After a very long day driving, it feels good to be back home.  I spent the last week in Florida, having my brain stretched and scrambled by a theology class.  I much prefer life here on the farm where, this morning, I got to hear woodpeckers while taking big breaths of unconditioned air, scented with wood smoke.

As they are prone to do, the goats waited until I was gone to start kidding.  Sadly, three out of the five didn’t make it.  Although we’ve always seemed to have high mortalilty in the winter kidding, I was hoping that wouldn’t happen this time.  The weather was mild and we had had 15 born in November and December without a single death.  But unfortunately Peggy’s buckling didn’t make it and poor Fancy delivered stillborn twins.  But the two who were born alive (one buckling to Prudence and one to Holly) are cute and healthy.

Peggy and Holly are twins and they kidded (their first kidding) on the same day.  They seem to be co-parenting the little guy.  I saw him nursing Holly this morning and Cherie has seen him nursing Peggy, who is not his mother.  I love that they are sharing the baby.  Fancy seems to be joining in with them too.  The picture above, which unfortunately is a little blurred, is all three mamas and their jointly possessed son.  So the little dude is going to got lots of motherly love.

While in Florida I received word that I’ve been elected into “Florida Super Lawyers.”  That’s kind of funny, considering that I no longer live in Florida and no longer practice law.  I can only chuckle and shake my head.

Love Wins

These days, to protect the sensibilities of those now removed from farm living, and who are uncomfortable with the fact that the meat on their plate comes from once living, breathing animals, the word “kill” is being replaced by goofy euphemisms.

Most folks now don’t kill chickens, they “process” them.

Sounds much less violent wouldn’t you agree?  Of course it also sounds kind of technical, mechanical and sterile.  But at least we can avoid that upleasant “k” word.

There is a group of suburbanite Navy retirees who have been coming to hunt deer on our farm every season for years.  They’re nice guys.   Last year one of them told me how many deer they had “harvested.”

Good grief.

Maybe I’m being too metaphysical about this, but it seems to me that we’re in a state of denial about killing.  So farm animals aren’t killed.  Whatever is done to them is something else.

Please stop for a moment and look at the death and killing that surrounds us daily.  Take a deep breath.  Imagine that nothing is killed, no creature’s life is extinguished, except for good.

If “killing” was never bad, we wouldn’t hide from the word.  Would we?

Love Wins

Y’all should check it out:  http://gmdevotionals.wordpress.com/

Here is last week’s post from our friend Mike Huggins

LAMINAR LIVES

I tend to think in extremes; first and last, highest and lowest, longest and shortest, all or none. I believe most people do this to some extent. For example, when I’m at work and working on a task, I am asked how long it will take. I always say something like, “that should only take an hour” which is the absolute minimum amount of time I would need to finish it, when it actually ends up taking four hours. Or when given a big problem to solve, for example, social poverty; what might be our first solution? Let’s go and spend every chance we can with people who have been socially neglected. Sounds good, right? Sure, except when we see there are so many people in need that we become overwhelmed. Generally, we think, if we can’t fully devote time, effort, strength into it, it’s not worth doing or it’s not going to be enough to solve the problem. Then, nothing gets done. So, we want to do something, but if we try to solve it thinking in extremes, we will eventually burn out.

I went to school to learn engineering. While there, I learned about how fluids flow. In my Fluid Dynamics class, I was taught that fluids flow in two categories: laminar and turbulent. Laminar fluids flow smoothly, uniformly, in one direction with very little friction. Because of this parallel flow with all particles moving in the same direction and small amount of friction, the sum of the energy output is very close to the sum of the energy input. This results in a very powerful and efficient flow. In contrast, turbulent fluids flow irregularly, chaotically, and unparallel to the overall direction of the flow. At any one point in the fluid, the speed is constantly changing in magnitude and direction. Turbulent flow is characterized by a large loss in energy due to friction. The sum of the energy output is much less than the sum of the energy input.

I tell you about fluid dynamics because I believe we can apply those fluid flow principles to our lives. We have a finite amount of energy we put into everything we do. Sometimes we will try to “do” too much to bring the kingdom of God here on Earth; other times, not enough. I believe there is a balance between the two where we are most effective at being disciples of Christ. There is a difference between trying to do so many good things and being very effective at what we do. Sometimes we are blinded by a need so big that we think we have to do everything we can to help solve it. Instead of spreading our efforts on something like this, which ends up being solely charity, what does it look like to focus our energy and try to provide some real justice? We must evaluate how we use our energy such that it shows we love God with our entire lives and we love our neighbor as ourselves.

If there are things that cause friction, slow us down, and make our lives turbulent, maybe we need to consider removing them from our flow path. These things that slow us down may be good, but they’re causing turbulence. What aspects of our lives are causing turbulence? I’m not saying that we should throw out everything that doesn’t seem effective at Kingdom work. I truly believe that having fun, not being productive and resting is part of living a balanced, laminar life. I’m saying, let’s take a look at our lives and find ways we can show the world how powerful God is; that He has a plan to heal this broken world with love.

Love Wins

“Vocation does not mean a goal that I pursue. It means a calling that I hear. Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am. I must listen for the truths and values at the heart of my own identity, not the standards by which I must live – but the standards by which I cannot help but live if I am living my own life.”

Love Wins

Love Wins

The top five for Practicing Resurrection were:

5.  Conquest and Christianity
My take on the Biblical conquest stories.  I expected to catch a lot of heat over this, but instead it was well-received in discussions on the net. 

4.  The Wesleyan Quadrilateral
The popularity of this post is further proof of the existence of the species neridicus theologicus. 

3.  The Burden of the Gospels
Alas, Wendell Berry wrote this, not me.  But I’m pleased to see so many folks reading it.  It is one of my favorite essays.

2.  Danita Estrella
Danita is one of our heroes.  This was also one of the most popular posts of 2010.  Lots of folks google her name and many of them end up on my blog for a while. 

And the number one most popular blog post of the year was (drum roll please)…………..

1.  Good Eggs
It is fitting that at least one of my most popular posts should be about food.  This post spread around through social media I think.  It was my most viewed post of the year and the day I posted it was my busiest day.  Because I’d linked to photos from our website, which has since gone dark, the pictures aren’t there anymore.  They are an intregal part of the post so I’ll work on re-inserting them.

Thanks for reading in 2011.

Love Wins

 Martin Luther King, Jr.

Love Wins

Spring is on the way.  I can feel it coming.  For everyone who gardens or farms this is a time of anticipation, and visions of abundant harvests.

As y’all noticed, we’ve rolled out the CSA.  We are so excited to partner with friends and neighbors this way.  The response has been great and encouraging.  We don’t have our website done yet, so for now we’re using facebook and this blog to spread the message.  Stay tuned for an announcement on our pork-share opportunity too!

So for now we’re expanding our gardens, planning our crops and dreaming big. 

Love Wins

I prefer the unofficial Quaker acronym.

Simplicity
Peace
Integrity
Community
Equality

SPICE.  Nice.

Love Wins

Eliminating fast food from my diet felt harder to me than eliminating television.  Like so many Americans, I’d become accustomed to eating in my car when in a hurry, and like so many Americans I was usually in a hurry.  Although I was never as addicted to the stuff as so many of us are, I would find myself eating sausage biscuits from McDonalds or Bojangles pretty regularly.  Then one day, in disgust, I swore off fast food forever.  It’s now been 4 or 5 years since I ate any of the stuff they pass off as food and I have no intention of ever eating any of it again.

At first I felt that by giving up the stuff I was making some kind of sacrifice.  I was a protestor, shaking my fist at the corporations which are fattening and sickening us, torturing animals and polluting the planet.   I felt that I was giving up a pleasure to make a point. 

Now I can only laugh and shake my head at that notion.  Within months, if not weeks, of weaning my body from their greasy junk, I had no desire whatsover to eat it.  Now when I see lines of cars waiting at some fast food drive thru window to get meals wrapped in paper, the thought of putting that stuff into my body is repulsive.

I still love sausage biscuits.  But sausage home-made from a hog raised on pasture just isn’t comparable to the stuff served by the fast food joints, which is so greasy and nasty that the paper it’s wrapped in is often wet and slimy to the touch. 

I don’t think my experience is unusual.  I’m confident that if Americans stopped eating fast food for a couple of months and allowed their bodies to detox, most of them would never go back. 

Imagine America without fast food restaurants.  We’d not only be much healthier, but we would actually be able to experience once again the pleasure of good food.

Love Wins