A Positively Poetic Priest

I biked my errands today in honor of Earth Day. I dug around in the dirt in my garden and planted some potatoes. I spent time connecting with the sun and the wind and the earthworms.  In college I was one of the few people who had plants in my dorm room, and when others who had plants had neglected theirs, they would bring them to me and ask for help or simply give them to me. Throughout my student years, going into seminary too, I received a bunch of plants, and pet fish, and even two pet mice.  It seems to me that we know we need to be in connection with plants and animals, we are just not doing a great job of making it a priority or passing that knowledge along. I've learned from my mother and random books and people I've asked, but without everyone learning how to be in better connection, we are going to lose the relationship.  I know environmental science is not everyone's cup of tea. But we all need to know more about our own relationship to our environm...

Today's action was not really that environmentally friendly or related to the garden, but it is festive and made me happy. My mother-in-law gave me Earth Day themed nail stickers for Christmas, so I put them on in preparation for tomorrow.  In other news, the tomato, carrot, cucumber, and pumpkin seeds I started in my dining room are starting to sprout. 

Rose bushes Elderberry  The yard has seen a lot of different landscaping in its life. I saw a previous map of St. Peter's campus where it was a playground! But besides the ivy and random hunks of concrete, the previous caretakers have left me with two growing rose bushes and two growing elderberry bushes. I'm going to have to do some research on both to keep them healthy and happy. I look forward to seeing the blooms! 

The Good News Garden got a bunch of sleet and rain last night. The roof has pooled water. I'm going to have to rethink how we put plastic on the roof. 

I started working in my backyard at the beginning of April and already have suffered a couple of weeks of poison ivy rash. I pulled out half of the ivy that was in the backyard, but now I am reluctant to pull out the rest of the ivy. I have started planting some things in my new (very messed up) greenhouse.  The greenhouse was a saga I am not proud of. It is working, but I didn't put the plastics on very well and so I have lots of leaks and I'm going to have to figure it out at some point. Part of the problem is that it has a flat roof, which is not great for rain.  But I now have lettuce and kale and spearmint growing in my greenhouse. I am starting tomato, carrot, cucumber, and pumpkin seeds in my dining room. I am hoping to plant them in the yard in May. The yard seems to have pretty good soil. I have plenty of worm casings in the morning. Roses, ivy, trees, lemon thyme, and other things (dandelions) are growing well.  Good News Gardens is an initiative of the Episcopa...

For the first time in my life I have been given land to care for.  Its not a big backyard, and I think at one point in the last fifty years it was a playground. Indeed, I think it has been many things in its lifetime.  Before Europeans arrived, this land belonged to the Lenni-Lenape.  Over the years as Morristown grew, someone built a house on this land, which at some point was bought by St. Peter's.  I hope as I live here, I will be able to fill in this sparse history with more details, as I fill in this yard with love and plants.  Right now, with the current freeze, it is hibernating. Waiting to come alive again. 

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” This is a quote with many authors, because the sentiment is true.  We remember how others make us feel long after we have forgotten what they did to us or said to us.  This is why many people have very strong reactions to Jesus' Good News. Love offered always makes us feel. Even when we are angry about offered love because it comes from the 'wrong' person, Love, once offered, is never forgotten, because it makes us feel.  Unfortunately, we cannot all rush out of here and love our enemies and change the world.  I wish that we could!  Most of us are not in a place yet where we can offer love to our enemies, as Jesus teaches this morning in our Gospel passage, or even to our neighbors, as he says many other times.  We haven't done the steps we need to get to a place to be able to really offer love to those against us. We h...