Lent Earth Prayer

On Ash Wednesday Father Michael presented us with a lovely framework for Lenten reflection to accompany Joan Chittister's booklet that we are reading during this season, CRY JUSTICE! CRY HOPE! This is some of the music i've been listening to, hoping to make it till spring: late winter songs and more sounds

In Accordance - Christopher Bi...

This week's section entitled "Not Wasting the Waste: Creating Environmental Sustainability" is grounded in the work of S. Ushakumari in Kerala, India. She is a dedicated horticulturalist working in community based zero-waste and job creation initiatives through sustainable food system development, working on various initiatives from policy though practice to eliminate waste, reducing, re-using, and composting, and requiring companies to change the way they design and manufacture goods so they are free from toxins.

It want to say something that is extremely important and misunderstood. Recycling has serious energy costs, consumes resources, and pollutes communities through the recycling process. Reducing, re-purposing, or 'upcycling' are far better.

Father Michael asked us to write and prepare a letter to Mother Earth to bring to the Friday Nights in Lent Series. Here is a wonderful woman's prayer to mother earth from the Sacred Heart:

Oh Dear Mother Earth!

You bring forth from the depth of your being all living things. You regenerate them each day by the power of your winds and the power of your rains. As the night is followed by the day, you enrich our lives with rays of warmth and coolness of twilight. You reach deep within your spirit to provide a bountiful harvest--food and drink that sustain all life. You control the weather patterns entwining sunny days with stormy nights. The clothes that we wear, the homes that give us shelter, and the medicines that make us whole, all come from your seemingly endless resources of love. And in the end, when our immortal souls depart our bodies by blessed demand, our mortal remains find rest in you, thus proving that what is given away by you in life will be what is totally and completely returned to you in death.

And so let us come together in prayer and thanksgiving to be reminded of your delicate benevolence to us. Let us promise that we shall engage ourselves in the messages of the Gospel which speak of peace, justice and a true stewardship of the Earth and of all your wondrous resources. May we always walk with you in a sincere balance of peace and harmony, Oh Dear Mother Earth!

Lenten Soft Pretzels.

The soft pretzel http://www.wired.com/video/how-to-make-a-pretzel-from-scratch/40896448001

Video

http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0535.html catholic education LENTEN PRETZELS

The pretzels will be done by the time these videos are done. 400 degrees F.

The monks who would keep the hours also baked the pretzels as early as 300 A.D. There a multitudes of recipes.

or

germinating seeds and quantum mechanics

Today we planted Calabrese Green Sprouting Broccoli from Baker Creek

Georgia Southern Collard Greens from Baker Creek

and Dwarf Blue Scotch Kale from SSE

All these plants are members of the brassica family, even all members of the

Brassica oleracea Subspecies. Actually it encompasses ten of the most eaten vegetables.

Botanical families are divided according to the flower, it's shape the number and type of leaf petals, The old family name for the brassicas is Cruciferae. The flowers on the Cruciferae that we plant in the beginning of Lent look like crosses (see flowers above) and tied in with the crucification.

Here are some of new seed reflections from wisdom sharing with one of my favorite 14 year-olds at the greenhouse today. He is writing his thoughts. I am writing mine:

As i see it there are 3 catagories of knowledge:

1. Those things we know
2. Those things we don't know
3. and those things that we don't know that we don't know

I know that i have planted seeds in the past. I don't know that the seeds will grow this year. And there's so much I don't know that I don't know within topics i can't imagine, sacraments, and all the variables that influence the seasons. Is spring going to come this year? But as soon as i point and say there, this is something i don't know, it's no longer something that i don't know that i don't know. Let's contemplate the Seasons and let go of what we know ....and let go of what we don't know.... and remember that there is so much more that we don't know that we don't know...
This is the context upon which i understand grace. Grace for myself and grace for the systems of the earth, of all the things that i don't know that i don't know. Most of the time the more i learn, the more i realize i don't know.


We plant the seeds and hope for germination for our dear cute lil brassicas, controlling the greenhouse environment as much as possible, but we NEVER EVER dig up those seeds. Because in that moment beneath the soil if we need to be certain that the seed is growing and we dig it up to see, it is at that point in time that the seed stops growing. This is usually my "go-to" analogy when i don't know the answer, particularly in regards to the ways of the heart... "well, the seed is planted within you, and the best thing you can do is give it as much love as possible and let it keep growing. But do not dig it up, by trying to figure out the answers. Just keep loving it."

It makes me think of Heisenberg, his Uncertainty Principle, and quantum mechanics. * The simultaneous position and velocity of any electron CANNOT be calculated. If you know the precise ∫ speed and direction of an electron at a specific point in time, then you cannot know its location at that one specific point in time. Im going to make some purists squirm here but i like to imagine it applied to one's spiritual state. If you know where you are at any given point in time you can't fully know where you are going. And the reflex statement: If you know where you are going at any given point in time then you can't know where you are.

So i can read my old thoughts that layer with the return of each liturgical season, or i can read old thoughts that feel more like the future to me right now. I can feel the velocity of where im going or i can be centered on where i am. Can one think of the future and be present simultaneously? perhaps in art or athletics we come close... I think contemplation is the practice of being centered on where i am, and knowing within silence one can be still and ever changing, decomposed of all of the thoughts that have passed, those yet to come, and the chaos of infinity within emptiness at this current moment.

..... and now for the comic relief

cut and paste from wiki

* In quantum mechanics, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that certain pairs of physical properties, like position and momentum, cannot both be known to arbitrary precision. That is, the more precisely one property is known, the less precisely the other can be known. This statement has been interpreted in two different ways. According to Heisenberg its meaning is that it is impossible to determine simultaneously both the position and velocity of an electron or any other particle with any great degree of accuracy or certainty.