Long live the Spud!

I love anything with potatoes - shepherd's pie, bangers and mash, french fries, rosti ... Apparently, the UN has declared 2008 as the International Year of the Potatoe and is hoping that its merits would help alleviate poverty and promote economic development.

The spud was first domesticated in the Andes (there are 3,500 edible varieties!) and carried to Europe in the 16th century. Its value lies in its high yield and almost perfect balance of nutrients. Potatoes can produce more energy per unit area per day than any other crop and it's possible to subsist on a diet of spuds with very little else.

Apparently, it underpinned the industrial revolution in England in the 19th century by being a cheap source of calories and an easy crop to cultivate so it liberated workers from the land. But there was also a downside with the Irish potatoe famine of 1845 when 1 million Irish perished because of the potatoe blight.

There's a book out (if you want more details on this tuber food) - Propitious Esculent (Helpful Food): The Potatoe in World History by John Reader - on the biography of the spud; the world's 4th largest food crop (after maize, wheat and rice).

Maybe we should all start growing and eating more potatoes, considering the fast rising prices of wheat and rice (this blurb was inspired by spud articles in The Economist March 1st '08).

Oxygen

Recently I have had the good fortune of having a couple of friends/mentors come alongside to listen and pray with me as I struggle with being in the doldrums. It's like taking a breath of pure oxygen...so refreshing. During this season, I've decided to set aside pockets of time to wait on God and get ready for the wind of change!

The Doldrums

I first learnt about the Doldrums as a child when I played a board game that was based on Sir Francis Chichester's successful attempt to singlehandedly sail around the world. He sailed the Gypsy Moth from Plymouth, England in August 1966 and returned after 226 days, having made one stop in Sydney Australia.

The Doldrums is a low pressure area around the equator between two belts of trade winds. It has calm periods where the winds disappear and can trap sailing boats for days or weeks.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner made mention of the Pacific Doldrums: "All in a hot and copper sky, the bloody sun at noon, right up above the mast did stand, no bigger than the moon. Day after day, day after day, we stuck nor breath nor motion; as idle as a painted ship, upon a painted ocean."

I've been feeling in the doldrums lately - like a sailing vessel bobbing up and down on the ocean on a windless day. Maybe it's time to make a change (note picture taken from http://kids.earth.nasa.gov/)

The Father's Love

I found a touching music video by Jimmy Wayne on a father's love. Click on the following URL to enjoy the video - http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=a8c74c2a72126cf63d93

A Time for Everything

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.

Cycle of Seasons

I like this excerpt from Parker Palmer's book "Let Your Life Speak" - I know people who say, "Life is like a game of chance - some win and some lose." But that metaphor can create a fatalism about losing or an obsession with beating the odds. I know of other people who say, "Life is like a battlefield - you get the enemy or the enemy gets you." But that metaphor can result in enemies around every corner and a constant sense of siege.

Seasons is a wise metaphor for the movement of life. It suggests that life is neither a battlefield or a game of chance but something infinitely richer, more promising, more real. The notion that our lives are like the eternal cycle of the seasons does not deny the struggle or joy, loss or gain, darkness or light, but encourages us to embrace it all - and to find in all of it opportunities for growth.

If we live close to nature in an agricultural society, the seasons as a metaphor and fact would continually frame our lives. But the master metaphor of our era comes from manufacturing - we don't believe that we "grow" our lives - we believe that we "make" them. From an early age, we absorb our culture's arrogant conviction that we manufacture everything, reducing the world to mere "raw material" that lacks all value until we impose our designs and labour on it.

Unlike "raw material" on which we make all the demands, we need to reform our culture and ego toward ways of thinking and doing and being that are rooted in respect for the living ecology of life. We are here not only to transform the world but also to be transformed. Transformation is difficult so it is good to know that there is comfort as well as challenge in the metaphor of life as a cycle of seasons. Illumined by this image, we see that we are not alone in the universe. We are participants in a vast community of being, and if we open ourselves to its guidance, we can learn anew how to live in this great and gracious community of truth. We can, and we must - if we want our sciences to be humane, our institutions to be sustaining, our healings to be deep, our lives to be true.

Which one am I?

I am earth - the soil that supports and nurtures living things. I give solid footing to those around me.

I am wind - the power that sweeps away old fears and carries new ideas like springtime.

I am fire - igniting the power and passion in others. I give warmth on cold, wintry nights and clear the way for new beginnings.

I am water - irresistible. No obstacle can stop me. I go over, under, around and through. I change forms to steam or ice or rain. I bring life wherever I go. I touch everyone I meet.

This wonderful poem entitled "Meditation" by Laurie Beth Jones describes the kind of impact we can have on this world. I think in different situations and with different people, we may choose to take on a different role.