Greenblade

In messing around with media this morning I kept coming up against the same theme – angst, depression, alienation, paralysis. In Creating Change in the Midst of Crisis Jim Wallis of Sojourners warns of the danger of being changed by the very values that are bringing on our depression. He quotes French President Nicolas Sarkozy, in reference to the economic crisis, “It was an economics only for ‘here and now’ resulting in a ‘depreciation of the future.’” and “How can we return the economy to the service of humankind?” Read more of this post

Several weeks ago a Ring-Necked Pheasant walked right up the driveway like it was coming to call. It poked around for awhile and then walked off through my neighbor’s yard. Over the next weeks it came back from time to time and lately it has been hanging around, pecking at seed below the bird feeder. Today it was either under the bird feeder or somewhere in the yard for most of the day. It is richly colored, watchful but not fearful, and – it wears teal spectacles. Read more of this post

Writing Coming to Terms on Monday made me think about my love of complexity. I find everything from fractals to Celtic interlace both fascinating and beautiful. More than that, such patterns are the only thing that seem to me to approximate the complexity of creation. If God had wanted all of us to be alike God would not have created 34,000 species of spiders. A dozen would have been more than sufficient. Read more of this post

After I wrote Vegan, Week 3: A Little Cranky but Hanging In I woke at 4:00 this morning wanting to repudiate the whole thing. (Waking at 4:00 is not unheard of for me, but it does mean I have something on my mind.)

In my spiritual system all of creation is sacred in the sense that creation is a web of interconnection on which all of life depends. Humans have been given some kind of guardianship within this system (‘within,’ not ‘over’), described in Genesis as ‘dominion.’ Read more of this post

I am more than halfway through the experiment and I am noticing a few things. While I know this will disappoint my devoted vegan readers but there is zero to no chance I will come out of this a vegan. On the other hand I won’t have any wiggle room in my commitment to eating animal products from farmers who care about their animals. And I don’t mean just treat them well, I mean have thought through all the stages of what it means to raise them. Read more of this post

I have had several conversations today with people who wrestle with what to do in the face of another cataclysmic disaster. Should we give money? To which organization? Isn’t there something substantial we can do, something that will mean something? At least we are talking about it. I talked today with someone I haven’t talked to in years. He has few monetary resources but he is heart-broken. What can he do? Read more of this post

Still it’s not bad. I’m learning new recipes. I’m never hungry. I have grown addicted to a salad of spinach, red onion, avocado, and grapefruit segments. Breakfast is a bit of a challenge as is the constant search for protein.

I had lunch with a friend at Moosewood where there were two vegan entrees. I wasn’t tempted by the other items. In fact, it felt easier in a way. I wasn’t dazzled by so many choices. I chose the spinach fettucini with tofu-nut “meatballs,” even though I have a visceral reaction against trying to make one food item seem like it is another. I made a bit of a display about my choice so the server knew I was eating vegan for the month. Read more of this post

I am beginning to think six degrees of separation is way too many. Under the six degrees model, connections are counted linearly – I know someone, who knows someone, who knows …. Six connections like that and you get to – Kevin Bacon!

But media like Facebook don’t work that way. With Facebook you have a set of friends that will overlap in various ways with other sets of friends, the friends of your friends. Suddenly you have the possibility of discovering a connection and then tracing the path that brought you there, rather than the other way around. Read more of this post

The Great Vegan Diet Experiment began on New Year’s Day and … so far, so good. Of course I took note of all the issues that came up, some of them practical, some informational, and some almost primal. I bought so many supplies, for instance, that the fridge is jammed and the counter littered with bags of dried beans and jars of chutney. Was I deeply fearful that without cheese I would starve? Read more of this post