: Once upon a time, it was the summer interns' job to go to the store on Saturdays do all the grocery shopping for the upcoming week. The summer interns were at the grocery store for the first time and checking out when, all of the sudden, they realized that they forgot to bring the canvas grocery bags from home. When the cashier asked the ubiquitous question, "paper or plastic?"- the interns cried in unity, "Neither! We're going... BAGLESS!" The cashier, with a look of unsettled shock on her face, helped the interns load their unbagged groceries into the cart. When they got home, one of them ran into the house, sneaked the canvas bags out to the car, and they then proceeded to canvas-bag all of the groceries for the trip from driveway to kitchen. And everyone lived happily ever after. The End.
What's the point of this tale? Though we did not save our planet by going bagless that fateful Saturday, we were being intentional about shopping responsibly. That means aiming, with good reasons behind our actions, towards less wasteful, less harmful, and less consumerist shopping habits. People are big into this at Hyaets. Otherwise we wouldn't have been scared out of our minds to bring home plastic grocery bags.
We also support our local economies. That means trying to go to Chat-n-Chew or the local Farmer's Market, or Value Village instead of McDonalds or Trader Joe's/Harris Teeter or Wal-Mart. Simple, simple, simple.
Designing Generous Households
This attribute is tied in with sharing and hospitality, which I've discussed previously. But for good measure, I'll tell you about the Green-not-a-Green-House. I was reading an article in the Independent about how this woman and her husband built a "green" (i.e. environmentally friendly) house and how she wrote a book about it. The article goes on to talk about how green the house is and then describes one of the "splurges" that accompanied the green-ness. That is, the woman built a kitchen with two
of everything. Two dishwashers, two ovens, yada yada yada. And I thought to myself; "that would be unheard of at Hyaets! If I wanted another one of some kitchen appliance I would just go over to Jason and Joanie's house and use theirs!" And that has happened in the past, such as at the beginning of the summer when we cooked additional pizzas for kids' lunch in their oven and last week when their crock pot became our second crock pot, twice. So, in this way Hyaets is more green than the faux-green house described above, simply because of a household design focused on the generous sharing of resources.
Celebratory Practices
At Hyaets, we try to encourage practices of celebration. By celebrating, our lives become more like a prayer and more like life in heaven. We, in Norman Wirzba's words, strive for an "ethos of compassion and attention so that the integrity and grace of creation will visibly emerge." Tomorrow evening, Hyaets will celebrate us intern folk at Family Night, and we will eat okra from the backyard, grown and harvested from a seed with care.
Why we should care
I think there is a danger inherent in our caring for earth, however, and would like to end with a few brief remarks about ensuring that our caring is for the right reasons. As Christians, we have to remember that while the earth and its environments are God's Creation and that by caring for and sustaining Creation we partake in the life of God, only humans are made in God's image:
“And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them. And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth” - Genesis 1: 27-28
Moreover, we have to remember that the greatest of all virtues, agape, is the most perfect and divinely infused of the virtues. "God is agape" (1 Jn 4:8) and to show agape towards others is to participate in the life of Christ. Agape, as I believe I mentioned in an earlier post, is a type of friendship, and since it is a type of friendship, plants and animals are not proper objects of agape. So insofar as Creation is not a proper object of agape, how does care for Creation factor into the schema of Christian moral theology?
I would think that caring for Creation would be an activity more in line with the virtue of prudence. That is, caring for God's creation is a practical activity of the intellect by which we can judge our actions towards Creation with respect to moral value. For example, we may ascertain in a certain situation that an institution (e.g. Wal-Mart) uses the fruits of Creation as the means to an unjust end. While care for Creation has no moral content in an of itself, it does have moral content with respect to other virtues (such as justice) as well as vices by way of its being connected to prudence.
Most importantly, I would suggest that within the scope of the Christian faith, that to "love Creation" would be a form of idolatry. The Creation doctrine quoted above, the first commandment of the Decalogue (Ex 20:2-4), and the two commandments of "love God" and "love your neighbor as yourself" (Mat 22:36-40) work together to provide a Scriptural ground for this view. You may see where this going and pose the question as to why can't love of God's creation coincide with love of God and neighbor even though not explicitly commanded. My reply to this question would hinge on the definition of agape. Agape is that special type of "God is love" love which as a virtue is rooted in the highest human end, vis a vis everlasting happiness. Since only humans can attain that happiness and participate in this special communion with God, to include Creation in this higher plane by seeking to "love" Creation would be at least inappropriate and at the most against God's will.
Of course all this is very sloppy, another book length project, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. However, I would be deeply indebted to any person whom would challenge me on the above point. As I've been reminded at various points in my life, two virtues that I am more than a little deficient in, care and humility, are of the utmost importance for both the good life and the good argument. One way that I can work to develop more careful and humble habits is through dialogue, so please comment or talk to me if anything is either unclear, or too poorly put, or the views are not quite right.
Only two marks and two days at Hyaets left. Wow! This summer has been one hell of a ride, but I am convinced that it has been full of blessings. And as a new friend would say, "I will go to my grave believing that."
Pax et bonum.
Gardens
Hyaets is gardens. It is an unwritten rule of the community that one must plant a garden to be fully part of the way of life here. Some members of the community get pretty into the whole garden thing. Greg and Helms contribute to a blog called Farm City Folk (http://farmcityfolk.wordpress.com). A blog about farming. In the city. Yeah. They are pretty hardcore. I'm not going to go down the list of all the things that grow in the Greg/Helms garden, but its pretty extensive and incredible and I'm sure they would be more than happy to tell you about it themselves. There are many an evening when much of what is on the dinner table in our house was harvested from the backyard. And then you have Jason, who knows about edible plants one can find in the wilderness (or on Tuckaseegee). And then you have Anna, who studies herbal medicine. Yes, Hyaets is chock full of people who love tending to the earth.
Responsible Shopping and Support of Local Economies
Quick story for you: Once upon a time, it was the summer interns' job to go to the store on Saturdays do all the grocery shopping for the upcoming week. The summer interns were at the grocery store for the first time and checking out when, all of the sudden, they realized that they forgot to bring the canvas grocery bags from home. When the cashier asked the ubiquitous question, "paper or plastic?"- the interns cried in unity, "Neither! We're going... BAGLESS!" The cashier, with a look of unsettled shock on her face, helped the interns load their unbagged groceries into the cart. When they got home, one of them ran into the house, sneaked the canvas bags out to the car, and they then proceeded to canvas-bag all of the groceries for the trip from driveway to kitchen. And everyone lived happily ever after. The End.
What's the point of this tale? Though we did not save our planet by going bagless that fateful Saturday, we were being intentional about shopping responsibly. That means aiming, with good reasons behind our actions, towards less wasteful, less harmful, and less consumerist shopping habits. People are big into this at Hyaets. Otherwise we wouldn't have been scared out of our minds to bring home plastic grocery bags.
We also support our local economies. That means trying to go to Chat-n-Chew or the local Farmer's Market, or Value Village instead of McDonalds or Trader Joe's/Harris Teeter or Wal-Mart. Simple, simple, simple.
Designing Generous Households
This attribute is tied in with sharing and hospitality, which I've discussed previously. But for good measure, I'll tell you about the Green-not-a-Green-House. I was reading an article in the Independent about how this woman and her husband built a "green" (i.e. environmentally friendly) house and how she wrote a book about it. The article goes on to talk about how green the house is and then describes one of the "splurges" that accompanied the green-ness. That is, the woman built a kitchen with two
of everything. Two dishwashers, two ovens, yada yada yada. And I thought to myself; "that would be unheard of at Hyaets! If I wanted another one of some kitchen appliance I would just go over to Jason and Joanie's house and use theirs!" And that has happened in the past, such as at the beginning of the summer when we cooked additional pizzas for kids' lunch in their oven and last week when their crock pot became our second crock pot, twice. So, in this way Hyaets is more green than the faux-green house described above, simply because of a household design focused on the generous sharing of resources.
Celebratory Practices
At Hyaets, we try to encourage practices of celebration. By celebrating, our lives become more like a prayer and more like life in heaven. We, in Norman Wirzba's words, strive for an "ethos of compassion and attention so that the integrity and grace of creation will visibly emerge." Tomorrow evening, Hyaets will celebrate us intern folk at Family Night, and we will eat okra from the backyard, grown and harvested from a seed with care.
Why we should care
I think there is a danger inherent in our caring for earth, however, and would like to end with a few brief remarks about ensuring that our caring is for the right reasons. As Christians, we have to remember that while the earth and its environments are God's Creation and that by caring for and sustaining Creation we partake in the life of God, only humans are made in God's image:
“And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them. And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth” - Genesis 1: 27-28
Moreover, we have to remember that the greatest of all virtues, agape, is the most perfect and divinely infused of the virtues. "God is agape" (1 Jn 4:8) and to show agape towards others is to participate in the life of Christ. Agape, as I believe I mentioned in an earlier post, is a type of friendship, and since it is a type of friendship, plants and animals are not proper objects of agape. So insofar as Creation is not a proper object of agape, how does care for Creation factor into the schema of Christian moral theology?
I would think that caring for Creation would be an activity more in line with the virtue of prudence. That is, caring for God's creation is a practical activity of the intellect by which we can judge our actions towards Creation with respect to moral value. For example, we may ascertain in a certain situation that an institution (e.g. Wal-Mart) uses the fruits of Creation as the means to an unjust end. While care for Creation has no moral content in an of itself, it does have moral content with respect to other virtues (such as justice) as well as vices by way of its being connected to prudence.
Most importantly, I would suggest that within the scope of the Christian faith, that to "love Creation" would be a form of idolatry. The Creation doctrine quoted above, the first commandment of the Decalogue (Ex 20:2-4), and the two commandments of "love God" and "love your neighbor as yourself" (Mat 22:36-40) work together to provide a Scriptural ground for this view. You may see where this going and pose the question as to why can't love of God's creation coincide with love of God and neighbor even though not explicitly commanded. My reply to this question would hinge on the definition of agape. Agape is that special type of "God is love" love which as a virtue is rooted in the highest human end, vis a vis everlasting happiness. Since only humans can attain that happiness and participate in this special communion with God, to include Creation in this higher plane by seeking to "love" Creation would be at least inappropriate and at the most against God's will.
Of course all this is very sloppy, another book length project, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. However, I would be deeply indebted to any person whom would challenge me on the above point. As I've been reminded at various points in my life, two virtues that I am more than a little deficient in, care and humility, are of the utmost importance for both the good life and the good argument. One way that I can work to develop more careful and humble habits is through dialogue, so please comment or talk to me if anything is either unclear, or too poorly put, or the views are not quite right.
Only two marks and two days at Hyaets left. Wow! This summer has been one hell of a ride, but I am convinced that it has been full of blessings. And as a new friend would say, "I will go to my grave believing that."
Pax et bonum.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Mark 9: The Map (Geographical proximity to community members who share a common rule of life.)
At Hyaets, the sense of community that we experience is predicated upon geographical closeness. As you can see from the image below, residents do not need to commute across town or get in cars to share life with other community members:
The reason for living within proximity is shallow rather than deep. It is difficult to attain the other 11 Marks if we are separated by geographical distance. For instance, nurturing common life in the community is made possible by the practical fact that we are a couple hundred feet away from each other instead of a couple miles away for each other. Our closeness enables the frequency of our meals and prayers as well as the times when we just want to go talk to a fellow community member.
The reason for living within proximity is shallow rather than deep. It is difficult to attain the other 11 Marks if we are separated by geographical distance. For instance, nurturing common life in the community is made possible by the practical fact that we are a couple hundred feet away from each other instead of a couple miles away for each other. Our closeness enables the frequency of our meals and prayers as well as the times when we just want to go talk to a fellow community member.
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