Closing the circle...

Back in the 70s, a book was written called, Closing the Circle.  (My apologies to the author, but I believe it was Barry Commoner?)  The book is an environmental seminary...the seedbed for understanding the great trinitarian environmental creed...reduce, reuse, recycle!

The basic point is this - things come from the earth, we process them and use them, and then, we throw them into a landfill where they sit.  This process of consumption is a linear one that uses up finite resources, not a loop that recyces and renews itself.  If we can make products that we can use for a season, and then find a way to get the waste back into the earth, that would be a sustainable loop.  Then all of our waste can be returned in a digestable way to the land so that it can be used again.  Finding a way to only produce waste that returns to the earth is Closing the Circle.

So, our wonderful church ICC is one of the first chartered green churches, "Gron Kirke" in Denmark.  We have committed to a great deal of practices that will "green" our church from energy efficient appliances, to practical things like reusable seasonal bulletins, to refraining from disposable products in fellowship, "cycle to Church Sundays" and such.  One of them is a compost that we started in the back garden last year.  We put all of our vegetable, fruit and plant waste there.  Immediately, it reduced the volume of our garbage by about 25%.  Seriously - Denmark is very serious about how much garbage you can have per week, and being the Church house that hosts all the time, we always cut it close.  Once we started composting our fruits and vegetable waste...no problem!  It was amazing.

Well, half a year later, all of that degrading, rotting stuff of the earth has produced some great dirt full of centipedes and slugs, ants and crawly things that the boys thought was really cool.  And now, that the front garden has been weeded, it was ready to take on some of our newly composted soil.  And in that soil, the boys have planted squash, lettuce, carrots, radishes, and tomatoes.  From the vegetables that we ate last year comes a seedbed to grow the vegetables that we'll eat this year.  We're Closing the Circle.

And...it's fun.  Smooth out the dirt.  One centimeter down, drop in the seed.  Ten centimeters over, make one more seed.  Pat it down flat.  God's hands forming the stuff of the earth.  Now drag out the hose...not too much, you don't want to wash the dirt away, just a little drink.  The breath of life.  Make little signs so that we know which is which, where to walk and what to watch for.  God took delight in watching us carefully name each living thing.  (Here you can see the signs for "rabishes" and "timatoes" that are planted next to my personal favorite, "scowosh")  In two days, we'll water again, unless the rain comes.  So, pay attention to the sky!  Tending our little corner of the garden.

Closing the circle.  Tending the earth.  Thinking about God's will for all of creation.  Taking time for the Sabbath for us and the earth.  Planting the seeds of faith in the lives of our children through acts of earth keeping.  Measuring life not by events but by the renewal of life and participating in God's creative work.  Can gardening be an act of worship?  Absolutely...