Tag: Writing

Choices, Community, Doubt, Emotional Health, Faith, Gifts, Grace, Gratitude, Letting Go, Practice, Recovery, Service to Others, Simplicity, Spirituality, Thoughts From the Porch

Ahh, February

gregoryjoel

It’s finally February. It usually isn’t my favorite month because, though it’s the shortest month, it usually feels like the longest. That’s not the case this year. January seemed like it would never end – the constant barrage of bad news wore me down. It started with military intervention in Venezuela, the alienation of our allies and friends (we’re not all crazy Greenland), and ended with two murders of US citizens by our own government. Come on, February. Maybe being the shortest month means less assaults on our collective souls. One can only hope…

Photo by Steve Wrzeszczynski on Unsplash

Tomorrow, the second of February, is Groundhog Day. Personally, I always get confused as to why a small, adorable rodent has so much power of weather forecasting based on whether he sees his shadow or not. I do, however, find the movie “Groundhog Day” one of my favorite films of all time. The idea that one gets “do-overs” until they get it right sums up what grace has come to mean in my life. I don’t get to go back and change the past, but I do have the opportunity every day to create a better me. That’s all because of grace.

I’d always heard that term “grace” growing up, but in a fundamentalist Christian home it tended to be more an abstract spiritual ideal rather than a physical reality. One could always “fall from grace”. God was kind of fickle, judgmental, and got pissed off easy, you know, and I was spiritually clumsy, falling a lot! After a while, I’d fallen so many times that I just decided to stay down and wallowed there for many years.

I won’t bore you with the details, but to suffice it to say that I found myself in rehabs and twelve-step programs many times over the years. It wasn’t until one day in December 2005 that I finally said, “God help me” and really meant it. I simply gave it all to him. I surrendered and really didn’t care what he did with me. Even death was preferable to the existence I was living.

To make a long story short…

That was my “Groundhog Day”. I didn’t get “do-overs”, but I did get to go back to those I had harmed and make amends – make things right to the best of my ability and live differently. In fact, every day since then has been Groundhog Day. I wake up each morning with the opportunity to make the future better for me and my community. It’s all because of grace – grace that’s real, not an abstract theological term. I guess in that sense it is a “do over” because I start each day with a clean slate. I can let go of a past full of doubt and live securely in the day I’ve been given.

I’m not perfect by any means. I try to walk in faith, loving God, and “loving my neighbor as myself. Thank God for grace and another Groundhog Day…

Acceptance, Bad Weather, Choices, Community, Courage, Down On the Farm, Faith, Gratitude, Letting Go, Opal's Farm, Patience, Persistence, Prayer, Serenity, Simplicity, Spirituality, Unity Unlimited, Inc., What Can I Do

Baby, It’s Cold Outside

gregoryjoel

It’s January in Texas. I was wearing shorts and a T-shirt two days ago. Today I’m sitting here at the desk watching snow falling with wind chills in the teens. It looks like it may stick around for the next couple of days so I’m taking advantage of the weather to enjoy the comfort of my office and get caught up on stuff at home.

I covered everything at Opal’s Farm with frost cloth and mulch in preparation for this weekend. It rained all day Friday which is was needed for the crops during this cold snap. Still, the weather folks are saying we’ll have eighty-six hours of below freezing temperatures. Now I wait. It’s always unnerving to wait for hard freezes like this to end. I join all area farmers in saying lots of prayers and hoping I don’t lose everything. Such is the nature of farming, whether urban or rural.

One cannot be a control freak and be comfortable farming. Some things are simply beyond my control – it’s too hot or too cold, too wet or too dry – I can’t control the weather. In fact, I came to the farm one day last week and my pump wouldn’t work. After checking all the possible (and solvable) mechanical problems, I walked down to the river to find that it had dropped several feet almost overnight. My pump was three feet out of the water. I have no idea how that happened. That’s a new one for me. At least it’s usually new problems to deal with. That’s one of the joys (or curses) of farming. No two days are alike. You won’t get bored!

Photo by Erik Mclean on Pexels.com

Farming has taught me the real value of the Serenity Prayer, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Acceptance comes easier these days. There are some things I can’t do anything about. They simply are what they are. Acceptance surrenders the results and trusts the process before me. My friend Jim always told me to chop wood and let the chips fall where they may.

There are things I can do to mitigate some of damages caused by the things beyond my control, but quite honestly, some days can be rough: drought, pest pressure, equipment problems, funding issues – they can feel overwhelming. It takes courage to face things head on despite the uncertainties of the desired outcome. Courage is also about patience and perseverance. Sometimes it’s as simple as showing up for one more hour, or one more day despite fear, frustrations, and feeling defeated. I’ve was always told that ninety-five percent of life is just showing up. Sometimes it takes great courage to just do simple things…

“Wisdom to know the difference.” I can’t (and won’t) lay claim to being wise, but I am better at seeing what’s important, what I can change. I still run into walls, just not as often. Choices have become a tad easier to make with some success – not just at the farm but at home and in the community. Progress, not perfection I’ve always been told. Letting go of perfection and desired outcomes has freed me of the shackles of always having to be right. It’s allowed me to use the most freeing words in the English language – “I don’t know”. When I don’t have the answers, I have community, with you all and with my Creator.

If I’m really honest, it’s hard to be inside for two or three days straight. I miss being at the farm. I wonder how we’ve survived yesterday knowing that the worst of the cold is yet to come, but I’m grateful for the rest and the time with my wife. I pray that you all are doing well – the power’s still om, the home fires burn brightly, and you don’t have to get out on the roads. Enjoy the break. I will too…

Belief, Choices, Down On the Farm, Faith, Food Justice, Hope, Music, Neighbors, Opal's Farm, Quotes, Responsibility, Serenity, Service Organizations, Social Justice, Songs, Spirituality, Texas Music, Thoughts From the Porch, Unity Unlimited, Inc., Urban Farming, What Can I Do

I Used to Worry…

gregoryjoel

My first year at Opal’s Farm was interesting to say the least. I’d never farmed. I’d had lots of experience with community gardens, but I had never farmed. I only had a few hand tools and a BCS two-wheeled tractor, a wide-open space to use it, and I was the only laborer to do so.  There was no money in the farm account and even what little seed we had was donated. That also meant I didn’t get paid unless some grant money came through or we had a huge harvest – neither of which appeared to be happening soon.

Fortunately, I had a great mentor come into my life, Charlie Blaylock, who owned Shines Farmstand, guided me through the process of becoming a farmer. A month into the project I received help from our first volunteer, Brendan, who stayed with me every day through that first growing season. He put that BCS tractor to work. Although our first growing season met with some moderate success it was nowhere near enough to get paid so I went without a paycheck for the first year.

I believed in the farm. My wife and I had a very small savings account to draw on, and although it wasn’t near enough to pay all the bills, I went to work each day. The money finally ran out in October, and I was so worried and stressed out to the point that I came home and told Margaret that I was going to have to go work elsewhere. My wife, who is one of the most spiritual and faithful people I know, looked at me and said, “Greg, we prayed for a long time about this, and I know this is where God wants you to be. Give it another month before you decide what to do”.

I exclaimed, “Baby, we’ll lose the house if we can’t make the mortgage payment!”

She smiled and simply said, “We had a roof over our heads when we moved in didn’t we?” Needless to say, I’m still there seven years later and the farm is thriving.

You see, I received a call from our Executive Director at eight o’clock the following morning. She told me we’d received a grant from Visit Fort Worth, and she’d have a check for me later that day. I called my wife and told her the great news and stopped to have a little conversation with God. “God, I’m stubborn and thickheaded. I know you told me not to worry about things like that. You have my back. It’s all yours from now on. I’m just going to do the work you gave me each day and you take care of the rest.”

I’ve told this story many times over the last seven years. I’ve even had to remind myself several times this year when funding cuts led to staff layoffs and irregular paychecks. Texas Health Community Hope and the Conservation and Environment Fund at North Texas Community Foundation stepped up to help us in enormous ways to continue the great work at Opal’s Farm.

I’d like to say that my life is free of worry, but that would be a lie. I just worry less about myself and more about others. It seems there’s a lot to worry about these days with all the chaos, hatred, and harm being directed at folks, but doing what I can to ease another’s burden, especially in food justice and serving the marginalized communities around us, there’s less worry and more action.

I don’t worry (well, most of the time anyway…) about results and just do the work. I also remember I spent way too much of life worrying about things that just didn’t matter. I have “enough” and life’s pretty damn good.

From another patron saint of Texas music and one of Fort Worth’s favorite sons – Delbert McClinton along with the great Francine Reed.

“There are two ways to get enough: one is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.” – G. K. Chesterton

“We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.” – Winston Churchill

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seed you plant.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

“The world says, the more you take, the more you have. Christ says, the more you give, the more you are.” — Frederick Buechner

Birthdays, Children, Family, Generations, Grandchildren, Gratitude, Relationships

A Better Christmas

gregoryjoel

I was going to write my annual end of the year wrap-up from Opal’s Farm today, but I got a bit sidetracked – which happens a lot, especially this time of year. The holiday season is a mixed bag of emotions for me. I experience the joy of my grandkids and a deep sadness that their father, Jeremy, isn’t here to celebrate with them. It doesn’t help that Jeremy was born on Christmas Day either. Moreover, my father, who was our “Mr. Christmas”, has been gone for almost twenty years and Mom passed in 2017. My sister and her husband live in Georgia and I really miss her. There’s no one from my family to celebrate with except the grandkids and my daughter-in-law. Grief tends to hit hard this time of year. Holidays aren’t my favorite time of year, but my grandkids remind me there’s still joy in the season. Sometimes you have to find new traditions to move forward.

My grandkids and Uncle Adrian, my oldest son, have a Christmas tradition that started after Jeremy died. Every Christmas morning, at nine AM, we meet at Ol’South Pancake House – a Fort Worth Institution and one of the only places open – to have breakfast together. It’s hard to coordinate family time with all the in-laws (and out-laws) that we decided to start our own tradition and everyone can plan around us instead.

We headed to the cemetery to leave flowers and birthday wishes after breakfast. My oldest granddaughter, Baillie, was with us this year. Her relationship with her dad was strained due to his addiction. She neglected to go with us in the past but joined her brother and sister this year. The atmosphere at both breakfast and the cemetery was much lighter than in the past, leaving room for real Christmas joy.

Aside – We often go to the mural of Jeremy painted by his business partner, Jay Wilkinson. The mural is located on the outside wall of Hop Fusion Brewery in Near Southside (the brewery is also home to several of Jeremy’s murals). Sometimes I, or we, need to sit have a conversation with the twenty-foot-high Jeremy…

Life is like that – joy in the midst of grief, light in the midst of darkness. I thank God daily for both ends of the spectrum. It may not make sense to everyone, but this is the best Christmas gift I could receive.

Activism, Bad Weather, Business, Christianity, Climate Change, Community, Conservation, Creation, Donations, Environment, Fighting Poverty, Food Deserts, Food Insecurity, Freelancing, Gardening, God's Economics, Gratitude, Health, Neighbors, Non-Profits, Nutrition, Opal's Farm, Patience, Positive Thinking, Prayer, Relationships, Service Organizations, Service to Others, Simplicity, Spirituality, Stories, Thoughts From the Porch, Transformation, Uncategorized, Unity Unlimited, Inc., Urban Farming, Work, Writing

Can a Tomato Change the World?

gregoryjoel

I haven’t had much time to post anything. This was a blog from 2018 and it still applies today!

Thoughts From the Porch: I need to get a little personal here. I have an issue that’s close to the heart and after this week, I’m driven to share it with you. I haven’t spent much time on the porch. The early blast of Arctic weather has limited my time there. It must’ve delivered some silent signal to our trees last night. They seemed to release all their leaves at once. Except for the few bold ‘hangers-on’, the yard, sidewalk, and most of the porch is covered in dead and dying leaves.

My tomato and pepper plants succumbed to the freeze. I knew it was coming. The cycle of the seasons is inevitable. I know the time will always come to say goodbye to homegrown tomatoes for the winter. I had hoped we’d somehow escape the unusually early frost. It’s always difficult to say goodbye to tasty, fresh tomatoes, even if it’s only temporary.

I spent this last couple of weeks working on grant applications for Opal’s Farm. Everything met with our Director’s approval and I’m submitting them this morning. I haven’t written grants in many years, so there’s more than a little fear there. Did I do it right? What if they don’t come through? What if, what if, what if…

I want to do well: for the farm and as a writer. I guess I’ll find out how well I did when the grants are awarded.

I’d like to be offering a grand update on our progress, but the wet Fall weather has slowed tilling and bed preparation to a crawl. There’s still much to be done in this holiday (and giving) season. November 27th is the Global Day of Giving. I hope that you’ll keep Opal’s Farm in mind if such days are more convenient for you. Please remember though, donations aren’t contingent on special ‘giving days’, they are accepted 24/7, 365 days a year!

Personal experience has taught me that ‘playing in the dirt’ has the power to change lives and communities and provide solutions to problems far beyond food deserts and food scarcity. If that were all it did it would be a noble undertaking, but it’s much bigger than that.

Several years ago, I was working on a community garden in a local westside neighborhood for B.U.R.N. Ministries. Some of the young men who were in the youth program came to help one day when harvesting had begun. One of the young men asked me what “those are” as I was picking tomatoes. The question kind of took me back. I just assumed everyone knew what they were.

You see, he had grown up in an urban food desert. Most of his diet had consisted of processed foods from the local dollar and convenience stores. He had no idea what fresh produce looked like!

I pulled a tomato off the vine, wiped it off, handed it to him, and invited him to try it. He was reluctant at first. He took a small bite. I watched as his face went from a turned-up nose to a beaming smile. “That’s really good”, he said as he devoured the rest of the tomato. “Can I have another one?”

I’m not saying that one tomato is going to change the world. But I couldn’t help but notice how it changed his face and his perception. It was like shining a light in to a dark place. Once he ‘saw’ the opportunity in front of him he was able to taste the goodness of God’s world. I’d like to think it provided more than simply a great taste sensation. I’d like to think it provided hope.

That’s why Opal’s Farm is so important: to people, to the community, and to the next generation. A simple tomato has the power to change everything. That’s why I’m so passionate about a couple of acres and some wonderful produce.

I could go on and on. Educating people, feeding folks, and empowering individuals for stewardship and the opportunity to leave things a little better than they found it leaves me humbled and in awe of God’s creation.

As a professional writer, I’m supposed to craft my words carefully and ask you to be a financial partner with Opal’s Farm. I’d love for you to be a ‘farmer’, right alongside us whether it be with financial support or digging in the dirt. Moreover, I’m not too proud to beg. My wife always reminds me, “A closed mouth doesn’t get fed”. This is a golden opportunity to make a difference; to do something tangible. Right here. Right now.

So, I implore you to join us! You can reach us at:

http://www.unityunlimited.org

http://www.gregoryjoel.com

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