A Quick Project

This is a photo of a raised bed for vegetables that I constructed in one night out of 100% recycled wood found in the alleys of our neighborhood (mostly from old box springs that people had thrown out).  I actually collected the wood on foot and dug the dirt I used to fill it that same night. The green landscape cloth lining it is made 100% from recycled plastic water bottles.

Those Who Were His Own Did Not Receive Him

The cruel psychological torture Jesus must have endured in being rejected by “his own.”  Those who should have naturally welcomed him, the righteous, the spiritual, the “do-gooders,” the wise, those who absolutely and sincerely believed they were on the side of decency and justice; they were the very ones who pushed him away.  And further, he had to endure seeing many good people, people who should have been his most faithful companions, go over to the side of those who rejected him without even realizing what they were really doing.  So he befriended those who didn’t count: the losers, the marginal, those who were seen as not amounting to anything.  In the end, they, too, abandoned him, at least temporarily, choosing to stand with the in-group rather than the outsider; Peter, his trusted friend, telling the “popular kids,” the bullies, “I don’t know him.”  Jesus shows supreme love when he dies for all of them, for the very humanity that has discarded him--that has shown itself unworthy of his love.  

     It is that love which we must have for all our brothers and sisters, even in the face of rejection and marginalization, of being cast out and being seen as unworthy, even though we be as lonely and mocked as Jesus by the very people who see themselves as blameless, for it is that love which saves not only us but them as well.

Our Daily Bread

Die Philosophie kann kein Brot backen, aber sie kann uns Gott, Freiheit und Unsterblichkeit verschaffen.

Philosophy can bake no bread, but it may give us God, freedom, and immortality.

                                                            --Novalis

                                                                                                                       

Fortunately, Libby does bake bread for us amateur philosophers.

...participating, humbly, in God's design:

"give us this day our daily bread,"

Jesus asked us to pray

for this work, divine.

The Fruits of the Earth

peaches ripening, and rosemary

Whoso eateth of the fruits of the earth

And rendereth not to the goodness of heaven

The gift of his labour, that man is a thief.

He robs the whole world…

                --Bhagavad Gita, tr. Vinoba Bhave     

tender nopales, and tunas about to bloom

      

young chile pepper plants glistening in the morning sun

cactus flowers and bees

May 5 (International Day of the Midwife)

In the garden: two American Painted Lady butterflies in a fragile mating dance.  The pomegranates are blooming, and tiny apples and peaches hang from the trees, set to slowly ripen in the days ahead.  Mint and California poppies and rosemary and catnip everywhere.  Lantanas and scabiosas draw the butterflies, who lay their eggs on the lilac (Tiger Swallowtails), orange trees and rue (Giant Swallowtails) and parsley (Black Swallowtails).  Soon the chaste-berry trees and tiny spearmint flowers will also draw the Sleepy Yellows and Western Pygmy-Blues, and the wonderful Western Tailed Blues with their clever, antenna-like decoy tails.  In the garden: fertility and life and beauty.

Happy International Day of the Midwife to my midwife friends everywhere!  May we honor you on this day and always.