Upcoming events at the Farm will always be described in more detail in the Friday Sand River Community Farm email. Here’s the short list: Barn Choir Practice Tuesdays 5:30-7pm, followed by a simple potluck supper. All ages and abilities welcome. Sunday Farm Frolics
Thank you for the way you nudge me/us to attend to the invitation and the wisdom that the most human way to make ourselves “at home” is to be the neighbour that we want to have.
Your writing keeps open the invitation to be like the Good Samaritan (in the parable that YESHUA told) to not “walk by on the other side,” and rather to transgress the the default arrangements that dis-connect us.
Thank you for oiling the hinges so that the door to the other/Other in our midst does not stay closed.🙏🏽🤲🏽🫶🏽
I am an Exvangelical with a whopping case of Post Traumatic Church disorder. I have wandered in the Pagan wilderness for years, completely resistant to American Christianity as it is currently practiced. However, my youngest son, the only one of my six children not raised in church, (the others are now all flavor of atheist/agnostic), has expressed a curiosity and desire to attend a church. I looked around desperately for one I thought I might be able to step foot into without a full blown panic attack and found an Episcopal church that is in an historic church downtown and whose mission is to help the homeless. We have donated food and supplies to this ministry in the past, so I girded my loins and we attended this past Sunday. I am still a confirmed Goddess lover, but it felt right to reach out a hand to the people there, who were quite kind and welcoming to us. Thank you for sharing your journey in reweaving community, you have encouraged my own faltering attempts toward wholeness.
Thanks, Cassie. I am as surprised as anyone to see myself trying to write about Yeshua. But the gap between his story and what I see around me breaks my heart wider each day as I tip toe back toward the people I came from. Best to you, Adam
Thank you for this beautiful gift, Adam. Your words written here feel to me like invitation embodied in language.
After reading this piece last night, I re-read a portion of Daniel Quinn's 'The Story of B', and came across a portion of the dialogue in which someone is asked if Christ would have been sent to redeem the beetles. The answer falls along the lines "of course not!" What came to mind then was how that "of course not!" has echoed through religious ideologies as the idea of "of course not, because beetles are not as significant as humans and therefore not worth redeeming."
Thirty years in church and I have yet to hear what I believe the more likely inference to be: we as humans stand as collective outliers within nature, the only creatures who have forgotten the ability to articulate our humanness in the course of our peculiar history. Of course no christ is needed to redeem the beetles, because the beetles never forgot.
It takes such courage to write about the invitation not yet fully accepted, the incomplete connection. It's so much easier to keep these moments and these thoughts to ourselves until there is a story to tell, something that shows our generosity and goodness rather than acknowledging our hesitancy or even fear. But it feels to me that sharing the wobbly start of this journey is a making a commitment to travelling that path in such a profound and generative way, it's making me think about the times where I have hesitated or missed the moment due to my own anxiety or nervousness and how I might find the courage to look for ways to pick up the dropped threads. Thank you 🙏🏻
I would venture a guess that you and I are not the only ones for whom these invitations to greater, deeper and more generous courage seem to come around multiple times an hour. I've wondered how to acknowledge the ways in which I am constantly falling short of my aspirations without drifting into self-denigration. The fact that we sense ourselves walking a tightrope between self-glorification and its inverse says a lot about the state of culture loss, if you ask me. I'm glad this one read to you as a healthy telling. Best to you, Laura.
This is beautiful Adam, thank you. Reminded me of Illich's reflections on early Christians who would keep a spare mattress and a candle for whenever Jesus showed up at the door in the guise of someone needing care. He said that grass roots practice waned once it became institutionalised and managed.
Beautiful Adam, I do hope you will keep trying to finish the book....and I sounds to me you already had your first spoonful. The invitation is extended minute by minute. Accepting it is not a one off....
I feel so similar, and am in several ways an unchosen myself. I called this 'upping our soup-making skills', oiling the hinges is on that same list.
We seem to be called to places that stretch us into the beings we were created to be. Being a real follower of JC (as I see you are endeavoring to do) opens us to travel to new and amazing places.
I'm still skittish of writing about it, because the religion looms so much larger than the actual practices that he invited and encouraged. Best to you.
Thank you for the way you nudge me/us to attend to the invitation and the wisdom that the most human way to make ourselves “at home” is to be the neighbour that we want to have.
Your writing keeps open the invitation to be like the Good Samaritan (in the parable that YESHUA told) to not “walk by on the other side,” and rather to transgress the the default arrangements that dis-connect us.
Thank you for oiling the hinges so that the door to the other/Other in our midst does not stay closed.🙏🏽🤲🏽🫶🏽
Thank YOU, Sam, for this reflection. It means a lot.
oh my goodness how well said is that!
“to transgress the default arrangements that dis-connect us…”
Isn’t that the quintessence of anti-racism sensu lato?
And I second the gratitude to Adam for oiling the hinges to that huge, terrifying, manoral door.
I am an Exvangelical with a whopping case of Post Traumatic Church disorder. I have wandered in the Pagan wilderness for years, completely resistant to American Christianity as it is currently practiced. However, my youngest son, the only one of my six children not raised in church, (the others are now all flavor of atheist/agnostic), has expressed a curiosity and desire to attend a church. I looked around desperately for one I thought I might be able to step foot into without a full blown panic attack and found an Episcopal church that is in an historic church downtown and whose mission is to help the homeless. We have donated food and supplies to this ministry in the past, so I girded my loins and we attended this past Sunday. I am still a confirmed Goddess lover, but it felt right to reach out a hand to the people there, who were quite kind and welcoming to us. Thank you for sharing your journey in reweaving community, you have encouraged my own faltering attempts toward wholeness.
Thanks, Cassie. I am as surprised as anyone to see myself trying to write about Yeshua. But the gap between his story and what I see around me breaks my heart wider each day as I tip toe back toward the people I came from. Best to you, Adam
Cassie, you might look into the Wild Church Network.
Thank you for this beautiful gift, Adam. Your words written here feel to me like invitation embodied in language.
After reading this piece last night, I re-read a portion of Daniel Quinn's 'The Story of B', and came across a portion of the dialogue in which someone is asked if Christ would have been sent to redeem the beetles. The answer falls along the lines "of course not!" What came to mind then was how that "of course not!" has echoed through religious ideologies as the idea of "of course not, because beetles are not as significant as humans and therefore not worth redeeming."
Thirty years in church and I have yet to hear what I believe the more likely inference to be: we as humans stand as collective outliers within nature, the only creatures who have forgotten the ability to articulate our humanness in the course of our peculiar history. Of course no christ is needed to redeem the beetles, because the beetles never forgot.
Amen to this. Thank you, Jan. Thank you.
It takes such courage to write about the invitation not yet fully accepted, the incomplete connection. It's so much easier to keep these moments and these thoughts to ourselves until there is a story to tell, something that shows our generosity and goodness rather than acknowledging our hesitancy or even fear. But it feels to me that sharing the wobbly start of this journey is a making a commitment to travelling that path in such a profound and generative way, it's making me think about the times where I have hesitated or missed the moment due to my own anxiety or nervousness and how I might find the courage to look for ways to pick up the dropped threads. Thank you 🙏🏻
I would venture a guess that you and I are not the only ones for whom these invitations to greater, deeper and more generous courage seem to come around multiple times an hour. I've wondered how to acknowledge the ways in which I am constantly falling short of my aspirations without drifting into self-denigration. The fact that we sense ourselves walking a tightrope between self-glorification and its inverse says a lot about the state of culture loss, if you ask me. I'm glad this one read to you as a healthy telling. Best to you, Laura.
This is beautiful Adam, thank you. Reminded me of Illich's reflections on early Christians who would keep a spare mattress and a candle for whenever Jesus showed up at the door in the guise of someone needing care. He said that grass roots practice waned once it became institutionalised and managed.
Wow, I love this image David. Absolutely love it.
Beautiful Adam, I do hope you will keep trying to finish the book....and I sounds to me you already had your first spoonful. The invitation is extended minute by minute. Accepting it is not a one off....
I feel so similar, and am in several ways an unchosen myself. I called this 'upping our soup-making skills', oiling the hinges is on that same list.
Thank you, Bertus.
We seem to be called to places that stretch us into the beings we were created to be. Being a real follower of JC (as I see you are endeavoring to do) opens us to travel to new and amazing places.
I'm still skittish of writing about it, because the religion looms so much larger than the actual practices that he invited and encouraged. Best to you.