Gardener

It is astounding how much time and money our modern culture spends on clothes and astounding how much clothing most people possess. Go to yard sales and flea markets (or your own closet) if you have any doubts on this matter. In my reading of Walden this morning, I noticed that Thoreau devotes about 6 pages to clothing--the reason we have it and the superficiality of our deep concerns about it. • “The object of clothing is first, to retain the vital heat, and secondly, in this state of society, to cover nakedness.” • “We are led oftener by the love of novelty and a regard for the opinions of men, in procuring it, than by a true utility.” • “Who would wear a patch . . . over the knee? Most behave as if they believed that their prospects for life would be ruined if they should do so.” (Comment: I cannot even imagine what Thoreau would say about the modern tendency to buy worn out jeans, a behavior where “utility” has entirely disappeared and the only thing that matters is that influenti...

Nobody likes Chicken Little. Nobody likes a prophet of doom. I doubt that even the doom-sayer enjoys his gloomy message. So here’s my dilemma: What if I believe the sky is falling down and what if I believe that we can do something to slow it down? Should I just shut up about it? I’ve decided to walk the tightrope between annoying people to death with doomsday talk and shutting up entirely. Here’s the deal. Bill McKibben in his book Eaarth —as I have noted before in this blog—gives ample scientifically documented evidence of the fact that our old earth has been so compromised by the glut of Co2 emissions spewed out by our post Industrial Revolution lifestyle that it is no longer the same planet it was 40 years ago. But he also suggests ways that the inhabitants of the high polluten’ countries could live to slow down their consumption of fossil fuels and thereby slow down the warming. But it will require a dramatically different way of living for all of us. Do I wan...

" A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." One of the most surprising non-occurrences in the wake of the shooting injuries and deaths in Tucson at Gabby Gifford’s “meet your congresswoman” event has been a serious discussion of gun rights. It seems that the entire “public nation,” from President Obama to the press in all its forms, has simply accepted as fact the NRA’s position that the Second Amendment guarantees to individuals the right to bear arms. Even liberal MSNBC TV commentator Chris Matthews began a discussion of the gun issue recently by saying, “Now I know that the Second Amendment gives individuals the right to carry guns. . . .” But this interpretation of the Second Amendment is not the traditional interpretation. Most legal scholars throughout much of the twentieth century—believed that the Second Amendment guarantees the right of states to form militias—...

When I was nine or ten years old, I went to a father-son banquet (with my dad, of course) in my home church. It was a fad of the time designed, I’m sure, to teach boys manners and create some forced quality time between fathers and sons. This, in a culture where most fathers spent “quality time” working with their sons on their farms every day! What has happened to this quaint bit of Christian culture—the father-son, mother-daughter banquet—I’m not sure. I haven’t heard of any for years in the Christian communities I have lived in. In fact, I never attended one with my son who is now 37 years old. In any case, what I want to remember here is the “entertainment” at the banquet, a lecture by a Christian Reformed pastor from Rock Valley who had been a POW in the Korean War. Well, if anyone at that time worried whether this preacher would be able to hold the attention of a bunch of little boys—not necessarily something folks worried about in those days—he need not have worried. The...