For the beauty of the earth

So yesterday my friend Hannah and I piled in the car and toodled up to Carver Hill Orchard where we picked peaches and blueberries. We got a little lost along the way, due to Massachusetts' strange abhorrence of street signs, but only a little.

We were the only people there. It is out of the way, and it was a Tuesday after all, so I was not expecting the place to be mobbed but I never anticipated that we'd have the place to ourselves. What a treat!

The house I grew up in had an abundant garden, but we moved from there when I was about fifteen and since then my parents have had a few tomato and pepper plants but that's it. And of course I've been in various apartments and condominimums for the last several years, where I have neither the space, time, or inclination to cultivate a garden. Food comes from the grocery store. They may have a workroom in the back concocting the stuff for all I know. This summer I have been delighted to have a CSA share, which is a little different, but still food comes from a box I pick up on someone's porch.

But my goodness there is something about seeing these plants coming forth from the earth, laden with blessings. Thanksgiving and praise welled up within me.

Now the question arises, would I have the same reaction to string beans and broccoli? Perhaps not to the same extent. Yet there is something quite wonderful about a God who celebrates in creating peaches and strawberries.

Food and Friends and Faith

So it seems like every time I turn around these days I come across something else talking about our overscheduled, overproductive culture and tying that to our eating habits.

Short version: Our lives are generally insane. Everything comes prepackaged and corporatized and disconnected from the natural order, which is bad for us, bad for the environment, and inherently unsustainable. It makes us sick and miserable and yet we keep doing it.

How can we stop the crazy and generally live better lives?

Well, the Slow Food movement says, let's start with how we eat. Instead of looking for food that is faster, let's slow down the process. Let's have soups that simmer on the stove rather than get poured out from a can. Let's eat around a table with family and friends rather than in the car zipping from Point A to Point B. Let's be more connected with the natural rhythms of the seasons rather than always shipping everything all over the globe. Let's have our food be about culture and tradition and community and joy rather than simply ingesting nutrients.

And, let's have our food be about God. The slow foodies don't say this in so many words, but they should. Let's appreciate God's gracious and extravagant creation. Let us be bound together around a common table.

This idea of heritage and sharing meals should be especially resonant for us Christians who regularly gather around the communion table. I recently came across an article which drew some of these ideas together.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2008/003/6.65.html

Planning future road trips

So, since I moved to Boston, I've always gotten home to Dayton, Ohio via airplane. It's a 14-hour drive, which is an awful lot to do solo, and if you break it up into two days then you have to pay for lodging and more meals, and well flying just makes sense.

However, my friends are doing an admirable job of buying homes along various points of I-90. This could change things significantly. I now or will soon have friends to see in Cortland NY, Meadville, PA, and Youngstown, OH, all of which would break up the trip into manageable segments and none of which would add much to the total driving time. Hey, if I stopped at all three it would add about another two hours to the drive, and I wouldn't stop at all three on one leg.

Hmmm ...