I'm the Farm Manager for Opal's Farm - a non-profit5 acre urban farm in Fort Worth that grows for neighborhoods denied access to fresh, nutritious produce through food apartheid. I firmly believe that not only is healthy food a human right, it is also what brings us together Everyone has a seat at the table!
Thoughts From the Porch: Merry Christmas to all! I was somewhat disappointed to miss the sunrise on Christmas morning. Festivities at the Joel household kept everyone up late so everyone is sleeping in today. Aside from an occasional car on the far-off freeway, all is quiet and still this morning. Even the birds are silent this morning.
Christmas in Texas is unpredictable. I threw my coat on to come out to the porch, only to remove it before enjoying the solitude. I guess the winter weather is coming tomorrow. A high temperature in the sixties beats a white Christmas and snow shovels any day…Everything eventually began stirring. Margaret is up, the birds seem to have decided it was late enough to start singing wildly. The couple next has ten kids, so need I say more. I can’t imagine what Christmas morning must look like for them. I took advantage of the arising commotion to get ready to go out for breakfast with my oldest son, my firstborn. Time alone with one of my boys is the best gift anyone could ever receive. He works long and hard, so time together is cherished.
I came home, called several folks to wish them Merry
Christmas, and sat for a long time in quiet reflection. It was one of those
moments of overwhelming gratitude and awe. Although I’ve become more adept at allowing
myself to feel and to cry if necessary, I fought back the onslaught of tears of
gratitude. How does someone like me get to live the life I live today?
My son, Adrian, and I talked about Christmases past, about
family, and about our future. Christmas hasn’t always held fond memories for my
boys. My addiction interfered with so many holidays I can understand why they’re
not that “special” to my kids. I took advantage of the opportunity to own my
part and continue making amends for my past actions to the best of my ability. Unfortunately,
I don’t get “do-overs”. I don’t get to change the past, but I do get to change
the future. I’m so thankful for God’s love and mercy, but it becomes more
tangible when it’s extended by my kids.
I hope that you each have a wonderful Christmas and a very
happy holiday season. I hope you each find the special joy the season brings. I
pray that serenity and joy follow you in to the New Year and that it be filled
with the blessing of just being one of God’s kids – loved beyond imagination
and loving others the same.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Fort Worth, y’all!
Thoughts from the Porch: It’s become harder to get in the Christmas spirit this year. The exact reason has proven elusive. It could be that Christmas music starts blaring the day after Halloween, but It probably has to do with the fact that Mom and Dad are both gone now. This is the second Christmas since Mom passed and the sixteen of them without Dad. You’d think I’d be past it by now, but grief is what it is. It wasn’t until this morning that the season rushed over me and my soul felt revived with Christmas spirit.
I have a scheduled meeting every Sunday morning at 9:00AM.
It’s one of the highlights of my week. I get to carry a simple message of hope
to hurting people. I don’t know who benefits more – them or me. The spirit of
giving tends to do that. Uncommon sense again – the more you give, the more you
receive. But I digress…
I drove to my meeting yesterday morning somewhat short of my
required coffee quota. I wasn’t paying attention to the radio or much else
until I heard an angelic rendition of “Silent
Night” come flowing from the speakers. I wish I could tell you who the
vocalist was, but I had to hop out of the truck and get to my meeting before it
finished. All I know is that I felt different. I was more “Christmas-ee”…
My family never celebrated Christmas as a religious holiday.
Being good fundamentalists, we couldn’t celebrate something that the Bible
didn’t state for certain. To most folks that sounds silly. Now that I’m older I
can’t say that I disagree. Still, we celebrated Christmas as a secular holiday
of giving and family. Santa Claus was alive, and Jesus’ birthday was up for
debate.
Ironically, Christmas carols were always in order even if
they were religious in nature. The Sunday church service before Christmas always
included religious carols, and mentioned the birth of Jesus (you know, since
the rest of the world was focused on it) but it was “to celebrate the season”,
not the birth of our Savior. I never quite got the logic in that. Anyway…
I no longer hold to the strict religious traditions of my
youth. Jesus may or may not have been born on December 25th. It
makes little difference. This is the season which people have chosen to
celebrate his birth. I can’t find anything wrong with that. The point is that
he was born. Emmanuel – “God is with us”.
Listening to “Silent Night” this morning it hit me full
force; “God is with us”, and just like us. Just like me. Just like you.
My sons may be adults now, but I can remember the day each
was born as though it were yesterday. I didn’t need a manger, livestock,
shepherds, or wise men to make both moments holy, just as that moment some two
thousand years ago. Maybe that’s why God chose to enter in to our world the way
he did. I’d like to think so.
The authors of the four Gospels tell of the man and his
teachings, but they record little of Jesus’ life growing up. I’d like to
believe that he wasn’t much different from my boys. I don’t know what was
comparable to spaghetti in First Century Palestine, but I’m sure that most of
it ended up everywhere but his mouth. Mary probably had to give many an
after-dinner bath during those first couple of years.
At the risk of sounding a bit sacrilegious, I would like to
think that Jesus ducked out of Hebrew school to go fishing with his buddies.
After all, He had an affinity for fishing and hung out with his fishing buddies…
The only reference we have to Jesus’ young life is an
incident when he was twelve years old. Instead of going home with the rest of
his family he hung back in Jerusalem. I can only imagine the panic Mary and
Joseph felt when they realized he was missing. I freaked out when one of the
boys hid behind a clothing rack at the store…
I’m no Biblical scholar, but I’m pretty sure that Jesus was “just
one of the guys” for most of his life: content to live like everyone else in his
town. It’s telling that the townsfolk response to his first recorded teachings
in the Gospel of Luke is “Isn’t this
Joseph’s son, the one we’ve known since he was a youngster?” (Luke 4.22).
It’s easy to concentrate on Jesus as divine, as perfect, and
forget that Jesus was one of us. That, above all, is the miracle of Christmas.
God chose to enter His creation through Jesus, an everyman, dirty diapers and
all. He lived and worked among us as an ordinary guy. He laughed and hung out
with his buddies. When all was said and done, He stepped up to announce that,
“God’s Spirit is on me;
he’s chosen me to preach the Message of good news to the poor.
Sent me to announce pardon to prisoners and recovery of sight to the
blind.
To set the battered and burdened free,
To announce, “This is God’s year to act” (Luke 4.16-21 The Message)
The rest, as they say, is history.
So, I’m in a bit more of the Christmas spirit this morning.
If Jesus could walk among us, “Loving God and loving others” then I’m inclined
to follow in his footsteps. It isn’t always the popular thing. After all, he
tended to upset the proverbial apple cart. “You’ve heard it said… but I say to
you” tends to rub some people the wrong way. I guess we all tend to do that…
I’m so glad that God chose to enter the world the way he
did. “Emmanuel” – God is with us.
Thoughts from the Porch: There is a line from the movie “Field of Dreams” that has become a mantra of sorts in my life. “Build it and they will come”. I’m not planning on building a baseball field in the middle of a cornfield, but I am part of building a farm in the middle of a city. While it’s not the same thing, a farm in the middle of a sprawling urban area makes as much sense as a baseball field in a corn patch.
Kevin Costner’s character wondered why anyone would travel to a cornfield in the middle of Iowa to watch a baseball game. Investing in such a baseball field defied common sense. It meant using their acreage for cash crops and their life savings in a venture that seemed a failure from the start. But, they built anyway. The movie ends with traffic coming from all directions to the “Field of Dreams”.
Success seemed unlikely, the future unsure. It made absolutely no ‘common’ sense, but our
hero stepped out in faith and did “the next right thing”. God took care of the
results and the results were amazing. Still, it too an action and a step into
the unknown. It meant trading common sense for uncommon sense and doing it anyway
because it was the right thing to do.
I was thinking about all of this when I returned from a budget meeting for Opal’s Farm. The good news is that the lease has been signed and everything is moving forward. The bad news is that we’re still well short of our initial start up needs. There are materials to be purchased, employees to be trained and paid, and time and money to meet those needs has suddenly grown shorter. Still, I keep hearing this still, quiet voice repeating, “Build it and they will come.”
I look back at all the events that have brought us to this
point. Just like the baseball players in “Field
of Dreams”, each of the right people have appeared at the right time to create
Opal’s
Farm. One by one we’ve partnered with the right people and
organizations to take the right steps in building Opal’s Farm. Like the old
baseball heroes in the movie, they’ve appeared at just the right time and just
the right place. Organizations like Grow Southeast, Silver Creek Materials, the
Tarrant Regional Water District, Charlie Blaylock with Shines Farmstand, and
our County Extension office have stepped in one by one to lead and guide us
toward our common mission.
My own involvement came about as a bit of a fluke. I found out about the farm through my son, Jeremy. He had talked to some people about an art collective project in another part of Fort Worth. They also expressed an interest in what was to become Opal’s Farm. I contacted them and though they soon stepped out of the project, I began attending Grow Southeast, a collaboration between a number of local farmers and organizations dedicated to bringing healthy food to Tarrant County. Through Grow Southeast, I contacted Ms. Opal and the process began.
Although an urban farm has long been a dream for both Ms. Opal and I, dreams require action to become reality. The time was right to step out in faith, to build it without the assurance that funds would be in place. I can’t tell you how many days I’ve felt like a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn’t there. But everything has come together, and Opal’s Farm is moving forward.
Experience has taught me to step out of my comfort zone, to take chances knowing that I’m responsible for the action and leave the results up to a power far greater than me. “Build it and they will come”. Common sense becoming uncommon sense…
The people are in
place. The land is in place. Building starts now. With your help, we can build
it one step at a time, doing ‘the next right thing”.
leave the
Thoughts from the Porch: Holy moments. If you’ve experienced them, I don’t need to explain them. You know. They are the moments when time stands still, vision and hearing sharpened, and the wonder of the universe pours over you. In a brief instant, everything fades away, but we momentarily touched eternity and saw beyond our little world.
I’ve experienced them before. They always come on the cusp
of change, as if God says, “watch this”. It happened a couple of nights ago. I stand
in anticipation of what to do next…
I had finished dinner with Margaret and was cleaning up the
kitchen. Terribly mundane stuff I might add. A song, “Lead Me to the Cross”, played
from the other room causing me to stop what I was doing and retire to the desk
to listen.
A wave of emotion rolled over me. Sometimes I forget just
what grace cost the Creator and grantor of unending grace. Sometimes I forget
that worship and praise for the God of my limited understanding is the only
response to the miracles in my world.
The song ended, and I retreated to the porch. Darkness had
fallen, yet everything appeared brighter, the stars more visible even in the
city lights. I could, “a mouse pee on cotton” as Uncle Carl used to say. Yet,
everything was perfectly still. I was struck by the stillness while being
amazed and overcome with awe. Even in the windless, motionless quiet of the
evening, everything around me was in constant motion: bound together by a mass
of whirring atoms. All was well. Nothing had changed, yet everything had
changed.
A holy moment can come
anywhere, at any time. Ironically, they rarely happen in churches…
I’m not sure how long I sat there. Cleaning up, working on
the next appeal letter or blog post, the things that make up daily living –
they all faded away. There was nothing to do but stay in the moment. Maybe that
is what God meant when He said to “be still and know that I am God”. I couldn’t
help but be keenly aware of the holiness of this precious moment.
Slowly, the world began to spin once again. The sound of
cars on the nearby freeway began to creep in. My first thought was to write
about this incredible experience. I rushed to the desk and stared at the
keyboard for several minutes. I realized there was absolutely nothing for me to
say. To anyone who shared such an experience my explanations would only deal an
injustice to the moment. To anyone who hadn’t, well, they just wouldn’t
understand.
Ironically, the song that started it all, “Lead Me to the Cross” was extremely short-sighted. I’m grateful it was the impetus for my holy moment, but the path doesn’t stop at a cross. It leads to an empty tomb, a resurrection, and a new life of abundance, joy, and a whole new definition of what constitutes common sense.
Margaret often reminds me of how blessed we are to get “to
live two lives in one lifetime”. Holy moments are reminders of that.
Resurrection people know what I mean. They know what it is for the self-centered
ego to die and be reborn – to emerge from the tomb, so to speak.
I’d love for you to share your “holy moment” or moments.
What inspires you to live better?
that.
Thoughts from the Porch: I wasn’t going to write today, my thoughts anyway. I have a ‘to-do’ list a mile long. It’s a blustery, chilly morning so ‘porch time’ was brief. The coming days bring more pressing matters to the ‘to-do’ list. It’s all good stuff, mind you, but suddenly there seems to be a shortage of hours in the day.
Even though our time on the porch was brief, my wife made it a holy moment for us both. She recounted a phone call yesterday from a friend. The gist of the conversation was how much her friend appreciated my wife. Both of us were a bit teary-eyed by the gratitude we felt. Prayer came easier afterward, even if all we could muster was “thank you God”.
I write of gratitude often. Probably more than anyone wants to hear if I get honest. I remember a friend told me several years ago there were only two topics worth talking or writing about: grace and gratitude. It’s taken a few years, but today I know what he meant. I hope that you, gentle reader, aren’t bored by my seeming lack of topical diversity.
In my interactions with other folks I’ve noted that those who have experienced the depths of God’s grace have one common denominator: gratitude. Gratitude seems to be directly proportionate to grace. The deeper the experience of grace the more gratitude one feels and lives out.
Gratitude changes the way I see the world. I’m more patient, courteous, and giving when I’m grateful. I’m more honest when I admit my own faults and in turn, more tolerant of other folk’s faults. I experience far less conflict and greater serenity. I don’t feel obligated to have “my” way as often. “Enough” is word I understand today.
I don’t always stay there. I still slide into worry, morbid self-reflection, and stubbornness at times. I’ve also come to acknowledge my own humanity with all its imperfections. It doesn’t take me as long to get back to an “attitude of gratitude”. That usually is the result of an awareness of grace. Funny how it all works…
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