My Beloved Corn

It's almost time to start gardening. My little garden is really the only thing connecting me to the idea of seasons. I hadn't done anything in my garden until last week when my son and I emptied the wondrous compost out of our bin and spread it on our plot. I love my garden, spring, new growth. Here's a random gardening story:

Two years ago I thought it would be funny/interesting to plant corn in my front yard. I tilled a 20 foot path and planted two rows of corn. Yes, I was that crazy corn-in-front-yard guy. My wife was not overly thrilled, but was cool. My neighbors were not happy one bit. On at least three occasions, I saw them standing near my beloved corn, pointing and scowling. I wanted to go out and hug each one of those precious little corn plants and say, "It's OK, people don't know where food comes from, but I do...and I love you." The minor scandal my corn-in-front-yard caused is still a mystery to me.

Four corn-related facts:

1. Corn must be planted in at least three rows so that it can be properly pollinated.
2. Corn, a grass plant, requires full sun (it did not do well in my partially shaded front yard).
3. Corn is scandalous in suburban Atlanta.
4. King Corn is a great documentary about industrial corn farming, community, and "progress."
   

Inherent Unmarketability

This is from the introduction to Everything Belongs by Richard Rohr. I'm rereading it for Lent. It's a wonderfully butt-kicking book. As some of you may know, I've got a lot of questions about the church. This little poem/list gets at a lot of the tension I feel for how we (at my home church and the church at large) do things.

How do you make attractive that which is not?
How do you sell emptiness, vulnerability, and nonsuccess?
How do you talk decent when everything is about ascent?
How can you possibly market letting go in a capitalist culture?
How do you present Jesus to a Promethean mind?
How do you talk about dying to a church trying to appear perfect?
This is not going to work.
(admitting this might be my first step)

Why We Fight--Film Review

I'll sum this "documentary" up in one word: silly. Are you telling me that I am to believe our country would literally perpetuate war to keep the "military industrial complex" moving forward? And who came up with that silly phrase, military industrial complex anyway? Oh, Dwight D. Eisenhower...well what did he know? Wasn't he the same president who made those silly buttons that said "I like Ike?" You can't spell silly without Ike. His warning to future generations regarding the dangers of having a standing military and corporate interests tied so closely with the war machine were, well, silly. If you look at our wars since WWII, our causes were clear. We were fighting for...oh, never mind. The movie asserts that profit may be driving much of our war effort. They present silly "facts" about how our defense spending blows all other countries out of the water, by a long shot. Obviously, the makers of this movie have not studied up on just war philosophy developed by the unsilly St. Thomas Aquinas. Yeah, he's old school, but he clearly stated that profit motive is a perfectly good reason to go to war.

To summarize, if you like silly movies, this one's for you.

Seriously, this was the scariest movie I've seen in a long time. I'm talking pit in my stomach, loss of sleep scary.

Walker Percy Quote

The word boredom did not enter the language until the 18th century. No one knows its etymology...Question: Why was there no such word before the 18th century?
a. Was it because people were not bored before the 18th century?
b. Was it because people were bored but did not have a word for it?
c. Was it because people were too busy staying alive to be bored?

Walker Percy from Lost in the Cosmos (The Last Self-Help Book)

Percy goes on to propose three additional answers, but they take up pages so I didn't include them. This question haunts me for three reasons.
1. I hear people complaining about boredom. I don't believe there is an answer to this. Most people say, "Well, let's go bowling, or to a movie, or to the mall, or to..." I have found myself saying things like, "You should ponder that" or "Think about what you just said." My responses are not popular. My response from now on: "You know, boredom did not enter the lexicon until the 18th century. HMMM." This type of response is very well received.
2. When I bring up the question to friends, there seems to be an underlying terror about the answer (or lack thereof).
3. I got my mouth washed out with soap by a babysitter when I was 11. My crime? Uttering these infamous words, "I'm bored." Oh, the humanity.

Levi Brings a Tear to My Eye

I was working outside with my three year old son this morning. He was cleaning my truck. He looked at a paper towel he was using and asked me, with all kinds of seriousness , "Dad, is this garbage or recycle?" Levi, my boy, you've made me proud.

Quote from The Chosen by Chaim Potok

One learns of the pain of others by suffering one's own pain...by turning inside oneself, by finding one's own soul. And it is important to know of pain, he said. It destroys our self-pride, our arrogance, our indifference toward others. It makes us aware of how frail and tiny we are and of how much we must depend on the Master of the Universe.

This is the second of Potok's books I've read. My Name is Asher Lev was wonderful as well. Both books have profound things to say about family, community, and independence. This was a wonderful book about the importance of friendship and how pain is passed on from generation to generation.

I found the above quote and the content of the book to be helpful in my work. I definitely recommend it.

Murder

It's happened twice now; me sitting, eating, working. Him yelling, cussing, killing. The first time was last month. He was sitting with his wife and 8 year old daughter. The little girl kept saying, "Dad, guess what happened at school today..." His response became predictable. "Nobody cares what happened at school. Stop talking and eat your dinner." Heartbreaking. It happened at McDonald's this morning. Different dad, four year old girl. Girl says, "Dad, I forgot to get my caramel dipping stuff for my apples." Dad pontificates, "Jesus Christ, you F---ING forget everything!" I sat in my seat, stunned. What do I do? Punch this guy in the neck...no, he could probably take me. I realized in that moment that I had just witnessed death. Murder is alive and well in the world and in the play area at McDonald's. I looked at this little one, curly hair, curious eyes. I saw her death before my eyes, slow, dull, blunt. I looked at the dad and wondered who first killed him, who was his murderer? And when did he go from killed to killer? Then I felt really heavy, stuck.

For all who are being killed, slowly.

For all who murder from their own pain.

Jesus Christ have mercy.