Deep philosophical potato question.

Yesterday I dug the last four rows of potatoes that we grew. (I know avid gardeners will be shocked... they should have been out of the ground ages ago!) The seed potatoes that were planted for two of the rows were throw- out potatoes from Willowbank Fire Station. They were tidying up their garden and had a box of old, wild, self sown potatoes that they gave me to take home and plant. The other two rows were serious, certified seed potatoes from a garden shop, which were planted a little later but in, what I thought was better well worked soil. The old, self sown spuds given to me produced the best crop by far! Both had to grow among weeds and were given just a little attention. They were earthed up only once and I put pea straw on top of them at one stage.

It is very nice harvesting your own food! I would have to say, though, I would not have needed to go to the gym for a workout, nearly every muscle in my upper body ached a little.(they were long rows) But when I looked at a wheelbarrow full of healthy spuds, which I know have not been sprayed and are essentially free food, it is a good buzz. I look forward to when I retire and hopefully have a little more time to farm this acre more purposefully. There are people in the world who could earn a living off this land! (I only hope I am fit enough to enjoy it in four years time!)

My deep philosophical question: How come when you are digging spuds, even when you think carefully about where you put your fork in the soil, and think you have it right, you ALWAYS put a tine through the best and biggest spud, .....or sometimes two or three! You carefully calculate. "The plant top comes out of the ground here!... That would be about the centre. Therefore if I put my fork in... here.... I will miss the potatoes and lever up the crop!" You push the fork in the ground and feel and hear the unmistakable sound of a potato being pierced! Why does mother nature do that to you? Anyone who has harvested potatoes knows that feel.

I once worked for a dutch man. He was a child in Holland during the war. He told how the family was poor and often hungry. His parents would send him out into the country to a potato paddock after it had been harvested. His job was to pick through the soil and find the little potatoes or damaged potatoes that were left behind, and bring them back for the extended family. He told of having worked all day for a small wheelbarrow load of spuds and setting out to walk home. His journey was interrupted by soldiers who took the load off him. He said this happened to him more than once and he had to learn to sneak through the streets, watching out for, and trying to avoid the soldiers.

Photo: The spuds from the two good rows. Max my dog accompanied me. Why do dogs love chewing on silverbeet and other plants in the garden? We once had a dog who would eat the strawberries as soon as they became red! Max chewed on silverbeet, turnips and potatoes. He did seem to know what "Get off the garden!" mean't. Maybe it was just the tone of my voice?

Friendly expressions

As I look back on this week I consider that I am a lucky man. I have had a number of expressions of friendship this week which all add up to a boost to my "emotional energy".

I went to do my chaplaincy at the fire station on Tuesday. As I walked across the yard I met a fire officer and greeted him. We caught up on how each other was as we walked toward the mess (military name for dinning room) for afternoon tea. They had shared an exercise with ambulance and police staff so the mess was packed with extra fire crews and visitors. I followed him into the kitchen and paused to greet other firefighters on the way. I went to the cupboard to get myself a cup. "There's no cups!" I complained. This impatient but friendly voice came from the other side of the kitchen... "I've got your cup... what do you want in it?" We made our chosen drink together and I stopped to catch up with another fire fighter. By the time I had got to the crowded mess room my fire officer friend had gone to quite some trouble to organise a seat for me. It was above and beyond the call of duty, it was an expression of friendship. He still gave me cheek and we had a bit of banter going backward and forward, but his gestures made me feel welcome in this crowded room.

I seldom wander the shopping streets of town. I make quick excursions to get what I want, and rush back to my office. But since I started my chaplaincy at Allied Press I have walked the four or five blocks there at least twice a week. I seldom make the journey without stopping to talk to someone. A person from one of my chaplaincies, a drop-in centre person, Darryl the street sweeper or a Habitat for Humanity acquaintance. It is then I realise that I do know a lot of people.

On Thursday I called at the Allied Press and in the process of my visiting went out to where the actual printing presses are. I wandered among these big machines looking for the men. I met them by the sink where they were washing their hands in preparation for a tea break. As we were right near the presses I asked a question about the printing process. This man went to no end of trouble to explain it to me showing me the various parts of the machines and ending up in the control room laying out a newspaper so that I could understand the process. I realised that he was taking his break time to do this for me, and I really appreciated it. Again it was a little expression of friendship that made me feel more welcome in this place.

I visited the TV station attached to Allied Press and introduced myself to a man there. He was working at a computer and told me he was a producer. He was doing graphics for a news show, the pictures that you see over the shoulder of the news reader. I had only met this man, but he went to some trouble to show me how he timed them into the show and how the fit together. Sometimes as chaplain you feel a bit shunned, or a bit like you are seen as an interruption around the place, but this small gesture made me feel accepted. As I talked to another man in a hall way I was quite taken by the number of people who went past and waved, or nodded or smiled in recognition of my presence. Small gestures but ones that help you feel accepted.

These are just some of the expressions of friendship I have encountered. Each gives you a feeling of being wanted. Today there was another. We had a couple visiting. He is a chaplain to a school. She is a minister who trained late in life, and during her training she did an internship with me. I only talked to her and her husband briefly after the service, but we have the sort of friendship where in two words we are on the same wavelength. We share the same sort of goals, suffer the same sort of frustrations and have a similar theological outlook. Just a few minutes of conversation and I felt less alone in ministry. She only said a few sentences to me, but immediately I knew that she knew where I was at. It was really refreshing. When someone on your wave length shares with you somehow the inner reserves are built up and life feels better.

Tonight... thank you Lord for friendship. For small friendly expressions that make life sweeter and for deeper connections that tie you to people in spite of distance and lack of contact.

Food and energy from our section. Recently as I have looked at my meal at home I have been able to see that every vegetable on the plate was grown in our garden. Carrots, parsnips, turnips, the greens and the potatoes. It is a good feel. We have been lighting the fire and we know that the wood that keeps our house warm came off our acre too. Perhaps I should drill for oil? Now that would be cool!

Drop-in centre agony

I often watch people at our drop-in centre and wonder if other folk I share with have any idea what life is like for these friends of mine. I am sure many I mix with in chaplaincy and church work would never conceive of the hurdles in life these people face. If they had some idea, my guess is that many of them would still say it is their fault. Without sharing names I will share with you some conversations or incidents that broke my heart.

A mother was there with two of her children. Mum must be thirty-ish. She has three children, to different dads, but the youngest has been taken off her, and the other two girls are essentially brought up by their grandmother. At one stage, with some encouragement from my wife, mum was helping the youngest child (7yrs) to make a Mothers' day card, I guessed for grandmother. I had just sat down to watch TV and chat with another man. Suddenly the little exuberant 7 year old stood in front of me and demanded to know how to spell "Mother". Perhaps a fair enough question for a 7 year old, but I discovered that thirty-something, mum had sent the child over. It was she who could not spell "mother". ..... Now that is sad!

The man I was talking to as I watched TV has been deaf all his life. It is only recently that he has got hearing aids and he can hear now, to some degree, and converse more freely. He is in his forties now, and when sober, really quite a likable man. He was upset. He had a girlfriend/partner who stabbed him. It was the second time it had happened, and was quite a vicious stab in the abdomen. She is now in prison in Christchurch and over the last months he has spent quite a bit of money visiting her. He is sure she is a reformed person now and looks forward to moving back in with her after her return. On Friday night he was broken hearted. He did not have the $100 necessary for the travel to Christchurch and it was her birthday on Monday. He was quite anguished about it, but we decided that he could write a letter to her that she would appreciate and put it in a birthday card. Damned if I would move back with a woman who had stabbed me twice! I hope it pans out OK. In this blog I cannot pass on the way this man talks. Deaf all his life he pronounces the words quite differently, and accompanies the words with very animated actions. Lately each time he arrives he makes a bee line for me to tell me the latest drama in his life.... if he is sober. He is quite aggressive with a few in.

Another man I have known for many years and I admire him. He has had mental health issues and drug issues well in the past I think, but mostly is quite rational. He built his own house with lots of arguments with the local council and tends to be a bit of a rebel and paranoid. You get the sense he sees the "authorities" as enemies, who sometimes conspire against free souls like him. For some time now he has told us about his battle with bed bugs. He has them throughout his house and has spent money trying to clear them out. On Friday night I just had to ask how he was and he broke down in tears. He had enough! The beasties had beaten him. He said emphatically... "If I get bitten tonight I will blow my head off! I am talking suicide!" This mature, normally rational man was at the end of his tether. I talked about options. He was desperate for support. I lined up a bed in the night shelter, got his land line and mobile number and said I would ring him in the morning. When I got home I googled "bedbugs" and studied the results. I did a crash course on the nasty little insects. I rang him in the morning, he had not stayed in the night shelter, but had slept well without any more bites and was in a far better "head space". We talked more about options and he appreciated the support. I promised I would "be there" if needed.

Another man spent the night playing pool. All seemed happy, but once again when someone did something wrong he got upset. He is notorious for this sort of behaviour. He threatened, and insulted and pouted. The "wrongdoer" apologised but our man is emotionally stunted, and still huffed and puffed. The alleged wrong doer had more wisdom. He said, "Look we're all adults here, aren't we?" When he was still rebuffed he moved off to the other side of the room. As I looked at the man who was still really a child, still muttering and pouting, I felt sad again.

A simple woman came up to me wanting to talk "privately". I knew that this was to ask for money. She was living with a man who had cancer. He was very ill, really had just drunk too much, drugged to much and smoked too much in his life and it had all caught up on him. Now she had to care for him, showering him, cooking etc. and she was struggling. She was pathetic in fluttering her eyelids, getting up close, hoping for money. But it was so sad. Both of them needed proper care and support, but really it is just not there for them.

These are just a sample of these sort of people. I ache for them. What has happened in their past to get them here? Some of that is ghastly stuff. How do they fit into our fast-living community? Is there support for them? How best can they be supported?

I look at these folk, I actually think I love them and I ache for them.

The old that is new.

Over the last two weeks I have been relating to a very keen and clever young man. He is into sustainability, building a resilient society for when "peak oil" hits us and all this stuff. Now I am all for it. I think we have to do stuff related to climate change and the big changes ecologically that are hitting us at an alarming rate. He is working with young people, raising awareness, encouraging resilience and generally getting them on board. But it is funny that sometimes I had to bite my tongue.

He brought some books in to add to the church library. He saw them as revolutionary books but as he went through them there were several I had, and I thought I could easily add to his library on the subjects. He earnestly told me that the people from the church could borrow them if they were interested. His implication was that it would be good for them to get on board with this "new" lifestyle. Most were about vegetable gardening and such things. I felt like saying that the generation in church could probably have written the books! The types of things he was doing were the sorts of things their generation learned and did as part of providing for their family. They repaired things rather than threw them out. They made jams, preserved fruit, grew vegetables and composted way before it became the fashionable thing to do. He was telling me about some "new" way of ripening tomatoes, and I nearly said, (Like a belligerent old man) "Now listen here son, my wife has been doing that for forty years!" or another time I nearly said, "Hey I have been growing vegetables since I was eight years old!"

I held my tongue. I am delighted that young people are latching on to the ways of life that have been neglected in recent generations. I think they will be better for it. In my experience there is something that creates a wholeness and inner completeness about working the soil, watching things grow and seeing where food comes from. Such activity puts us in touch with the rhythms of life, helps us appreciate the forces of nature and enables us to taste life more fully. Rain becomes something appreciated and not just a nuisance. Gardening, living more basically gives us a good "grounding" in life. It even gets us more prepared for death as a part of life.

I may suggest to this young man that as part of his work he sit down and chat to older people. They will have great knowledge and experience to offer him, and it may just close the gap between generations.

I could not help thinking of the song, "I was country, when country wasn't cool."

What a week of exercise...so far. Saturday- quick walk up Mt Cargill. Sunday- small run. Monday- a bit of a spin on my wind trainer. Tuesday- early morning spin on my wind trainer and some weights. Today an early morning spin on the wind trainer and this evening a 9 K run. My legs felt a bit "heavy" tonight though. I hope to spin tomorrow morning then I will have a rest day. I may yet get thinner and fitter. :-)

I talked today with an old friend on the phone. He is now well into his eighties. He was a clever man, a manager in his working life and very quick witted. Now he has considerable health problems and it seemed to me as we talked on the phone he had slowed up quite a bit. Where as once he would respond quickly with some retort, now he seemed to have to think about each sentence. I felt a bit sad. It felt like a part of him had gone. Getting old is a bugger! ... though as someone said to me the other day, "If you're not getting old, you're compost!"

Charter for compassion

I have been planning for my church services in May. Starting with Mother's day I hope to explore the "Charter for Compassion". I am convinced that it is an important movement and right emphasis for a true understanding of "Religion". It is so important that if religious people do not get on board we and our faiths deserve to be consigned to the waste-paper basket of History. On my new Macbook pro (I have named it "My-mate-Mac") I have just watched Karen Armstrong present her plea. I encourage you, whoever you are to listen to it.

I am hoping to do some stirring about it around Dunedin. Wish me luck.

Practical simplicity

To complete my burbling on simplicity I thought I would include some practical steps to take to live a less consumptive lifestyle. These are other people's ideas from my reading.

From Richard Foster's writings..

• Buy things for their usefulness not their status value.
• Learn to give things away to someone who needs them more than you do - reverse the habit of accumulating.
• Learn to enjoy things without owning them. ... parks, museums, libraries or nature.
• Develop a deeper appreciation of the world about you. (Enjoy views, the gifts of nature (fruit, vegetables) the moods of the weather, the variety of people, growth and seasons, health and your own body.)
• Resist buy-now-pay-later schemes.... only get involved if they are truly helpful.

From John V Taylor's book...

• See yourself as a citizen of the planet. - Questions of poverty and environment are distorted if seen in local or national terms.
• Waste watching... where you have a choice: resist obsolescence; choose the longer lasting. Question advertising (In his book he suggests we sit in front of TV adds or printed adverts and say "You have got to be kidding!)... resist wasteful packaging; repair.
• Question your own lifestyle - not your neighbours.
• If possible, work out your way of life with the help of a group. (Family, friends, study group.)

Questions to ask...

1. How can we measure our real needs (by standards of our neighbours or by needs of the poor)?
2. How can we be joyful without being greedy or flamboyant (e.g. hospitality)
3. How can we be good stewards without being over-scrupulous?
4. How can others benefit from what we have (our home, our car and other possessions)?

When I was doing my theological training I had a college Principal, E L (Lyle)Williams, who was one of the wisest men I know in this whole area. He used to speculate with house sections (blocks) and then give the profit he made back to some charity in the community. He would say with a wink, "I plan on making as much money as I can because if I have got it I know the devil hasn't!" He lived relatively simply, but was exceedingly generous in his giving. The outline of a sermon I heard him preach went like this....

• Check how you are making your money whether in your job or in investments. What does making money this way do to other people? What impact does it have on people and the environment etc.? What does making money this way do to me and/or my family?
• Check how we possess our money. We should possess our wealth with a certain detachment. We should possess and control it, rather than being possessed by it.
• Check how we spend/use money. We can live relatively simply, keeping a check on how we rationalise luxuries as necessities. We can live in such a way that we can share our surplus within the community.

One last story. Many years ago as a young parson I spent about an hour in a hospital room with a dying patient, Mary. She had lived a tough old life and in her last years suffered heart troubles, multiple sclerosis and finally had to battle cancer. I mostly sat holding her hand and when she wanted to talk we talked. As she looked back on life she talked about her family, her friends and the charitable groups she had been involved in. As I left her room and said "Good bye" (I think it was the second last time I saw her) I went away feeling that I was ministered to. I came home and walked into the lounge where the family was watching TV. Emotionally exhausted I sat in a chair and blobbed. But when the adverts came on I had to leave the room, they so disturbed me. They seemed so superficial and ludicrous! All the things they were saying I needed, just seemed like crap, compared to the depth of the relationship and conversation I had shared with Mary. Most of the stuff we are told we need does not really make life any better... they just kid us that life will be "good" if we only bought....whatever. But ultimately, when the crap of life is washed away, such as in this final hour with Mary, they don't amount to a hill of beans. It is people, relationships and the quality of love shared that makes life real living.

Why a simpler lifestyle?

Another reason we need to be looking for a less consumptive lifestyle is that environmentally and ecologically this planet is in overload and blowing fuses. Also, because of disproportion, there are fuses blowing between the "haves" and the "have nots" in communities and globally. Some quotes again;

"Originally a unit of population was simply a human being whose needs were met by eating 2,500 calories and 60 grams of protein a day. Man's daily need of energy was equivalent to the continuous burning of a single 100 watt bulb. A unit of population today in the developed world consists of a human being wrapped in tons of steel, copper, aluminium, lead, tin, zinc and plastics each day gobbling up 60 lbs of raw steel and many pounds of other minerals. His energy need instead of being the equivalent to a single 100 watt lamp is equivalent to ten 1,000 watt radiators continuously burning". - Prof. Charles Birch

"It is obvious that the world cannot afford the U.S.A. Nor can it afford western Europe or Japan. In fact we might come to the conclusion that the earth cannot afford the "modern world". It requires too much and accomplishes too little. It is too uneconomic. Think of it: one American drawing on resources that would sustain 50 Indians! The earth cannot afford, say, 15% of it's inhabitants.... to indulge in a crude, materialistic way of life which ravages the earth... The problem passengers on Space-ship Earth are the first-class passengers and no one else. - E. F. Schumacher, Implications of the limits to Growth Debate- "Small is Beautiful."

A few decades have passed since these observations were made and the predictions of global distress made back then are coming true at an alarming rate. Poorer nations, trying to become more developed are having to pay the cost of excess lifestyles by the more developed nations. It is in the western nations that we could be making changes and placing limits on our lifestyle so that the global family and our very planet can continue to exist with an adequate standard of living. We have geared our whole culture around the principle of fighting against limits. But it is becoming obvious that the earth has its limits and we need to be learning to live within them. We need to be joyfully looking for ways to live with less consumption to help this planet's systems to keep being able to host us and our fellow beings, flora and fauna of this earth.

I am still a rebellious teenager and a frustrated hippie at heart and I find it fun to challenge the system. To repair things rather than discard them. To grow my own food where I can. To keep using old things, old cars, old sound systems, refusing to be sucked in by advertising which tells me to update and modernise. To not get drawn into the "status" symbol race in terms of houses, cars, clothing etc. but be rebelliously happy with what I have. I could expand but for me it is a secret joy to buck the system. I love being able to say for example, "This jumper? Oh I bought that at the second hand clothing shop!" It is a weird source of pride for me, and not something I am ashamed of.

One further observation. We lived with four children in a 25 ft. caravan for two years, as part of a job we had travelling the length of New Zealand. When we first headed out we had caravan, towing vehicle (an old ambulance) and a following station wagon loaded with extras from home that we thought we would need. When we could return to base we dumped so much stuff, we realised that we simply did not need to carry it, it was surplus to requirements, even though we cluttered our home with it. While we were living very basically (we used to lined up as a whole family on the double bed to watch TV - we wore out the bedspread.) we realised that we were still living in luxury compared to most of the population of the world. We do clutter our lives with a whole lot of extra "stuff" we seldom use.

A final quote:
"I am not against the good things of life, and I covet for all mankind a level of comfort and security that will make possible the fullest realization of our powers and our mutual enrichment. But those ideals are at the very opposite end of the moral spectrum from the excess which marks our western way of life, however similar the two may seem to be on the surface. Excess means disproportion; and disproportion can never be a recipe for survival. Excess is the subject of this book and the enemy which I shall try to invite you to fight..." - J.V. Taylor "Enough is Enough"

Having said all that, I am still hanging out to receive the latest Macbook pro that I have ordered... maybe this week? :-) I will use it well though for good purposes. .. I promise.