The Pig Chill

Not my bacon!!!! Calm down David, calm down. You may have heard the recent warnings that those of us who are pork lovers may be dealing with a shortage of the good stuff, along with sharply rising prices. Actually, my weakness is bacon and even then not all that often. They say it is a guy thing. One of the funniest comedy skits ever is Jim Gaffigan's bacon schtick http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drqUfOAenwQ

I digress. Why the shortage and soaring prices? Well, drought conditions in the U.S. killed off corn crops, and no corn --or really expensive corn -- means no pigs, means no bringing home the bacon. Many farmers are getting out of the pork production business, including one of the biggest outfits in the country. As farmers sell their herds en masse the price declines, even as the cost of raising a pig to market maturity rises. It costs about $170 to raise a pig which sells for $130. This is just bad business. And this means that the affordable meat will be harder to find and cost more.

During Creation Time I have addressed climate change (fire), which leads to drought, and food production (earth) from a faith perspective. Feeding ourselves is both a practical and spiritual issue. Perhaps when it is a matter of "sticker shock" we well get it.

While I think I hear a few vegetarians chuckling out there, I'm interested to hear your thoughts about all this.Is part of all this becoming less dependent on animal protein in our diets? Or about fair compensation to farmers? Is the end of bacon a sign of the apigalypse?

More Gateway

This morning I waited to leave home so I could listen to an interview on CBC radio's The Current.  The two men being interviewed were from the British Columbia communities of Smithers and Dawson, both in the vicinity or direct path of the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline linking Alberta oilsands with the BC coast. The mayor of Dawson is taking a wait-and-see approach to the review process because his community is already an oil and gas town. The mayor of Smithers is opposed because much of the local economy is dependent on tourism and a portion of the pipeline will follow a river which is prime fishing. He pointed out that not a single BC municipality has endorsed the pipeline to date, while many stakeholders are strongly against it.Both men were intelligent, well-spoken and had good insights, albeit from different perspectives.

For the past year I have been reminding Oshawa Presbytery of the United Church that BC Conference has been very involved in the discussion about the pipeline. And at General Council 41 this past August the United Church took a public stand opposing the pipeline for a number of reasons including solidarity with First Nations in the area and environmental.

This is not an easy discussion because Canada is a resource-rich nation and simply opposing every development makes no sense. But we seem to be in a political moment where resource extraction for short-term gain trumps all other concerns. There just isn't any long-term strategy and that is scary.

 

Have any of you been following the Northern Gateway discussions? Should we keep our noses out of this as a church? We already have people grumbling that we are too social action oriented. What does this have to do with Jesus?

As Seen On TV!

This morning the folks from Breakfast Television in Toronto came to Bowmanville at the crack of dawn -- literally. In the gloom of an early Fall morning they came to have one of the on-air team plunge into Bowmanville Creek and chase salmon with a net. Strange but true. If this sounds like a weird dream, add in the mayor and some local councillors, all there to track down the large salmon moving upstream which I wrote about recently. Take a look: http://www.nationalprostaff.com/report/3729/Breakfast+Television+at+the+Salmon+lift

Because the construction of a new fish ladder was postponed earlier in the Summer, and then postponed again, a team of volunteers has been recruited to catch and lift the fish over the dam so they can make their way up into the Bowmanville watershed. The BT team was there today because they have reached the 5,000 fish mark, but they have been able to identify and count other species as well as salmon.

The irony is that now tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of people across the GTA are  aware of this fish ladder project. I had the folk from Valleys 2000 bring their display to Oshawa Presbytery when it was at Trinity UC in the Spring. This reaches a much wider audience. The guy from BT was astounded at the activity in the pond, as so many are. We really are disconnected from the natural world and its processes, the everyday miracles of changing seasons, migration, procreation. As we continue through Creation Time we have a right-on-the-doorstep example and we can watch it live and in person, not just on television.

At least one member, Laura, was there this morning. Are there others who have gone down to watch in recent days?

Earthships

There was an article/video in the Toronto Star recently about an "earthship" home built in the stark, beautiful landscape near Taos, New Mexico. These pounded or rammed earth homes are designed and created to maintain temperatures across a broad range from hot to cold as part of the earth rather than imposed on the earth. So many home, including most of ours, are built to defy the elements with air-conditioning in summer and furnaces and winter. These are built on an entirely different premise and apparently they work. http://www.thestar.com/videozone/1257352--building-a-home-off-the-grid

Somehow I have seen these houses near Taos, although I never intended to visit them. I was on retreat at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico one January and a group of college students were there at the same time (thankfully not at the retreat house!), using it as a base camp for day trips. At mealtime one of the leader asked if I was interested in going to Taos which is a UN World Heritage Site for the oldest continuously inhabited aboriginal community, the pueblo there. So I tagged along and on our way we passed a colony of these earthship homes.

As the builder in the video suggests, these homes can be built in Canada as well. Randy Bachman of Guess Who fame built one out West and it is impressive.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ra4Pldetd_M  Sure, you say, you can do anything with enough money, and rock stars have the cash. But there are modest urban homes which are energy efficient as well.

As a Christian I'm convinced we are in the process of reinventing ourselves as the church because we simply have to do so. Conventional thinking can sound the death knell for institutions. We are going to have to rethink our relationship with our Earthship planet as well.

What do you think? Could places like these be home? Can we learn to think and create differently?

Net Worth

What is a tract of land which is "undeveloped" or a park worth? Is there any value if resources aren't extracted or a strip mall erected? Take a look at this excerpt from an article in yesterday's Toronto Star. A consulting group has carefully estimated the value of the new Rouge National Park at over $100 million -- per year.

Mary Ormsby Feature Writer

Free oxygen. Free filtered water. Free flood control.

Free pollution storage. Free pollination services.

The Rouge National Urban Park to the Greater Toronto Area: “You’re welcome.”

Work by the natural world to boost the health and well-being of the environment — carbon-storing trees, water-purifying wetlands, bees as flying fertilizers — has carried on for centuries in the lands, watersheds and valleys that will soon become Canada’s largest urban park. It’s also work done with scant human notice or gratitude.

“We treat the benefits we get from nature as if they’re invisible, as if they have no value,” says Faisal Moola, director of Ontario programs for the David Suzuki Foundation.
Those benefits have now been quantified as dollar amounts in a study released Thursday by the foundation to demonstrate how vital the natural economy is to surrounding communities.
Written by Sara Wilson of Natural Capital Research & Consulting, the study estimates the Rouge region provides $115 million annually in ecosystem services that benefit the GTA.
“I never understood why, when a tree gets turned into a piece of two-by-four when you clear cut from a forest, then it has value to our economy because you can sell or buy that two-by-four,” says Moola.
“But when you keep that tree standing and you don’t destroy it, it continues to help filter our drinking water, it produces oxygen that we breathe and it provides habitat for endangered species.”

I have to wonder if God isn't saying "well, duh!" on this one. This isn't the first time this sort of estimate for value has been applied, but this is close to home.

Have you ever seen this before? What do you think?

Mean as Dirt

Do you know that expression "mean as dirt?" How did dirt get such a tough reputation?|This coming Sunday will be our third in Creation Time 2012 and the theme will be earth --dirt. We tend to think of dirt as, well, dirt. It doesn't occur to us that earth needs to be healthy and alive with microbes and bacteria for other living things to thrive in it.

The earth and the land are very important themes in scripture and rightly so. When dirt "dies" it is good for nothing. And soil which has been mistreated by certain forms of agriculture and erosion requires increasing applications of chemicals to make it a viable growing culture. Should the expression should be "mean as humans" because it is our often destructive practices which deplete and compromise the health of soil?

We can do better and why wouldn't we, knowing that we are groundlings or earthlings ourselves, according to scripture and our basic composition. In the end we are all composted and return to the soil, so we should start early in making friends with our hosts.

Any earthy observations? Made a mud pie lately?

The New Guy on the Block

This is an interesting face, don't you think? Chances are this is the first time you have ever seen one because this species of monkey has just been discovered by scientists in Central Africa. It has been known to locals simply as lesula, a medium sized, slender animal that looks similar to an owl-faced monkey already known to scientists.

New primate species are rare, but they do show up from time to time. There are many other discoveries though, and the estimate is that only one sixth of the world's species have been identified -- how do they know that if they haven't been discovered? Hmm, well I'll take the word of the scientific community.

The challenge is not identification. It is ensuring habitat isn't destroyed by humans for species we don't even know about yet. Whether you are an ardent creationist or hard-nosed evolutionist or somewhere in between, this world is remarkable in its diversity. I thank God for the vast variety of creatures of every shape and size. I just hope we don't end up as the voracious killer species that turns creation into a biological wasteland. In the case of the lesula, the illegal deforestation of the Democratic Republic of Congo laying waste to its habitat.

I would like to believe that humans can be a force for good rather than destruction because we have the God-given humility to see the intrinsic value of other creatures, not just the monetary value of resources. It does seem to be a tough sell. This lesula seems to be saying "what do you mean 'new species',--I've been here all along!

 

What is your response to this discovery? Are religions a help or a hindrance to the efforts to respect other species?

Sacred Trust

Where is Bowmanville, Ontario, Canada? Well, it is about 75 kilometres east of Toronto, not far from Oshawa,  straddling highway 401. How am I doing?

What I left out is that our community is at the edge of one of the largest bodies of fresh water in the world,  Lake Ontario. And a creek flowing into that lake is one of the most significant spawning tributaries for rainbow trout and salmon in the province, not to mention the marsh through which it flows.

I don't know about you, but I would rather be identified by my proximity to a lake than a highway. We are not only residents of a community called Bowmanville, but part of the Bowmanville Watershed which is the intricate web of waterways which empty into Lake Ontario.

Last week Canada and the United States updated its cooperative agreement on the Great Lakes and that is a great development. We need to work together to protect these bodies of water in areas such as invasive species and pollution. After all, millions rely on the Great Lakes for drinking water.

This past Sunday we explored the theme of fire as part of Creation Time. This week it will be water, which in scripture is both practical and spiritual. There are so many river and well stories in the bible, as portals into new relationships and a promised land. And Lake Kinneret, or the Sea of Galilee, is where Jesus called his disciples into a new life. We should regard water as both holy and a sacred trust.

What is your history with water? Are you a paddler, or a swimmer? Does being around water have an effect on your spirit?

The Locavore's Delight

Join us for a

Fall Harvest Supper

Saturday,September 15,2012

6:30 pm at Solina Community Center

Advance Tickets Only - $20 per person

 For Tickets Call: Herb Tink - 905 263- 8380

Karen Dair- 905 263- 8886

Jenny Bowman 905 263 -8245

Come early or stay late to meet your local producers

in the Upper Hall from 4:30 - 8:00

Bring all your questions

A couple in the congregation alerted us to an event to be held in a nearby community at which local food producers will have samples of their wares, followed by a Harvest Dinner. We are going to the dinner and this will give us an opportunity to speak to those who are growing and producing locally.

I am reading a book called The Locavore's Dilemma in which the authors who are economists argue that buying locally is not cost-efficient, especially in northern climes such as ours. They suggest that "buying local" may actually undermine the economy because this food is often more expensive, and therefore diverts our spending from other goods and services. And they have a forward to the book who says bluntly that most farmers aren't interested in getting to know the people who buy their products and just want to make a decent living.

Well, I have met many farmers who do like to get to know their customers and I enjoy the contact with them. They want to make a decent living but often choose different ways and lesser income because they are concerned about the state of the world, as well as their own health and well-being. A farmer in our son, Isaac's congregation has gone organic because he was troubled by the number of creatures he found dead in his fields after spraying pesticides.

When I was in Colorado last year one speaker talked about the reduced life span of migrant workers in the Salinas Valley of California where much of North America's lettuce is grown. More economically feasible? Yes, but what are the bigger costs?

I will keep reading, and attend the supper.

Thoughts?

The New Noah

The Biebs is everywhere, isn't he? The cover of Rolling Stone- -- go figure. In my day, the old guy wheezed through his gums, the cover was home for rock stars, not pop stars, but that was literally in another century.

It is not the all-Canadian boy whose story I want to mention from that issue. The handy little arrow points to an article by the prolific writer and new Noah, as someone has called him, Bill McKibben. http://www.billmckibben.com/ I have written about Mr. McKibben before because he is a well-respected voice on the important subject of climate change. Actually, he uses the older term, global warming, because the math shows us that the planet is getting hotter and we humans are making it happen.

At the beginning of the article in Rolling Stone http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719
he mentions a rainstorm in Saudi Arabia which happened even though the temperature was 109 degrees Fahrenheit (43 Celcius) making it the hottest downpour in recorded history.  McKibben's 350.org  initiative http://www.350.org/en/node/22 is an attempt to get us to wake up to the dramatic increases in greenhouses (now well above 350 parts per million) which results in climate change.

It's not out of line to refer to McKibben as a modern-day Noah because he plugs away at the cause even though it doesn't seem that a lot of us are listening. A recent poll in Canada found that 98% of us believe that humans contribute to climate change, which is a start. But we seem paralyzed when it comes to changing our destructive ways. We are amongst the most voracious consumers of energy in the world and the tar sands have given us an international black eye. In the States -- home for  McKibben -- the percentage is in the 60's. Bill aka Noah is also a Christian and teaches Sunday School in his rural Vermont congregation. I actually contacted him once to ask if he brings his environmentalism into Sunday School.

At times I wonder if I have gotten worse rather than better when it comes to my energy consumption, and because the problems are so vast I just tune out some of the bad news. But McKibben points out that while many of us may have a will, there is no way the fossil-fuel giants will readily comply with the notion of regulations which might limit profits.

What about you? Have you grown weary or cynical?  Are you more or less committed to caring for creation? Have you made lifestyle choices which reflect your faith in a Creator?

Earth Family

Mitt Romney cares about families. It must be true because that's what he said at the Republican Convention. He cares so much about them that he chose to mock President Obama's spurious promises to look after the oceans and other such nonsense: "Obama promised to slow the rise of the oceans and to heal the planet...My promise is to help you and your family."

I was at a lakeside cottage with my family, including my wife, our three adult children, and their partners when I heard this on the morning news. What made me heartsick is that Romney paused for the appreciative laughter of the audience twice. Silly, misguided president -- what on earth is he thinking. When I mentioned this at breakfast our 27-year-old immediately commented that if we don't heal the earth, we won't have families. This seems so obvious, and the pres wannabe's logic so flawed that it takes my breath away. Of course I am a confused Canadian.

Both the president and his opponent have invoked religion and God in their marathon toward the election because that is what American candidates do. What does Mr. Romney do with "the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof? And what about the creation covenant God establishes with Noah and his extended family in Genesis 9?

Some observers are calling these phrases a signature statement about the Republicans' view on the environment and issues of planetary health, even though they were throw-aways in a speech. I'm inclined to agree.

Did you notice those sentiments in the midst of the hoopla of the convention? Do they scare you?

Beginnings

YHWH Elohim took the groundling and placed him in the garden of Eden
to serve it and preserve it. Genesis 2:15

I am already a blogger at Lion Lamb, and often I touch on creation themes because I believe in a Creator as an aspect of the Trinity, and that I am part of that Creation. But through this Groundling blog, I am entering a new experiment and opportunity to explore the earthiness of my faith. I am not so heavenly minded that I can't recognize that God is the potter who has dirt under his/her fingernails, metaphorically speaking.

I plan to toss everything in here along the way: opinions, scripture, poetry, links to articles, book reviews. Often I'm unsure where to put the treasures I discover. This will be the place. There will likely be some blog spillage, the overlap from one blog to another, but I hope you will be patient.

I am borrowing my blog name without shame from William Brown's remarkable book, The Seven Pillars of Creation. He describes the adam of Genesis as a groundling or earthling. Brown's translation of Genesis 2: 15 uses the term "groundling. I am delighted to be a Groundling and I hope you are as well.

Please comment along the way about your joys and frustrations, pleasures and outrage, as a person of faith rooted in the clay of this wonderful world God has brought into being.