Thoughts From the Porch: It’s hard to stay off the porch when shorts and t-shirt weather has interrupted the North Texas winter. The weekend has been marked by seventy-degree temperatures. The sunrise was beautiful this morning. The Dallas Cowboys won their wildcard playoff game last night, and all is well in the world. Just sayin’…
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.
Happy Birthday Jesus!
Merry Christmas y’all!
Thoughts From the Porch: It’s a bit chilly this morning. We’ve been having below average temperatures all season long. Last Spring, it was above average temperatures. Ask most folks and they’ll tell you that’s just North Texas weather: eighty degrees one day and twenty the next. Weather has always been a wild ride here. That’s just the way it is, right?
The reality is that our changing weather one of the consequences of global climate change. Stories of extreme weather – devastating storms, overwhelming floods, intense droughts, – fill the news regularly. While a tiny minority denies the science of climate change, most folks agree action must be taken.
Acknowledging and understanding the problem is the first step in leading to the solution. Today is 24 hours of climate reality, a broadcast from aroundthe world about climate change and a good first step. You can tune in via https://www.24hoursofreality.org.
Opal’s Farm is one step toward a broader solution. Taking advantage of urban areas to grow food locally doesn’t seem like much in the grand scheme of things. However, gardens and farming by organic methods are one small thing each of us can do to contribute to our planet’s health.
Taking care of the soil, protecting our watershed fromharmful toxins, and putting carbon back into the soil is a by-product of the fresh produce we grow. We strive to be good stewards of the creation we livein. It may be one small step, a two-acre project, but it provides a model for others.
We invite you to listen to Climate Reality’s broadcast andto be a part of Opal’s Farm. Be a part of the solution.
Thoughts from the Porch on #Giving Tuesday:
It dawned on me after my second cup of coffee that November is almost over. I know.“Duh”, right? It’s just that I don’t know where the year has gone. It seems to have blown through here like last week’s cold front, chilled to the bone one day and seventy degrees the next. The race toward Christmas is on and the New Year looms large on the horizon
The holiday season is my favorite time of year. Not becauseof Christmas, mind you, but because of the introspection it brings. December 1stis more special than any other day of the year. It brought about a psychic change, a rebirth, and a new direction to my life. Ironically, it was the direction I’d longed for since my youth. “Lost dreams awaken, and newpossibilities arise”. They really do.
This past year has been unbelievably special. I began a new business, writing content and copy, and in doing so, I unknowingly unleashed mypassion. Through a unique series of events, I met some incredible people, Ms. Opal Lee for one, and began to see something I’d only dreamed about for a long time –an urban farm – become a reality. Opal’s Farm is that place – a place for growing, learning, and community.
To be honest, I never imagined myself becoming a farmer. Mymother used to send me out to pull weeds as a form of punishment when I was young. It didn’t exactly hold pleasant memories. I never thought I’d come to find joy in it. But I have, and each of those gardens drove me to this amazing project called Opal’s Farm.
When I was younger, I left college full of ideals and ready to change the world. Most of us did. But as I got older and raised my boys, I became less idealistic and, if I’m honest, more cynical. The world I wanted to change became smaller and smaller until I was my world. That seems to be pervasive in our culture. Who of us hasn’t been taught to “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” and “look out for number one”? The more I bought into that world, the less I was part of this one.
It will have been thirteen years ago this December 1st that my world began to change. Circumstances brought me to a garden I started taking care of because I had nowhere else to be. I began to enjoy pulling weeds.To make a long story short – I liked playing in the dirt!
Over the last thirteen years, I have been honored toparticipate in building and managing several garden projects. I’ve watched a face light up when a young man tastes a fresh tomato for the first time. I’ve seen community begin when people come together and relish in the first harvest. I’ve witnessed people regain health of body and spirit as they work together in the garden. I’ve come to believe that simple farming can change a life. It’s changed mine.
Our Mission – “Opal’s Farm restores hope andvitality to neglected communities through an agricultural intervention and education.” – is becoming a reality. Right in the middle of the city, it provides not just food, but jobs and training as well. It creates opportunity. This is a model for conservation and sustainability, not just for Fort Worth, but for other communities as well.
Today is #GivingTuesday. It offers a uniqueopportunity to double you impact through Facebook’s matching funds. Please visit us at https://www.facebook.com/donate/2246575222246012/.Give today and help us change the world one bite at a time.
Several years ago, the comic George Carlin did a stand-up routine about our changing vocabulary. You know, how we sanitize terms to make them soundless harsh. “Shell-shock” became “battle fatigue” and later, post-traumatic stress disorder. Sounds so much better, right?
I always laugh when I hear our local weather folks talk about ‘winter precipitation events’. Seriously? I remember when they used to call it snow…
Now we’ve come up with a similar vocabulary for something near and dear to my heart – ‘food insecurity”. What does that really mean?
It’s a nice way of saying your neighbors go to bed hungry. That’s right. I said your neighbors. And not ‘insecure’ – hungry…
People right here in Tarrant County. They may be across town or they might be right next door. Our neighbors…
Here’s another one – ‘food scarcity’. It means that your neighbors don’t have access to healthy, nutritious food. They live in ‘food deserts’ – places where the only ‘food’ store is a local convenience store. The choices are over-priced and often unaffordable, canned, highly processed and ‘junk’ foods – foods that fail to meet even basic nutritional needs. Foods filled with empty calories that fail to satisfy even the smallest of tummies…
The bottom line – no one should go to bed hungry, especially the one in five children that do so every single night in Tarrant County.
So, what do we do about it?
Opal’s Farm is part of the answer. Opal’s Farm is a two-acreurban farm on the banks of the Trinity River just east of Downtown Fort Worth. Opal’s Farm grows organic, healthy produce – distributing it in Fort Worth’s ‘food deserts’.
More than that, Opal’s Farm provides jobs, training, and educational tools to address the issues facing often overlooked neighborhoods right here in Tarrant County. We believe that an agricultural intervention can make a difference – restoring health, vitality, and community to our neglected neighbors.
In this “giving season” of thanksgiving and sharing, it’seasy to feel overwhelmed when planning year-end contributions to the multitude of wonderful non-profit organizations asking for help. I hope you consider Opal’s Farm when making your decision.
Today, you canmake a difference – right here, rightnow, and for Fort Worth’s future. Opal’s Farm is a long-term, sustainable solution for all of us.
That’s why I’m asking for your help today. Tomorrow is #GivingTuesday, the Global Day of Giving. On #GivingTuesday your contribution will be matched dollar-for-dollar, going twice as far to help Opal’s Farm keep growing. Go to our Facebook page today at https://www.facebook.com/donate/2246575222246012/.
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