Gardener

Here's a poem I wrote yesterday. It's not polished yet but that will take a few weeks of playing around with it. I am not even sure it works, but perhaps there's an old Kuyperian hanging around somewhere who will tell me. January Thaw Finally today, temperatures above freezing, blue sky and a bright sun teasing me into thoughts of spring. The edges of eaves drip a steady chatter of happy gossip and the snow, so white and sparkly, almost blinds me. I could dance were it not for the dark blue shadows of the ash trees that slash across the frozen lawns to remind me that nothing is ever one thing. The blue sky darkens, snow turns black, hoar frost grows on the gray walks, and the dark windows of houses suddenly flower, bright as marigolds. This is what it is to live in a world which is straining to become the Kingdom of God--a blue-white, January-thawed, happy-sad, half-baked kingdom. A world of “already” and “not yet.” --Dave Schelhaas

One of the good things that happens each cold, snowy January is the arrival of seed catalogs. Well, good and bad. They are jam-packed with summer—fruits and flowers and vegetables and leafy trees; pumpkins the size of volkswagons and watermelons so red and juicy your mouth waters just looking at them. A seed catalog is a wonderful escape from the plain white world of winter. But it can also manufacture discontent. Three months of mostly cold, dead weather lie ahead of us before we will see growing things. In addition to the seed catalogs that come in the mail, one can find all kinds of online seed catalogs. I spent some time yesterday browsing the Seed Saver catalog online. It contains primarily heirloom varieties and the wonderful pictures make your mouth water. In the squash section I found the Pennsylvania Dutch Crookshank squash that we grew last summer—squash so big that each one provides us with at least four meals. They are supposed to have a curved neck, but most of ours have s...

Of all the commentaries I read and heard after President Obama’s inauguration, the one that spoke to me most powerfully was an open letter to the president by George McGovern in today's Washington Post. In his letter, McGovern calls for a five year moratorium on war unless our nation is in grave danger. McGovern, the old history teacher, argues most persuasively against going to war in Afghanistan noting that both Great Britain and the Soviet Union experienced excruciating losses in Afghanistan and eventually limped home defeated. “I have believed for some time that military power is no solution to terrorism” he says, and as I look at Iraq and Israel and Afghanistan, I must agree. McGovern acknowledges that he will be called too idealistic, but suggests that sometimes idealism is the best realism. He concludes, this old politician who has been warring against world hunger for more than a quarter of a century, by suggesting that programs that help feed and educate the children of th...

I do a little radio show called "What's the Good Word" for Dordt College Radio (KDCR).  Here's The one I wrote for today, January 20, the inauguration day of Barack Obama.                        The menu for the inaugural dinner, held shortly after the inauguration of President Obama, had as its main course a “brace of birds.”  The word brace immediately caught my eye.  I thought I knew what it meant, “a pair of birds,” but I wanted to explore it a bit, since to my mind immediately came a number of other, quite different meanings of brace , both verbs and nouns. Other noun meanings include a pair of suspenders (braces), a kind of drill (a brace and bit), devices attached to the teeth to shape and strengthen them; and a related word, bracelet, the decorative jewelry worn on the wrist.  Some verb meanings are as follows: “to strengthen or support; to make ready for impact; to stimulate or invigorate; to tighten by stretching”; and the variation, embrace, “to hug.”  The...