Desperate Times

Twice in the past week I've encountered African American men who were begging for gas money. One was in the parking lot of the local low-cost grocery store. The other was a man who was walking with his gas can after his car ran out of gas on Hwy 23. My husband and I picked him up and drove him the three miles to the gas station. It's rather unfathomable to me what kind of night he was going to have walking those miles and back to the car before going on his way to Minneapolis. He seemed happy enough for the ride, and didn't ask for money, but when we asked him about his situation, it turned out his plan had been to get to the next truck stop on the gas in his car and there beg for money for enough gas to get back to the city. He had four dollars, enough for one gallon.

Of course, we gave him enough money to buy gas to get back to the city. Then, trained to distrust anyone who wants money from us, we tried to figure out the nature of the scam. No matter how we wrapped our mind around it, if it was a scam, it was a very bad one. He was a black man walking on the side of a rural road with a gas can. It was quite likely no one would pick him up given where he was walking. Even if they did, he wasn't likely to get much money, if any. He was right to think his chances of "begging up some money for gas" would be better at a truck stop.

We also tried to figure out what this tells us about people who are, if not poor, on the edge. He had nice enough clothes, one of those old-timey hats. Why did they head out to St. Cloud that day without enough money to buy gas to get back? What did he think was going to happen when he set out on that road with no sign of lights in either direction? With more questions, he said his fiancee was in the car, and that they'd been engaged for two years because they were waiting until things got better for them. It was so hard to get a job in this economy, he said, and even harder to keep it. We got a glimpse of a man who seemed to just go from one thing to another, just focus on the task ahead. Out of gas? Start walking. He said, "If we ran out of gas in the city, we would have just left the car and gotten on the bus, but here it's a big problem." It was a glimpse of a life of going from one complicated situation to another. Even on the way back with the gas, he was making a call to make arrangements having to do with the car, which seemed to be borrowed and had to be returned the next day. It was all confusing, and disorienting, and we were fully aware of our privilege and the order of our lives.

When I encountered the second man, in the grocery parking lot, I felt I had already given my gas donation for the week. I was in a funk, having just spent $90 on three bags of groceries that would barely last us the week. Suddenly, the price of everything seems to be soaring, and the discourse over the budget and other issues, seems very far away from the reality of people's lives. It's part of my ongoing new feeling of dissatisfaction, driven mostly by the way the financial crisis played out with no consequences for the ones who caused it, no changes in the system that led to it, and the seemingly entrenched gap between the rich and the poor.

The disparity in culture between me and the man who ran out of gas was disorienting-- I could not imagine his life. And the situation fostered distrust and a mixture of feelings. It took a week for me to figure out if it was even a story to be told at all.

I am not sure this is a story about race so much as class. I heard David Simon, who created Homicide: Life on the Streets and The Wire, two gritty television series about Baltimore, on Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me this weekend. The host was commenting on a scene in The Wire where two characters go to Philadelphia and their radio station fades out and comes in on A Prairie Home Companion. The two guys wonder what the heck the rest of America is about. That was the place I was visiting in the car. A deep disconnect with people who live 80 miles away from me.

Why Seasons Are Important

Lately, the world has been bumming me out. The earthquake and tsunami, followed by the radiation leak that has now been upgraded from Level 5 to Level 7 toxic event, the same category as Chernobyl (skipping Level 6 while people continued to live near the nuclear power plant), has been such a bad disaster that Americans have stopped complaining about rising gasoline prices. The situation in Libya is fraught with evil upon evil, and is sure to be followed by story after story of atrocities.

The ramped up media panic about the possibility of a government shutdown, now morphing into the next big rhetorical impending disaster of not raising the debt ceiling, would be something I would ignore except that I believe from following the discourse that the Republicans are so far gone they might just go through with it. The financial crisis and the banks and companies that caused it have brought on an ever-deepening cynicism about the seats of power in my country. There are reports about ozone depletion and shocking impending natural disasters. "What will happen to the Wisconsin maple syrup season as temperatures warm?" read one headline in my inbox this week.

Given our awareness of the rapid change to the world around us, and the possibilty of loss on a major scale-- of reasonably-priced food, for example, or nutritious food (Dear Lord, watching poor Jamie Oliver in Los Angeles last night even for 10 minutes almost put me over the edge).

But then, even after a winter as long and cold as the one we just had, today there are turtles back on the log. There is a pair of geese, and nesting ducks. They have all come back. Even the ones that were in the gulf during the horrible BP oil spill.

It makes me think-- what if one were to just pay attention to what is here, what goes and returns, this plot of land? What if I were to make space for only those in my immediate neighborhood or the town around me? Would I be able to live not as a global person but as a local person? Would that offer more hope and promise than the highly-charged technological world I live in now, even out in a small town in Central Minnesota?

The seasons are important, because they remind us that change is a natural part of life, and that in all the change, there are patterns, comforting ones. The sun does come up and stay up longer, and it warms the earth. The birds and animals come back because they believe in this. It is a fact they count on. As should we.

Planting

cherry tomato seedlings and one surprising batch of cilantro

Today I did my first outdoor seed planting. I may have gotten carried away, but I didn't put in anything that can't be replanted if it ends up getting very cold again. I'm hopeful that it won't come to that!

The soil was able to be worked, and it was the perfect day to be in the garden: in the low 60s and overcast with no wind. If only the wind would hold off for one month, the garden would be beautiful, but I know that is not what's going to happen. I didn't bother putting my little plastic row cover over anything-- these are cool-weather plants and will want rain as well. When Steve came out to see it, he had advice for reinforcing the tall pea fence, which will definitely topple when it has plants on it and the winds come.

I planted 10 asparagus crowns down the side of two beds. They can't be harvested for two years. But when they are ready, they will come up with the rhubarb, nice and early, and be finished by the time the tomato plants I'll put in beside them are starting to take off. I'm thankful to YouTube for the great videos on how to plant anything, and this particularly good video on how to plant asparagus crowns. I've also been watching lots of YouTube videos on how to plant seed potatoes. None are as definitive as this one for asparagus.

I planted a bed of onions and beets, and a bed with spinach and then my tall pea fence with snow peas and green arrow shelling peas. I'm really excited about the beets and the shelling peas, which are new for me. I disliked peas as a kid, but I think the best food I've ever eaten is a salad of garden greens with sweet peas from the Farmer's Market and vinegar and oil. I also have a great recipe for pea shoots with salmon and Asian sweet pepper sauce. There's still room for a row of something else in that bed, but I'll wait and put in something that can get going once the peas are waning, like peppers.

The most fun bed was the mixed bed. It has a row of onions and a row of lettuce, a patch of carrots (I did not buy enough carrot seeds!) radishes and the big experiment, potatoes. Potatoes take up so much room (as do onions) that I'm thinking I might still in the end want a permanent garden plot (not raised) for them. Something I can hoe and weed and treat heartily for potato beetles. As it is just an experiment, I put in four russet seed potatoes (a shame, really, when I bought a small bag) with enough space that I can hopefully get some good-sized potatoes. Next week a bag of fingerling potatoes will arrive, and I'll have to find space for them, too!

I'm not one for physical labor, so I was shocked at how fast time went. Turning over the soil, going to the barn for hose, digging trenches and holes for the asparagus-- it was great. The only thing I wanted was more room!

It's very hard for me to know how much space to leave for plants. I don't want to crowd the beds, but I do want to maximize them. I see great drawings of slanted trellises with cucumbers growing on them and under the trellis are cabbages. Carrots Love Tomatoes, about companion planting, seems to suggest you can tuck in plants everywhere if you have raised beds-- some radishes here, some carrots there, herbs all over the place. Still, when I put that little seed in the ground, I want it to have enough space to thrive, and to give me all it's capable of producing.

The good news is that the summer is long-- at least from where I am standing today. Things can be added and "tucked" in here and there. A few squash plants put on one side of a bed can snake over and go where they want out into the field! And next year, I can expand the whole operation again!

Soil That Can Be Worked

The key gardening phrase on some seed packets is "as soon as the soil can be worked." That is when you can plant your first lettuce, peas, carrots, spinach and radishes. I have a large stack of seeds I can plant then. And so I've been going out to check the beds, turning over the soil a few inches at a time as it thaws. Until I can dig my shovel down to the bottom, I won't plant. I also need to be able to turn under and then leave for a week the chicken manure I've incorporated into the top layer. It was already fairly broken down, so shouldn't scorch the plants, but I want to make sure.

The thaw has come very quickly. The snow melted faster than I thought possible, and today was the first day to break 60 degrees. Still, it feels very late. Easter is as late as it seems it possibly can be, not until April 23. I'll put in the onions and potatoes on their liturgical schedule, Good Friday.The college has plans to return the koi to their summer fountain home on April 14, which was unthinkable even on April 1. But it seems the good thing about a late spring may be less of a chance of relapse.

Mating season is in full force, and one good thing about the late spring is the ability to see all the creatures. The male sand hill crane had a little competition, but he seems to have chased him off. Each evening, six to eight deer have been coming out and grazing on the edge of the prairie. One evening a lone turkey came stumbling out of the woods to join all of them-- seven deer, the three cranes, and one turkey. The muskrat is back on the pond, and the ducks are going at it loudly as well.

We've also spotted a coyote, which we hear but never see, twice on the property. One evening he skirted just before dusk along the edge of the large pond before turning and bounding into the woods. The other time he was along the stubble cornfield our neighbor maintains east of our property.

I have a few pans of small sprouts, that I hope will become real plants in the six weeks between now and when I can transplant at the end of May. By then I'll be ready for the next group of seeds, those with packets that read: "when the danger of frost is past."

Tracks

It is difficult to get up during a blizzard at the end of March and go to work. This is true. My workplace, where most of the people (nuns) live right where they work, does not have snow days. So on Wednesday morning, Steve drove me the mile to work in the 4WD Subaru, and it was fine.

We all feel quite put upon, and the people in Chicago and Pennsylvania who woke up to an inch of slushy snow have nothing on us. We got about seven inches, and with the temperatures staying below freezing (well below at night, in the single digits), it's not going to suddenly disappear. The broadcasters, who were in full "flood watch" mode, are still putting out reports, but the crests are delayed now, and in a way, this might slow down the flooding or make it less severe--or more, depending on who you listen to.

One thing I like about a late snow like this is that the birds have returned. I feel for them, but figure they must have enough resources to get through a slight setback like this. I mean, spring IS coming. It's a geological certainty. 

In the meantime, we get to listen to the birds in this still-white, silent world. We can see the sand hill cranes, which returned last week, in stark contrast to the frozen wetlands. And in the morning when I look out the window, I see all the tracks of little creatures making their way down our prairie paths.

There will be no more cross-country skiing for us, so the birds and small animals and deer get the landscape, and they seem to follow the trails we made. It gets the imagination working.

Here is a poem I wrote about 5 years ago, when my apartment looked out on a small lake. It is about cross-country skiing, and it's true that when I'm skiing I still am always looking for signs of animals or hidden animals.  It was written earlier in winter, but the tracks made me think of it today.

Why I Cross-Country Ski

I am out here for the two deer

who hide behind the smallest scrap of yellow:

the mother stands and watches me,

from this distance so like a dog
until she prances, and even then--
until her child bounds toward her,
hooves to haunches with his quick heart.

Last week on an inch of powder
I saw their sweet tracks circling
objects poking through the lake,
their tiny regular footfalls meandering.

I know somewhere they lie down

and the snow hollows a bed beneath them.

I think they are not bothered by cold.

It may be they like this season best of all.

Centering Prayer

Yesterday I attended an all-day workshop at Saint Benedict's Monastery's Spirituality Center on centering prayer with Sister Katherine Howard. It is something I've been wanting to do for a while, and because it is Lent, it seemed like a good time to begin this kind of prayer practice.

Centering Prayer is a type of contemplative prayer. It is "apophatic" which means prayer without images. The idea is to simply be in the presence of God, to rest in God's love and experience it, to get beneath the river of ordinary consciousness and allow thoughts and feelings to flow by on the surface while you are deeper, at the center of your being, a place that is occupied by love.

The method is simple. Sit in a chair or on a cushion in a relaxed pose and close your eyes for 20 or 30 minutes. Introduce yourself to the process with a brief prayer-- I have just been affirming my belief that God is present to me and that at my center is God's love, and announcing more or less "here I am" to turn from the cares of the day and be present. The practitioner of centering prayer also takes a word with him/her into the prayer, a word that doesn't necessarily matter in terms of its meaning-- it is not a word to be meditated on or contemplated. The word is "the symbol of our intention to consent to God's loving presence and action within us. The word serves primarily to indicate our consent and at the same time it is a way of letting go 'thoughts' we may have become engaged in."

The word I'm using is "ruah," a Hebrew word for spirit or breath, associated for me with the Creation in Genesis and the breath/spirit of God breathed into humans to animate them. It is the only "object" I have with me behind my eyelids, and I carry it to the back of the space and set it down, turning to gaze inward. As thoughts and feelings and physical sensations come, I let them go. It helps that it is not an English word, or a word I use often. I don't get attached to it.

The point is not to banish thought or have no thoughts-- thoughts are part of being. The point is to detach from them, let them flow at a different level. When I alight on a thought or find myself associating to further thoughts, I turn back to my word, acknowledge it and place it again at the back of the space (it is like a movement in Tai Chi for me right now, like lifting and sweeping, intentionally directing my consciousness), and turn again to the meditation space.

I've often thought this kind of prayer could be good for me, but I've also known it would be challenging. I like insight and thinking and I like words and metaphors. But I also know that I have had exactly two very deep religious prayer experiences, one in high school and one in college. And in both, I entered the prayer completely burdened, overwrought, and with deep longing. And in both-- in very different ways-- the experience that transformed me can only be described as an experience of God's love both in me and perceived in others. In one, an actual deep prayer experience, where an hour seemed only a minute, I was in fact in a cavernous space, a wide and dark space where I actually experienced the sensation of resting in God's love and being actively consoled. The second crept up on me gradually and was unexpected when it arrived-- a joy that lasted for nearly two weeks  -- an answer to months of daily prayer on my knees asking God to help me understand/experience "the joy of the Lord."

My experience, of life and of religion, is often one of stress and burden. I have an over-developed sense of responsibility, and a fear of failure and, worse, being scolded. I don't take criticism very well either! The stakes are always getting raised, although of course it is only I who am doing the raising. And I never detach. I am not even sure I know what that means. I excel and then I crash and take some time off and return, refreshed if not renewed, for another round. I don't think life needs to be experienced that way.

I hope I will have the discipline for this. I know I can only benefit from practicing 20 minutes of letting thoughts glide through my consciousness and letting them go, as I seek to more deeply experience God's love.

For more on Centering Prayer, click here.

Seed Planting

Today is the day to start my seeds. It is 10 degrees and the wind is howling, but spring is predicted to begin with temps in the 50s by mid-week. I imagine in the time before climatologists, people just had to go by the Almanac or habit, ignoring the weather outside and believing spring would come soon.

I've never had much luck starting tomatoes inside, but this year my friend Connie is starting my tomatoes and I'm starting her peppers. I've been reading my seed packets carefully to see what can be planted "as soon as the soil can be worked." I did buy some plastic tarp tunnels to use for early warming of seedlings when I put them outdoors, mostly hoping to protect some from the winds we get out here.

Yesterday, Steve and I took his daughter to the airport for her spring break and then we went to IKEA for a light fixture for the kitchen (which is almost, nearly, not-quite completed) and dinner at the French Meadow Bakery and Cafe. I had black barley risotto with roasted winter vegetables that was wonderful-- exactly the kind of food I want to make from my harvest. We drove back first through rain, then driving snow. We both agreed it was the absolute ugliest time of year-- what snow remained was black with soot and mud, and all that was exposed was dead, dirt patches. You don't notice the fields and woods and prairie and lake; you just feel "highway." Going at 50 miles per hour, you realize how far from even the outer edge of the Twin Cities we are.

It's been a long time since my last entry, and I'm conscious of that. Everything this time of year feels worn and old and we're all just waiting for spring. We're still watching movies at night, but it feels like that's all we do, and so not worth commentary. We don't have much to say to each other, and it feels like the world is just cold and waiting for something.

Ash Wednesday, very late this year, on March 9, was one sign of promise. We now enter The Church's springtime. And as we enter, it's a season of hard boiled eggs and tuna melts, of austerity and focus on God. Next weekend I'm taking an introductory workshop in Centering Prayer, something that has long interested me. I've always enjoyed contemplative prayer, and would like to develop this practice, possibly attending weekend retreats in the future.

Entering spring, at least this far north, is a matter of small acts: putting seeds in little plastic cups with some water and peat, and looking forward.