Sabbatical: A Mid Term Report

If, as Herod, we fill our lives with things, and again with things...

If we consider ourselves so unimportant

that we must fill every moment of our lives with action,

when will we have the time to make the long,

slow journey across the desert as did the Magi?

Or sit and watch the stars as did the shepherds?

Or brood over the coming of the child as did Mary?

For each of us, there is a desert to travel.

A star to discover.  

And a being within ourselves to bring to life.

-Author Unknown

There is temptation as we enter this year of our Lord to fill our lives, if not with things, then with busyness. I am convicted by the thought that action might be tied not to not honoring Christ, but my own need to feel needed.

On the Sabbatical front, I must admit that I am not as far along in my writing as I would have hoped. The writing is slow but steady. Yet, I have taken time to sit and watch the starts... and to brood... and to journey (at least in my mind).

Until I came upon the quote above I was rather fretful about my progress (or lack thereof). But, then I read the words and was convicted. All in God's time! So, here is my midterm update to you all:

- I am spending time with Dick and Donnie.

- I am exercising regularly. In December, I tested for and received my Brown Belt in Olympic Taekwondo. 

- I am writing daily.

- I am reading daily. Right now, I am deep into preparing for my next immersion at Case. For those yet to receive thank you notes, please know they are coming and that I am deeply thankful for your support and investment in me on behalf of this presbytery.

- And, most importantly, I am keeping company with God. Coming home to God is a long, slow journey and I am thankful for the time apart to simply be with God.

The challenge-both in this next month and upon my return-will be to resist filling my life up with activity. The hard part, of course, is discerning between good and faithful. Could be the choice between good and bad!

January blessings to you all!

Holy Habit: Be Attentive to Time

From the Stated Clerk's Desk                                January 8, 2013

Wendell Beery is one of my favorite writers. In 1995 he wrote an essay entitled "Conserving Communities" in which he provided 17 rules for a sustainable community. Berry offers his understanding of the meaning of "sustainable community." It is a community whose members want their community to cohere, to flourish and to last. Here are Berry's rules:

• Always ask of any proposed change or innovation: what will this do to our community? How will this affect our common wealth?
• Always include local nature-the land, the water, the air, the native creatures-within the membership of the community.
• Always ask how local needs might be supplied from local sources,including the mutual help of neighbors.
• Always supply local needs first (and only then think of exporting products, first to nearby cities, and then to others).
• Understand the unsoundness of the industrial doctrine of "labor saving" if that implies poor work, unemployment, or any kind of pollution or contamination.
• Develop properly scaled value-added industries for local products to ensure that the community does not become merely a colony of the national or global economy.
• Develop small-scale industries and businesses to support the local farm and/or forest economy.
•  Strive to produce as much of the community's own energy as possible. 
• Strive to increase earnings (in whatever form) within the community and decrease expenditures outside the community. 
• Make sure that money paid into the local economy circulates within the community for as long as possible before it is paid out.
• Make the community able to invest in itself by maintaining its properties, keeping itself clean (without dirtying some other place), caring for its old people, teaching its children 
• See that the old and the young take care of one another. The young must learn from the old, not necessarily and not always in school.
• There must be no institutionalized "child care" and "homes for the aged." The community knows and remembers itself by the association of old and young. Account for costs now conventionally hidden or "externalized." 
• Wherever possible, these costs must be debited against monetary income. Look into the possible uses of local currency, community-funded loan programs, systems of barter, and the like.
• Always be aware of the economic value of neighborly acts. In our time the costs of living are greatly increased by the loss of neighborhood, leaving individuals to face their calamities alone.
• A rural community should always be acquainted with, and complexly connected with, community-minded people in nearby towns and cities.
• A sustainable rural economy will be dependent on urban consumers loyal to local products. Therefore, we are talking about an economy that will always be more cooperative than competitive.

I am curious about whether/how these sustainability rules can be (or are already being) implemented in the communities in which our presbytery's congregations are located. What do you think? I look forward to hearing from you.