Tuesday, July 28, 2009 by Jay T.

One of the finest blessings of my life is being part of a neighborhood network that is working to develop shorter paths for our food from soil to table.  We have been meeting regularly for just over a year now.  In the summer, it’s once a week to pool and share what we can harvest from our own gardens.

As there is need and availability, we make a connection with a local producer of food staples to cooperatively distribute some of the crop.  We’ve done this with soft white and hard red wheat (grown in land that had previously been used for grass seed), pinto beans, garbanzo beans and tempeh.  For a variety of reasons, the shortest path from our kitchen to the farmer’s field leads first to our neighbors’ doorsteps.

Sunday’s SHARE exchange was interesting.  The guy from across the street brought a gunny sack full of well-sprouted Yukon Gold seed potatoes that a local nursery had given him.  In the matter of minutes, several of us hatched a joint planting scheme.  For a couple of days, Bob, Ed and I have been watering, then spreading layers of cardboard, chippings, dirt, compost and manure on a patch of ground (about 20′ x 30′) in front of Jenny & Don’s house.  Linda and Lucy helped us toss potatoes and straw on top of that Tuesday evening.  We have about 100 days until first frost, so we’re cautiously hopeful of bringing in a crop this summer.  It’s risky enough that we aren’t putting anything of much value into the venture other than our labor and some water.

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Posted in Neighborhood, Physical activity | 4 Comments »

Monday, July 13, 2009 by Jay T.

My name’s Jay and I’m a television addict.  I watched a great deal when I was a kid.  Some of it still rattles around in my head.  Not the “programming” so much.  I’m a good student, so I remember the main point of the TV productions.  The marketing.

Perhaps you, too, remember, “Stop!  Now you can pour a beautiful floor.” Or the Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em Robots!

In the 60’s the kid shows advertised a game called Tip It.  Players took turns placing weights on a platform, balanced in the center on a small fulcrum.  Whoever made the platform tip too far lost.  I never owned or even played the game, but, thanks to the TV spots before my eyes, I remember how to play it and how much fun it must be.  And how much I would be missing out by not nagging my parents until they got it for me.

When I sat down in a sparsely attended meeting for worship yesterday, half the attenders were on one side of the room.  The other half (plus one) of us on the other.  A bunch of chairs and empty space were in between.  Then from my rattling head pops out the image of Tip It.

The meeting room in Corvallis is hexagonal.  The ceiling beams come to a point above the middle of the room.  Above there’s a windowed cupola which sheds light on us sitting below it.  I wondered if we were balanced on a point in the middle of the floor, or hung from the top of the cupola, which way would the whole thing swing? Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Faith & Practice, Keeping low | 2 Comments »