On Women Warriors

We were two drab birds in a sea of pink feathers. It was "Race for the Cure" day, and hundreds of women had convened, along with the occasional spouse or offspring, in the city park on a bright September morning to run, raise awareness, and raise funds toward "the cure" for breast cancer.

Many of the women--and men--had race numbers pinned to their shirtfronts. Most also had pink placards pinned to the backs: "I run in celebration of... Aunt Sibyl." "I run in memory of...my Mom." Some had multiple names on their backs, or stitched on their pink baseball caps, or painted with glitter-glue on their running shoes. It was clear that each person there had some history of suffering or loss, some painful connection that they were determined to honour, to remember, or perhaps even transform with the beating of their hearts and the pounding of their feet. The joyful silliness of their various decorations was an understandable attempt to inject some levity into a serious remembrance.

We were there because my partner, The Piper, had taken this on as an annual volunteer gig. She was in her usual tartan gear, pleated wool in dark greens and blues, befitting the job. No-one would have expected otherwise. I, myself, had dressed to go off to church afterward, and I'd chosen a blouse and pants of earthy brown. As we walked into the pink-balloon-bedecked park full of colour-coordinated racing and walking teams, I hesitated. I felt like a wild moorhen who had blundered into a flock of migrating flamingos.

The park periphery was lined with booths from event sponsors. The Dunkin Donuts booth was mobbed, race-goers squealing with delight at the thought of unlimited free donuts and coffee. Across the way, the Hannaford supermarket booth workers were handing out healthier fare: apples, granola bars, and bananas. They had far fewer takers. (I admit I helped myself equally: one donut, one banana. They both looked perfect but tasted, well, somewhat less than that.) I looked around at the piles of "bling" arrayed in each booth: magenta shoelaces, pink ribbon temporary tattoos, treats and whigmaleeries of every description, all of them dyed or emblazoned or bedecked in some variant of rose, fuchia, blush, raspberry, carmine, cherry blossom...

The brightest display was at a booth near the stage. A banner above the booth declared "FORD CARES." Three pert young blonde women stood in the booth, each sporting a bright batik scarf tied in a uniquely fashionable style. Two men flanked the booth, handing out bling-bags to everyone who walked past. I ventured up, curious. One of the men flashed a smile and handed me a bag. I opened it to find the same scarf, with a "made in China" sticker and two brochures for Ford's charity line of Breast Cancer Awareness clothing: "Warriors in Pink." Above an array of abstract "tribal" symbols like spirals, wings, chevrons, hearts and birds, the brochure declared, "EVERY WARRIOR NEEDS AN OUTFIT."

What?

I looked around again at the hundreds of pink-bling-bedecked women around me. I thought about Rachel Carson, who wrote "Silent Spring" and died of breast cancer herself. Breast cancer is an environmental disease. It is caused by a complex array of factors, many of which are linked to the pervasive, endocrine-disrupting toxicity of the chemicals we eat, wear, drink and breathe in our mass-manufactured society. Those chemicals could be in the free pink plastic water bottles and the free temporary tattoos. They could be in the colored paper and the glitter paint. They could be in the very dyes and fixatives and wrinkle-preventers of those free "Warriors in Pink" scarves. The garment workers in China--probably women--who make those scarves could be exposed to much higher levels of those toxins than we are, we privileged North American recipients of this well-designed, well-marketed corporate charity bling.

The opening ceremonies began and The Piper went up onto the stage. I watched her stand, compose herself, and strike in the pipes. A murmur went through the crowd and people turned to look at the tall, tartan-draped figure playing tunes from another century. The harmonic drones of this ancient instrument took me back to my own "tribal" roots, and I thought about the women warriors of the Celts and the Picts. They earned the respect of their enemies not for their outfits, but for the lack thereof. They were known for charging into battle with very little on indeed, a demonstration of pure intention, confidence, and bravery that came from years of careful discipline. There is some evidence that ancient schools existed to train warrior women in the Celtic/British/Pictish lands. They began their training as girls and grew into powerful women and formidable adversaries.

The fight for cancer is unaffected by outfits. Every warrior does NOT need one. We contribute to the fight against cancer when we refuse to use the host of unnecessary chemicals around us. We build our defences by deflecting the pointed arrows of corporate target marketing. We fight cancer by refusing to pour poison in our yards and in our homes. We fight cancer by refusing to apply chemicals to our hair, our nails, and our faces. We fight cancer by educating ourselves and each other about environmental toxins. We fight cancer by speaking up and speaking out, demanding more regulations to protect our bodies, our air, our soil, our water, our land. We fight cancer by declaring that our poorer sisters and brothers in industrial waste zones deserve the same standards of environmental safety that we do.

We may yet be warriors. Let the beauty of the earth be our ritual decoration. Let our own empowered active lives be our tribute to the fallen. Let our bodies and spirits reflect the purity and healing we seek. And when a restored and healthy planet answers our efforts with showered blush-tinted blossoms, THEN we shall bedeck ourselves in pink.

The Knights Who Say, "KNEE!"

It's been a few weeks now since the Piper underwent surgery to repair her knee. I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that some cartilage ended up somewhere it really ought not to have been, and the surgeon was, well, impressed--not in the way you WANT a surgeon to be.

After months of debilitating pain, followed by a fairly uncomfortable post-surgery recovery, the Piper is inching toward full farmerdom again. Last week, she sat in the midst of everyone else's activity and snipped branches down into kindling. Now she is proudly--if gingerly--hauling cartfuls of whey-soaked bread and wilted veggies down to the pigs in the name of "therapeutic strengthening."

The piper is not one to sit still while others work, so these past few months have been especially hard on her, even with WWOOFers cheerfully pitching in to take over her chores and ease my burden of managing the farm alone. She doesn't respond well to requests to slow down, rest, or be careful. In fact, if it wasn't for the fact that she's an avid Red Sox fan, I'm not sure how I would have gotten her to slow down at all--thank heavens for the concept of the "DL" (Disabled List). Only after a reminder that "even star players end up on the DL for months at a time..." could she be convinced to lay down with an ice pack for the afternoon. (It also helped that, thanks to the clock radio, she was able to lay there and listen to baseball games!)

She found the first couple of post-surgery therapy visits pretty excruciating. The muscles hadn't been engaging properly due to the inflammation and misplaced cartilage, so her kneecap was no longer being held in place and riding smoothly where it ought to be. The Piper dutifully performed her prescribed strengthening exercises and acquired a special brace to keep the kneecap from "floating."

Last week, she came home from physical therapy with a new look. Like so many other veterans of Wounded Knee before her, the Piper had borne her suffering bravely and displayed tremendous courage and fortitude. The therapist recognized these qualities and sent her home a newly-decorated hero:

The Gael Who Cried WWOOF

Actually, this post has nothing to do with crying. We are dancing joyful jigs, here on the farm, even if we do have only three knees between the two of us.

Back in November, the Piper hurt her knee while shifting a bag of "pig bread" on uneven ground. Ever since then, it's been a challenge for her to manage the daily farm chores. Physical therapy provided a brief respite, but pain and swelling have continued and even the knee specialist confessed some measure of bafflement.

In between my part-time job and a several-month stint as a hospital chaplain, I wasn't much help to the Piper at Wounded Knee. The young couple who stayed with us during the winter helped somewhat, but their hearts were full of their own farm dreams and they moved on as soon as they found a place of their own. (That move occurred right at Beltane-- May 1st, the traditional start of the outdoor work season.)

So, what can a couple of farmers do when they have one bull, two cows, six pigs, eighteen chickens, twenty-four garden beds and three functional knees? It was time for these two Gaels to cry, WWOOF!!!

The WWOOF program counts as part of our Celtic/British agricultural emphasis, as it began in the U.K. about forty years ago. (WWOOF stands, variously, for "Willing Workers On Organic Farms" or "World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms.") Essentially a networking system, it allows member farms to seek assistance while allowing "WWOOFers" to seek hands-on education in sustainable agriculture. Farmers and volunteers arrange the details of each informal internship--everything from a single weekend stay to full-season or full-year engagements. While details vary widely, the program's generally accepted standard is that each half-day of volunteer labour is compensated by a full day's room and board at the host farm.

We signed up with the program in April, as soon as we confirmed our Winter couple's departure date. Inquiries started to reach us a few weeks later. WWOOFers tend to embrace opportunities for travel; our first month's inquiries included folks from Quebec, Tennessee, New York, Taiwan and Seattle. We sent e-mails back and forth, trying to ensure the best match between what we could offer and what others might want to learn. We realized we would be educating ourselves, too--expanding the range of skills needed for task-sharing and delegation. We began to brainstorm. We made lists. We talked with other farmers about the specific challenges of hosting volunteers. We invested in extra blankets and pillows. We developed our own list of questions for potential volunteers and began sending them out as e-mail inquiries appeared...and then we chose our first WWOOFer and the real fun began!

So far, the program has been everything we hoped, and more. Our WWOOFers have pitched in with enthusiasm, demonstrated a wonderful eagerness to work and learn, shown good humour, flexibility, and stick-to-itiveness. We've been fascinated by their wide range of life experiences, their travel stories, and the range of things they've seen and learned on other farms as they WWOOF their way around the world. They're not perfect--they do come to learn, after all, and occasionally a tool gets left in the rain or a veggie plant gets pulled instead of a weed--but overall the experience has been genuinely lovely. Each one comes with their own delightful surprises, too--One WWOOFer turned out to be an absolute wizard in the kitchen and helped us work on a new website for the farm. Another has a great way with a camera and has captured our creatures in some wonderful images and videos. A third came along to the farmers' market with a typewriter and raised money by creating custom poems for market-goers on the spot--an effort I'm doing my best to carry on. Shared evenings around the table are another side benefit--we've found the kind of camaraderie, diverse perspectives and wide-ranging discussions on which we thrive.

WWOOFing may not work for every farmer. We have to relax our expectations and give up some of our perfectionism. We have to remind ourselves sometimes that these folks are still learning; many of them love the idea of farming but are unfamiliar with foundational concepts and basic skills. Others come with tremendous skill AND enthusiasm and we have to reign them in a bit, as we lack the resources to tackle the range of projects they ask to undertake. It's a balancing act, to be sure, but isn't that true of farming and life in general? Might as well meet new folks, share what we know, and make new friends along the way!

So here we are, in all our three-kneed glory, dancing. With each new WWOOFer, we learn a new way to move to the music, a new way to dig the beat (beets?) and enjoy the grooves (furrows!) of this land. The WWOOFers complete our broken circle and help us keep in time as the season calls the tune.

At Market

AT MARKET

Pea-shoots spring into waiting bags
A waft of hunger floats on pretzelled air
Crab-cakes sell fast; they must have legs
And green perennials are always there.

Oh, butter! Oh local yoghurt, milk and cheese!
Oh, dahlias dancing bold in bloom!
Will you bedeck my woodworn table, please?
Or grace my fridge? I'll make some room...

The common and the elegant share space
From booth to booth, such bounty they reveal
I cannot wait to say this heartfelt grace:
The market feeds my soul--and what a meal!

--Copyright Mainecelt 6/29/2011

EnRaptured

Six o'clock came and went, like the swift spatter of summer rain that swept across our farm this afternoon. There were no little piles of clothing dotting the landscape, unless you count the shirt and stocking blown off the clothesline. We were left behind, it seems, by the latest in a long line of apocalyptic billboard-buying End Times trumpeters. The Rapture did not happen here. It did not include anyone we knew. It did not include us.

And yet...we did share the experience. While there was no packing of picnic baskets or precarious perching on rooftops, we did prepare ourselves for something glorious, something potentially life-changing: another day on the farm.

There are ritual elements even here. We go down on our knees regularly. Who's to say if there's a difference between planting a seed, gathering a freshly-laid egg, or offering a prayer? We fill the cup--or the trough--for each blessed creature. We break bread and scatter it for a flock, and who's to say our chickens are any less worthy of the sacrament of communion? In this place, communion is something we celebrate every day, as the creatures of the earth are tended and fruits of the earth are gathered in to be prepared for our shared table.

Today, we shared the day's work joyfully. Our first official WWOOFer contributed to our lifted spirits considerably. ("WWOOF" stands for "Willing Workers On Organic Farms" or "World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms." Traveling volunteers trade work for room, board, and agricultural education.) With her enthusiasm and our combined energy and effort, we plowed through a formidable list with light hearts and earnest determination. Our shared laughter rose like a hymn to all that is good and right in the world: communion, indeed.

"Prayer," says Parker Palmer, "is the practice of relatedness." Four days of wet weather have quieted and slowed the urgent growth and activity of this season, and we've been keenly aware of that relatedness- keenly aware of just how many lives rely on the return of the sun. When, early this afternoon, the clouds finally dispersed, we celebrated the sudden surge of activity. We reveled in the preening of poultry, the opening of damp blossoms, the exodus of hungry honeybees. The cattle lifted their shaggy wet heads in the pasture. Muddy ground firmed up and soil temperatures warmed, awakening plump, well-watered seeds.

We are ready for the rapture--not because we are waiting for it to happen, but because we discover it unfolding, continually, all around us. We are enraptured by the revelation that we have NOT been taken. We are Left Behind to attend to the holiness with which the tattered, beautiful world is already imbued.

We are called--it is our vocation--to remain in this richly challenging place and serve as stewards of its goodly gifts. There is no greater embodiment of grace.

Bread and Salt

Some days are spent singing to seedlings, and some days are spent roping bulls. This day was one of the latter sort. The demands on our household included: a bagpiping gig for a Waldorf school's "May fair," a meeting of a church commission to address environmental and social justice issues, a half-shift of retail clerking in a British import shop, an evening of bull-wrangling and electric fence-troubleshooting, and an unfinished sermon that demanded completion.

The sermon is now complete, such as it is. It is based on one of this Sunday's assigned scripture readings: Luke 24:13-35, also known as "the Road to Emmaus."


BREAD AND SALT: A SERMON for the THIRD SUNDAY of EASTER

If they had had Twitter accounts, Cleopas and his companion would have used them. Like the rest of Jerusalem, they had thought of nothing else but the news and the prophecies, the wild rumours about the man just killed. For three days, the air around them had vibrated with dashed hopes and dangerous words, fearful whispers and mutterings of cynicism and despair. There were gamblers checking the odds of a miracle and prophets forecasting doom or resurrection.

If they'd had television, they'd have been glued to the screen, waiting for a hint or a sign. Or they'd have been on their computers, checking GoogleEarth, zooming in on Golgotha and the stone tomb. They'd be fact-checking the rumors on “Snopes,” the myth-debunking website. They'd be unfriending the women at the tomb on Facebook, because you can't have crazy people posting stuff like that on your wall.

Caught up in the terrible drama and distress of any publicised killing, amidst the desperation of any war zone, the scarcity and fear of any occupied territory, they'd tried to keep hope alive. They'd wanted to believe that this new prophet, Jesus, was different from those who had come before him. Hadn't he shown his wisdom and his power? Hadn't he healed the incurably sick and even raised some from the dead?They'd been drawn in by the stories about him and had come to believe he was someone extraordinary, like the prophets of old. They'd even—and they felt sick and foolish about it now—they'd even waited three days after the horrible humiliation of his crucifixion, just in case he might actually rise from the dead. But maybe that prophecy was just another crazy rumor, after all. Anyhow, Jerusalem was crawling with armed guards and angry crowds and people willing to turn anyone in for a few pieces of silver... it was time to get out of town, time to take a walk.

It was a seven-mile walk, but it might has well have been seventy. Their hearts were heavy and their feet felt like lead. Although the sun beat down, their minds seemed wrapped in a thick fog. Even though they fumbled and struggled to find words, they had a desperate need to talk, because the world they knew had just shifted under them and neither of them could make sense of it alone.

So they walked, bearing the weight of a thousand questions together. They told the story again and again—the parts that made sense and the parts that didn't. They puzzled over the wild tales of Simon Peter and Mary Magdalene, with their announcements of angels and empty tombs—or was it just the work of cruel, faithless people, grave-robbers for whom desecration was just a form of sport?
They hardly noticed the stranger at first. They hadn't heard his approach—they were too busy wrestling with all they'd seen and felt and heard. He seemed familiar, somehow, but they couldn't quite place him—and after all, there had been so many gatherings during Passover in Jerusalem, so many faces in the crowds. And then he asked them to share the story, share the news, as if he somehow hadn't heard?!? It was like he'd been in a cave somewhere, or just fallen out of the sky!

But the stranger listened in a way few people ever listened. Cleopas and his companion found themselves pouring out the whole story, complete with their deepest longings, their dashed hopes, and the despair that threatened to smother them. There was something in the gentle intensity of his gaze, his confident yet humble stance...he was so alive he almost seemed to give off sparks, and their own souls, dry as tinder, had leaned close and been set alight.

Still walking, still talking, their hearts began to burn within them. Who could he be? Where HAD they seen him before? He began to tell them their own stories, and the stories of their people, the holy stories of prophets and infidels, commoners and kings. The road unfurled beyond them like a Torah scroll, their own journey like the footsteps of countless generations. They were Abraham and Sarah, Moses and Miriam, Israelites in the wilderness, captives in Babylon—and every character, every chapter, in the stranger's words, pointed to a true Messiah and a new kind of liberation.

The sun dipped low over the hills. Birds flew back to their nests. Goats bleated in the distance, answering a girl's sing-song call as they pointed their nimble hooves toward home. The stranger seemed headed somewhere beyond, but Cleopas and his companion urged him—begged him—passionately insisted that he stay with them instead of travelling on. For them, sundown meant Sabbath. Even though they weren't sure anymore what it meant to keep the holy laws, even though they weren't sure anything could ever feel blessed again, they wanted to welcome this stranger, open their house to him. After days of fear and distrust, they felt moved to hospitality. They wanted to offer him nourishment—this stranger whose words had been like food to one starving.

And then he took bread, blessed it, and broke it. He gave it to them. And their eyes were opened. Their eyes were opened. I might as well say: Earth and Heaven spilled into one another. Creation heaved its sides and life was renewed. They saw the stranger for who he really was: God's own beloved child, Jesus, fully embodied, there at the table with them in full communion. What next? He vanished, but so did all the fears and doubts that had tormented them. They—two nobodies, two half-nameless bystanders at the edge of the crowd, had shared a journey with the Risen Lord and seen him in the breaking and blessing, in the giving of bread.

And where are we, in this story? Where are we, along the road? Do you seek a way out of the city? Do you head towards home? Are your eyes on the horizon, or focused on the dust at your feet? What weight do you carry on your own journey? What stories do you wrestle with over and over, trying to make sense when your world has been turned upside down? Is there any fire in your heart, or just the taste of ashes in your mouth?

The rumours continue to fly. The gamblers continue to make bets. The chief priests of modern media spin their webs, sending sticky strands through the air, hoping to catch us all in their intricate net. They bind our eyes and stop our ears until we stagger and stumble. We lose sight of love's transforming power. We lose sight of liberation.

But Jesus meets us where we are—wherever we wander, whatever path we claim, whatever road... Jesus walks with us—not virtually, but actually. He is right here. He does not appear at the comfortable center, but at the edges and the margins—and he appears not first to the wealthy and powerful, but to grief-stricken women and hot-headed men and weary travellers. He comes to you and to me.

When Cleopas and his companion understood—the Bible says, “that very hour,” they hot-footed it back to Jerusalem. Seven miles. On foot. In the dark. The hard road of that long afternoon was transformed by their joy. They carried The Light with them.

There is a proverb in Russia that says, “eat bread and salt and speak the truth.” Bread—the nourishing gift of Creation, tended and shaped by human hands—this is what matters. Bread is real. So is salt—elementary and basic, there in our very real tears and our honest sweat, in every ocean and every drop of blood. And Jesus is that close to us, that profoundly present. That is the gift of incarnation: that Christ walks with us, weeps with us, reaches out to us, offers us nourishment, and seeks always and everywhere to be revealed. He transforms our own stories and challenges us to broaden our vision. He shows himself wherever we walk together, wherever we invite others in, wherever we show others they are truly welcome at our table.

“Eat bread and salt and speak the truth.” The truth? Christ is risen! The truth? Christ is risen indeed, and he walks with us, all the way!

--copyright MaineCelt, May 2011

Who Cooks for You?

Out along the edge of the moon-feathered woods, the Barred Owls sound their call: "Who cooks for YOU? Who cooks for YOU? Who cooks for YOU-all?"

Tonight, one of our farmhands has taken on the task, stepping gracefully into the gap on today's chore list. The Piper and I worked off the farm today and had resigned ourselves to bacon and eggs when we first noted no one had signed up for supper. Instead, I arrived home from a day of hospital chaplaincy and she arrived home from a day of social work to find...a three-course dinner kept warm on the stove. There are pork chops. There are apples simmered with raisins, spices, and nuts. There are buttery rosemary mashed potatoes. He shares the news of his day on the land: thirteen eggs collected, snowpeas and lettuce nearly sprouting in the hoop house, snowbanks melting away, healthy livestock and a well-exercised dog.

We aren't fools enough to count on good news, nor do we count on such feasts. The food was unexpected and tasted sweeter for the surprise. Weather changes, priorities change, people change, relationships require maintenance and even promises require occasional renegotiation. Besides all that, it's early Spring. Our muscles are twitchy and our brains are itchy. You just can't count on much, this time of year, except melting snow and a whole lot of mud.

So, we try to pry open the tight fists of Winter. We try to open up a bit, stretch our bodies and our minds and our spirits. We flex the muscles of gratitude and remind ourselves to meet each day on its own terms, with whatever grace and goodness we can muster. Sometimes, the firewood's all wet and we slip on the ice. Some days, all we can see is the mud. And some days, we walk wearily in and find a warm supper waiting, a farmstead well-tended, and owls calling at the edge of the woods, questioning each other sweetly under the great, round moon.