faith

antiphons and anticipation

CHS Melrose chapelThis is the first Advent season that I've ever really paid attention to, probably in my whole life.  The quieting down of farmwork, and shorter days, have made our time in chapel all the more prominent these last few weeks, and for that I'm glad.

Sister Helena Marie, a classically trained musician, has created beautiful "Offices" for us to observe throughout the four weeks of Advent.  (An Office is a daily prayer, sometimes called the "Liturgy of the Hours" or the "Divine Office". They are sung at specific times of day; for example, Lauds in the morning, Vespers in the evening.)

For our Advent worship, there are specially chosen psalms and antiphons (short phrases sung before and after a psalm, that frame the text), and carefully selected hymns.  For some reason, I find this manner of worship inviting and meditative, which is so wonderful after all my angst about religion and "The Church" for the last twenty-five years!  Perhaps it has something to do with the intimate nature of the setting; we are usually only six or eight gathered in this little chapel.  The energy that's created when people are fully present and focused is a powerful thing.

plainsong Lauds

We sing "plainsong," which is an ancient musical form developed in the early days of the church, and then elaborated over time.  Lines are sung in a kind of chanting style, sticking mostly to just a few notes, except for a few more elaborate phrases that mark feast days and special occasions in the church calendar.  

And of course, the Advent candles.  Four, each one symbolizing one of the weeks of Advent; we light one the first week, two the second week, and so on.

Advent is a time of waiting, preparing.  I think I was particularly primed for Advent, as I had been desiring to turn inward, to start meditating...and to stop checking websites for job listings and real estate, to stop pushing and prying and trying to force the future to make itself plain to me ahead of time.  I'm thankful for the prayerful practices of Advent that have helped me turn away from my frenetic worry and toward stillness.

simple Advent centerpiece

Here at the farm, the Sisters have a different way of anticipating Christmas.  We don't decorate the tree, or sing carols until Christmas Eve.  We don't exchange presents.  There's no stress of dealing with shopping crowds or harried clerks.  Instead, the Sisters contemplate and pray.  The snow adds a blanket of quiet beauty to the woods.  The winter solstice, happening today, marks another turn, and we begin another anticipation, of the longer days that are coming, of the seeds that will need to be started and nurtured, and eventually planted . . . but I'm learning that you have to go easy when anticipating--if you're not careful, you can throw yourself all the way clear to May, with the advent of asparagus and green leafy lettuces.  In the same way, most of us spend so many weeks anticipating Christmas, to the point of focusing all our attention on the 25th, on gifts and feasts, and lists and shipping . . . and speeding past the pleasure and fullness that comes from waiting, from savoring the present moment.

The time for celebrating is coming, but it's not here yet.  We are still in the darkness, our faces illuminated by candlelight, singing, and waiting. 

Garlic planting time

October brings cooler weather, and that means it's time to plant garlic.  We love the stuff, and use it in our cooking every day.  Which means we need to plant a lot of it!  

There are many varieties of garlic, broken down into two subspecies: hardneck and softneck.  Hardneck garlic has a stiff stalk that emerges out from the narrow tip of the bulb and becomes the tall green scallion-like plant above ground.  Some of the varieties we grow here are Music, Romanian Red, Polish Hardneck, and Georgian Crystal.  Hardneck garlic is a cook's delight, in that each bulb grows four to five large cloves, which are easy to separate from the stalk and quick to peel.

Scapes on the way to market, June 20Softneck garlic has, you guessed it, a softer stalk; these varieties of garlic have many small cloves covered by a silvery thin skin. (We grow Silverwhites and Inchelium Red.) Softnecks last longer in storage, and can be planted mechanically, two reasons why supermarkets carry that type almost exclusively. Hardnecks take a little more labor, as they have to planted by hand in a particular way, and their "scapes"--the curly green tops that appear only for a short while in spring, and that taste like garlicky scallions--have to be pulled by hand.  

And here's the genius of garlic:  you take a bulb of garlic, and break it into its cloves, let's say there are five.  Then you plant each of the five cloves in the ground, a few inches deep and six inches apart.  Next spring, you'll have five bulbs!  It's like magic.

So, to plant hardneck garlic:  using some kind of implement, dig holes around four-five inches deep and about one-two inches wide; there's a tool for that called a dibble (the wooden tool in the picture to the left).  The holes should be about six inches apart.

Eight little cloves, ready to sleep for the winterThen you simply place each clove, root end down, in one of the holes.  The pointed tip should be about 2 inches from the surface.  Finally, tuck the cloves in with some dirt and cover the whole area with mulch.

And then you just have to wait until spring.  

This year is the first year that the farm grew enough garlic both for seed and for our use (70 lbs!)--which is the key to farming, I think--taking care that we have sufficient stores for the winter, and making sure that we'll have a plentiful crop next spring.  I am learning to think in three timeframes, not simultaneously, but imagining back and forth in time to balance out the wishes of the present moment, the needs that may come in the deep winter, and the plans for next year's crops.  It's good mental exercise, and I find that I'm pretty sorely lacking in knowledge about how much food we'll need to get through the winter, and how many seeds we should plant or save for next season...The Sisters here are remarkably able to move forward without too much worry, there's no sense of hoarding, or incessant calculating, or spreadsheet madness.  I'm trying to put my own tendencies to plan and chart and count aside, and gently slip into the stream of faith that they so easily seem to swim in...

once upon an equinox

About six weeks ago, I cancelled my gym membership.  I figured working on a farm would be exercise enough (and it would be, too, if I could just restrain myself when confronted with all the wonderful pies and biscuits around here!).  

Anyway, my gym's name was "equinox" and I never really thought about that until this morning, as today is the autumnal equinox.  What the gym was trying to evoke, I suppose, is the notion of balance, and of nature and health.  And that's all good.

But I'm glad that I'm here at the farm to mark this equinox, rather than training on a treadmill and watching the closed captioning of cable news.  As many of you know, I've been a bit of a news addict in the last decade, since the debacle of the 2000 election...and my intense news monitoring only intensified during this last year's presidential debates and election.  I was spending hours each day tracking what all the talking heads were saying, what all the pundits were pontificating, and what all the analysts were predicting.  Now, there are some good signals out there in that sea of noise--I especially enjoyed Rachel Maddow, Nate Silver's website, fivethirtyeight.com, and the news and analysis of Josh Marshall's website TalkingPointsMemo.com.  But most of it was just endless chatter, that special "inside the beltway" idiocy that comes from focusing only on the perceived "optics" and politics of any particular moment, and the mindless repeating of whatever someone said somewhere...it occurs to me that much of the newsmedia is actually a lot like a treadmill, with the floor going around and around, and the appearance of movement, but for all that work, you don't actually get anywhere...

Now, thinking back on my incessant observation of the newsmedia, I suppose that I was driven by the idea that somehow I could make a difference by worrying the world...that if I just followed closely enough and paid enough attention, that I could shift the course of the river...

But after the election, I realized that I couldn't continue to be caught up in those soul-sucking spirals of negative energy.  Moving to the farm gave me a great opportunity to start some new patterns.  First, there's no TV here.  And I'm actually not in front of a computer for more than a couple hours a week, though I read updates from blogs and headlines, and follow the stories that matter to me, on my iphone each day.  I have to watch myself...I do still want to follow along with what's happening, policy-wise, and i do want to make sure that I can be a source of information for others.  But I don't want to get caught up in the silliness...and I'll tell you, being without a TV and away from the computer these last six weeks has been wonderful.  I'd prescribe that course of treatment for our whole culture, if i could!

So, for this equinox, I'm finding a new kind of balance.  Instead of worrying the world, I'm working it, cultivating it.  Instead of being driven by anxiety, I'm recognizing abundance.

One of the sisters here at the convent has noted, a couple times in conversation, that the Bible says we should "turn away from evil, and do good."  Not fight it.  Not focus on it.  But turn away from it, and do good.  I haven't talked much about what's been emerging for me, spiritually, these last months, and, frankly, I don't know how to yet.  I'm trusting that the words will come, in time.  But for now, I can say that the image of "turning away" resonates with me.   Instead of worrying the world, being attached to the negative, I'm turning away, and focusing instead on life and light.

inauguration photos

I've just finished posting five sets of photos (see right hand menu) from the inauguration and our visit to the capitol, the lincoln memorial concert, and the parties we attended.  I'm a bit disappointed with the quality of the shots--I should get a better camera, and I have to admit that it was too cold to have my gloves off for very long.  But it seems that a lot of other people took pictures...(understatement of the year)...so I'll have to rely on them for prettier images.  If you haven't seen it yet, you will want to check out the "gigapan" site, which has a huge, zoom-able panoramic shot of the inauguration and the crowd.  The satellite pictures are also very, very cool.  You can see how the crowds are clustered around the jumbotrons all the way back to the Washington Monument.

It was an amazing experience, and Anne and I are so thankful that we were able to go to DC and mark this important and historic occasion.  After eight years of grumbling to myself, and shouting at the tv news, it's really a new day.  At the Huffington Post party, Sting came out and sang "Brand New Day," after remarking that he originally wrote the song at the turn of the millennium, and that it was born out of a sense of optimism about the future.  Then he said, "I was about 8 years too early...it had to get so much worse before it could get better."  Let's hope we're on the right path now.

Here's video from the Huffington Post party performances:  will.i.am, sheryl crow, and sting.  And here's "red carpet" pics of a number of the celebrities at the party...we also saw Ron Howard and a bunch of democratic and media figures.  I geeked out on seeing Chris Hayes, of the Nation magazine, in line--he was a bit surprised, I think, to see himself on one of the TVs that line the walls of the Newseum, as they were broadcasting a segment from Countdown with Keith Olbermann on which he had appeared.  We were really excited to see and talk with Mark Green on the metro, and to find that we were all going to the same party!  And to run across Howard Dean as he was making his way, carrying his tux, toward the Newseum.  Don King was probably the most unlikely celebrity spotting...

It's gratifying to think about the fact that a few million people descended into such a small geographical area and withstood unbelievable cold and crowds, for hours and hours, all without a single arrest...Like the primaries and the election, this has given me more faith in the American people, our ability to help one another, our desire to participate in our government...I have to say, the near-silence during the Swearing-In Ceremony was astounding.  There was a real sense of reverence and respect, and that is what remains striking, now, only ten days, or perhaps a lifetime, later.