Erik
An excellent quote by a personal hero:
“But there are an enormous number of people — and I am one of them — whose native religion is Christianity. We were born to it; we began to learn it before we became conscious; it is, whatever we think of it, and intimate belonging of our being; it informs our consciousness, our language, our dreams. We can turn away from it or against it, but that will only bind us tightly to a reduced version of it. A better possibility is that this, our native religion, should survive and renew itself so that it may become as largely and truly instructive as we need it to be. On such a survival and renewal of the Christian religion may depend the survival of the Creation that is its subject.”
– Wendell Berry from “Christianity and the Survival of Creation”
River in January
Along the river are trees,
bowed and burden by snow.
They are beautiful,
Their hoary loads cold and sharp.
And as I walk by, I involuntarily
grab the tip of one of the trees
and gently tug to release it of its burden.
The snow and hoarfrost slough
from its branches with a hoarse whisper
and I am surprised to see
that even unburdened,
it only rises a matter of inches.
And this becomes my prayer tonight:
not for salvation,
but that God would come by and gently tug
around my edges
and that as the cold and hoarfrost begins to slough away
I would rise, ever so slightly —
Just enough,
to wait in silence and expectation,
for warmer days.
Southcentral Alaska Gardening Guide
I just put up a brief guide to vegetable gardening in southcentral Alaska in the resources section of the website. You should go check it out. It’s very much a work in progress, so if you have any additional insights into vegetable gardening in the far north, please share!
-Erik
Family Happenings
A lot has been going on around here. On Friday, our daughter Aurora Grace Johnson was born. She weighed in at 8lbs 3oz. She is perfect. Many adventures in parenting a girl will undoubtedly follow…
In the boots and hat her auntie knitted her...
Additionally, my eldest announced today that he had written a poem. (How the heck does he know what a poem is??) It is printed below with translation:
Hunt deer
a hunter is hunteen for deer he so 10 por buck poof wit.
the gun fel wit the deer. and yes .wit the hunter and thae.
kept his atlers .and next hunt a borhog…
Hunt Deer
A hunter is hunting for deer. He saw a ten point buck. “Poof” went
the gun. Fell went the deer. And “yes!” went the hunter and they
kept his antlers and next hunted a boar hog.
Literary genius in the making? Methinks yes!
Winter Garden Update
I’ve been doing a little winter gardening this year, and I’ve had some interesting successes I thought I’d share here:
Gooseberries:
Last year my dad had a bumper crop of gooseberries. He has three different plants, and a couple different varieties that have largely been ignored for the past five or six years.
One of his plants is a slightly less-common red variety. The taste of the berries are out of this world. I really can’t come up with a way to describe it. Gooseberries and currants, while extremely popular in the UK, are seldom grown here in the states. Both are supposed to be very easy to propogate. With this in mind, I started my first experiment in plant propogation.
I took 2-year old cutting from the gooseberry plant in September, when the leaves were beginning to turn. I cut several 12″ pieces that had 10-12 leaves on them. I dipped them in root growth hormone and potted them.
Then I promptly forgot about them for a month. I wasn’t sure if they needed a dormancy phase so I simply put them on the floor in our guest bedroom. I completely forgot to water them for a month. When I rediscovered them, I was fairly certain I had killed them all. However, I put them under lights and gave them water.
Lo and behold, they started to grow! All six of my cuttings made a comeback (but three got eaten by the puppy). Initially, they all looked like this:
Pretty much a dead stick with a few tiny leaves growing off of a bud. However, over the course of a couple months, they now look like this:
I’ll plant them all into the garden this year and see how they do…
Other Stuff:
In addition, I planted some habanero peppers, jalepeno peppers, and basil to keep myself occupied. Finally, I started my onions yesterday. Last year I started them in march and they ended up really weany. We’ll see if I can get a good crop this year.
I got a soil test for the first time this year, and it shows that my soils are really low on phosphorus. This could be the culprit for my less-than-awesome harvest the last few years. I’ll be putting a lot of organic fertilizer into the garden this year…
Happy New Year!
The view from our living room at midnight
Click image for a larger version
It’s been a while
I’m finally on winter break, and I’m looking forward to getting back to posting. But not just yet.
In the meantime, check out a blog I’ve been following for the past few months. It’s called “Pursuing Nothing” and it’s the journals of a vagabond couple as they explore life on the fringes. What’s really cool is that both people blog about the same adventures, so you get the chance to hear the same story from both the male and female perspective. (Click on either Garth Kiser or Sarah Handysides, click on “words” and then click on “journal.”)
Tonight Across America
I ran across this poem that I wrote a while back. And here it is…
Tonight across America
the glow of ten millions screens
illuminate 20 million faces.
They cheer, they laugh, they weep:
the room grows warmer from
human emotion.
Tonight across America
the sound of postmodern life
echoes on textured walls.
The buzz of the dryer,
the beep of the microwave,
and the hum of the refrigerator
sound their quiet industrial symphonies.
Tonight across America
five hundred thousand people
hunch their backs and peer
into their computer screens.
They stare at smiling faces
and other longing souls,
hoping that their clicks
their gently pressed keystrokes
mean a chance at happiness and love.
Tonight across America
I leave America behind.
I climb the trail through the woods
and see the lights of life
yellow and blue and cold
shining below from a thousand empty streets.
Tonight across America
it is my voice, my breath alone
that penetrates an abandoned world.
Tonight I am nature’s child,
an Adam in a world
that all the other Adams
have left behind.
Tonight across America
one man stands illumined
by the diluted lights of the city.
Breathing in the night
Breathing in the night.
Changing the world…
As previously noted, I am a high school teacher. As a high school teacher, I am part of a large bureaucratic structure called the “educational system.” Previous to being a teacher, I was a youth worker and thus a part of a large bureaucratic structure called the “church.” In both places, I’ve had the chance to be a part of gatherings, retreats, and conferences. And in both places, the environment of these conferences is largely the same: good food and luxurious accommodations; charismatic speakers; discussion on innovation and change; fog machines, lights, and loud music.
We are always promised something life-changing. We leave believing in that promise. But somewhere along the way, we lose our energy and our passion. The life-changing innovation is not working and the world is largely the same. Eventually, we end up questioning whether it wasn’t all smoke and mirrors. We become, at worst, cynical and discouraged.
Contrast this with a few disciples and seekers on a hillside. There are no luxurious accommodations. There are no lights. There are no fog machines or big-screens.
The venue is free. Here, you will only find soft human voices and shared bread.
I’m always trying to figure out how to change the world (it’s on my to-do list). And what I’m realizing is that I’m not seeing a lot of “world-changing” happening in hotel ballrooms or in stuffy conference halls. I think things change when people sit together and talk softly. No agenda. No lanyards. No gimmicks. Just open space, shared bread, and authentic words.
Show me a conference like this. I’ll be the first to sign up.
A trip up north
I spent the weekend three hundred miles north, hunting caribou. It was a perfect weekend: a full moon rising over the mountains; shooting stars and northern lights; scenery that was breathtaking; and the deeply peaceful sound of silence.
