The Good Earth of Good Friday

On this Holy Saturday I got out the buckets and the pitchfork. I poured the H20 in the composter, then stirred it throughly with the fork. I realized part way through the effort that someone else will be applying the outcome, since we are moving in a few weeks, but that didn't deter me. It was good to be reminded of gardens and growth on this largely ignored transition day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Holy Saturday is, for the most part, Grocery and Liquor Store Saturday, judging by the crowded parking lots around town.

I hadn't realized that in the Southern States this weekend is a traditional planting time for gardeners, something which be ill-advised in our region, even with the latest possible Easter and a changing climate. I saw an article by Stacey Smith called The Good Earth of Good Friday which I will share with you in part:

My grandfather used to always say that you should plant your garden on Good Friday. An intensely practical man, he shunned such frivolities as flowers and squash—a vegetable he regarded as inedible—but planted rows and rows of butter beans, tomatoes, peas and green beans in the dark soil of his north Georgia garden. As a little girl, my mother remembers putting on my grandmother’s high heels and going out in the backyard garden with my grandfather. She would dig the heel of her shoe into the brown dirt where my grandfather would then place a seed. As a child myself, I remember sitting with him on the porch snapping green beans before dinner. And each of those beans grew out of a seed that found its way into the ground on Good Friday.

The tradition of planting your garden on Good Friday is an old standard in the South. Some say that it grew out of the time of the potato famine when gardeners needed an extra blessing to make their crops grow. It may also be simply that Good Friday is often a day off from work and a chance to spend extra time outdoors. Many gardeners, however, view it as impractical because Good Friday moves around. Some years it’s in late March when a hard frost could destroy the seeds, and other times it falls deep into April when your garden should already be planted. Yet for my grandfather and lots of other gardeners, Good Friday is the best day of the year to plant the seeds that will produce food in the coming months.

This tradition is a way of demonstrating that in the midst of death—even death on a cross—we continue to have hope. On this day of darkness and death, we testify that the hope we have in Christ is one that will bear fruit—and vegetables. And even if those seeds of hope are buried deep in the earth, in the darkness of the soil when a hard frost can still threaten the crop, the good earth of Good Friday reminds us that death does not have the final word. Planting a garden on this day means that we trust that life is stronger than death, that light is stronger than darkness, and that the spring is stronger than the winter we are leaving behind.

I suppose we will be content with the snow drops and crocuses and scilla, anticipating a later blooming and harvest.

Thoughts?

The Green Pope

This morning Pope Francis used the occasion of his Inaugural Mass to state his conviction that to live out the gospel means discovering Christ's heart for the poor and dispossessed. He included humans who marginalized and subjected to oppression, but went a step further and extended that compassion to all living things and creation itself.

"It means respecting each of God's creatures and respecting the environment in which we live. It means protecting people, showing loving concern for each and every person, especially children, the elderly, those in need, who are often the last we think about…"

In this statement he came alongside Saint Francis, but even more so he connected with the Christ who always saw the downtrodden and those who were invisible to others. It will be interesting to see how this is manifested in Francis' leadership for a Christian body of more than a billion followers. To my mind he has this absolutely right. The issues of the environment affect the poor of the planet the most, and, conversely, until the meek of the earth find their way out of poverty we can't expect them to focus on protection of the Earth.

While I appreciate that a number of you confessed recently that you don't really care about the election of Francis as pope, I do hope he can make a difference. Who knows, even though he wore the purple of Lent today, he could be the greenest pope yet.

What do you think about today's comments? Are any of you encouraged?

Endangered Royalty

You might recall me blogging about acclaimed writer Barbara Kingsolver's latest novel called Flight Behavour. It is about an Appalachian mountain family whose lives are changed by the mysterious appearance of  tens of thousands of monarch butterflies on their property at a time when the tiny but beautiful insects would usually be in Mexico. Kingsolver manages to tell a tale of climate change without putting us to sleep with earnestness. I really enjoyed the novel and recommend it.

Well, it turns out that fiction is a lot like truth, in terms of scientific evidence. We have just been told that the monarch butterfly population in Mexico dropped 60% from December 2011 to December 2012. Traditionally wintering monarchs blanketed 50 acres in the forested mountain region, but in 2012 it was three acres.

What a strange summer it would be without monarchs, but that may be the reality before long. Wintering habitat is disappearing, but so is summer habitat in our neck of the woods We build and pave over areas where milkweed once flourished, which means nothing for the butterflies to thrive on. Here in Bowmanville we are on the north shore of Lake Ontario and monarchs stage at Second Marsh and WIlmot Creek. I recall our wonder duirng one evening walk at first seeing monarchs festooning tree branches along the Samuel Wilmot trail. I had no idea this happened in Canada but the migration map below shows a major flight path through our area.

It would be a God-awful world without monarch butterflies, but there are many other species we humans are destroying rather than tending. So much for being stewards of Creation.

Comments?

Non-Vicious Cycle

A number of St. Paul's members have been chafing for the opportunity to get out on their bicycles, but winter has got in the way. Last year March included almost summery weather allowing us to get out and about, and even this year we had a few days of "Junuary" with sufficient warmth for a ride or two. But we are recreational cyclists, not serious commuter riders. We know that in Toronto Mayor Ford is appalled at the war on the poor, misunderstood automobile and doesn't really want those annoying cyclists clogging car lanes.

Meanwhile, across The Pond the mayor of  London, Great Britain (pictured above) has announced an ambitious and expensive initiative to integrate bicycles into the transportation system, with dedicated and separate bicycle routes. Boris Johnson has already made the bold move of levying fees on vehicles coming into the core of the city in an attempt to reduce congestion and pollution. That created a storm of protest when it was introduced but has proven to be successful. Here is a description of the proposed bicycle program

A “Crossrail for the bike” is to be built across Central London as part of a radical £900 million investment to create a grid of segregated and safe cycle lanes around the capital. Running along key Tube lines and the River Thames, the new lanes – which it is hoped will be completed by 2016 – will be “very substantially segregated” from traffic and will include separated cycle routes along the Victoria Embankment and on the Westway flyover in West London.

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, today announced how a decade-long £913 million investment in cycling would be spent in the capital, and described the proposals as “transformative” for the city. The plan will link the existing Cycle Superhighways that currently end in different parts of Central London.
“Cycling will be treated not as niche, marginal, or an afterthought,” he said, “but as what it is: an integral part of the transport network, with the capital spending, road space and traffic planners’ attention befitting that role.”

Can you imagine a Canadian mayor proposing a billion dollar plus program for bicycle corridors? We are addicted to our vehicles and even in towns the size of Bowmanville bikes are just a nuisance. I went to a public consultation on new and replacement bridges over the 401 in Clarington. Guess what? No provision for bicycles at all. The planning and engineering staff outnumbered local citizens but when I asked questions the answers were vague or just wrong.

It can be a challenge to connect the dots between bicycles and faith, but if we say we are agin climate change and fossil fuel dependency because God wants us to care for the planet we better come up with creative alternatives, even expensive ones.

What do you think of London's plan? Just plain crazy, or crazy like an eco-friendly fox?

Tidal Power

Every time there is a competition for the Seven Wonders of the Natural World Canada's Bay of Fundy ends up on the short list, although not in the top seven. Fundy is truly remarkable because of the diversity of sea life, including whales. It is also unique in its tidal rise and fall, the highest of any place of the world. The twice-daily ebb and flow is accentuated by what is called a seche. Simply put, the long, narrow shape of the bay creates an effect similar to what happens in a bathtub when we make a wave which runs to one end and then sloshes back toward the other end. This seche effect combined with the lunar pull creates the high tides.

Those of you who have seen Fundy tides know that they are so powerful that they flow like a turbulent river around points of land, or between points such as the mouth of the Minas Basin. Enter those who would like to harness this power to generate energy.

There is already a small tidal project on the Nova Scotia side (below) but an expert from the UK is in Halifax now speaking about the installations which have come on line there since 2008, and are much larger in scale.

I do believe that we will find our way into alternate forms of energy by fits and starts. We have come to realize that biofuels are probably a bad idea, using productive land to produce fuel rather than food. Wind power may be a mistake except in areas well away from human habitation. Solar has a big upside and tidal power may as well, if we can figure out how to protect marine ecosystems.

While musing about power sources may not seem to be a Christian concern for many, the bible does invite us to be responsible stewards of the planet. Lopping the tops off mountains for coal and strip-mining bitumen/oil sands deposits doesn't strike me as being respectful of Creation or the Creator.

What do you think folks?