Tag: hunger

The Future Flowering

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hydrangeaaugust

wwurec

 

We kill at every step, not only in wars, riots, and executions. We kill when we close our eyes to poverty, suffering, and shame. In the same way all disrespect for life, all hard heartedness, all indifference, and all contempt is nothing else than killing. With just a little witty skepticism we can kill a good deal of the future in a young person. Life is waiting everywhere, the future is flowering every­where, but we only see a small part of it and step on much of it with our feet.
~Hermann Hesse, from Vivos Voco, 1919

Hundreds of thousands of people have the choice of living (and likely dying) oppressed in the midst of conflict, too often with the risk of being enslaved and raped, or to try escape to an uncertain fate on the other side of a border, a fence, a turbulent sea.

So many of us are here, living in countries that sustain and grow us, because we descend from people who escaped war, or hunger, or extreme poverty. Many of us worship a God who was a refugee Himself from a king who sought Him dead.

Can we extend a hand of hope to millions who also want to put roots down in safety so their lives, and their childrens’ lives, may flower?   Even if it means less soil for us all, are we not the privileged gardeners to prepare the ground so all people may flourish?

 

herb9151

seattleflorist12

woodlandred

seattleflorist2

When the Heart Slows

barnstormingblog4 Comments

thornberry

fallenapple

 

 
…bears binge on blackberries and apples,  
to satisfy the sweet hunger
that consumes them.  Just like us  
they know the day must come when   
the heart slows, when to take one   
more step would mean the end of things   
as they should be.  Sleep is a drug;   
dreams its succor.  How better to drift   
toward another world but with leaves   
falling, their warmth draping us,   
our stomachs full and fat with summer?
~Todd Davis  from “Sleep”
 
fog101923

It’s a Jungle Out There

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jungle

We’re drowning in grass. Only 6 weeks ago, it lay gray, still frost-laden and dead, but now, in a burst of green enthusiasm and fueled by a short cluster of warm days and nights of heavy rain, it is knee high most places, and waist high in others. If I listen hard enough, I swear I can hear it growing, just like the squeaks that corn makes as it grows. It is not just a carpet, it is a jungle now and just as I did as a child, it is pure pleasure to sit down in the middle of it, tamping down a nest of sorts, with the grassy walls and a blue sky ceiling.

Instead of snow drifts, we have grass drifts and we trail blaze through the grass in the same way we did the snow in January, leaving our foot prints behind.

The Haflingers are being eased out into this bounty a few hours each day, a slow transition from last year’s bailed grass crop which now seems quite tasteless in comparison. All that can lure the horses back to the barn after a little grazing time is the shake of the grain bucket–the grass is an incredible powerful magnet.

I understand the pull the Haflingers feel. They are centuries-bred on forage sparse mountain pasture and what they consumed during the growing season would supply the fat needed for the long winters. Some inner drive tells them “eat now! eat fast! store up!” and they are most efficient eating machines. Trouble is, in this part of the world, where forage is plentiful and high in protein this time of year, they’ll eat themselves sick if given the opportunity. Their internal survival drive paradoxically could destroy them and destroy the pasture needed to sustain them year round.

We humans need that same control over our desire to consume everything around us, in our fear that it might not always be there. Eating without real hunger, drinking without real thirst, wanting without real need. Without boundaries around us, we plunge into life greedy and selfish, not unlike our Haflingers. Our boundaries may not be visible like the fences that surround the Haflingers, but they have been set there, nevertheless, to remind us of our crucial inner need for limits.

I know I push against my boundaries just as the Haflingers push down fences that bar them from what they think they want on the other side.

May they always be strong enough to hold me in, or keep me out.   I need to stay where I belong.