God in the Garden

Hard Life; Easy Death

2008-07-07T18:10:55Z

I just ran across this Homily-turned-blog-entry by Father Martin Fox in Ohio, and love what he has to say, so I share it here.

The title is "What my Grandma knew about Saint Paul", and it's good stuff... his grandma's main message was "Being Catholic is a hard life - but it's an easy death."

Here's a clip:

You and I must be bold to say,
it is not living for Jesus Christ that is wrong;
it is our culture that is wrong--it is sick, and dying.

More and more couples live together before marriage.
If they are intimate and using contraception,
that will likely continue in their marriage.
No wonder what the Church teaches about
keeping that intimacy open to the gift of life
seems such a impossible ideal.

Yet studies show that couples living together
before marriage are more likely to get divorced.
That is also the case for those using contraception.

One of the many things couples practicing
Natural Family Planning discover
is something new and powerful in their intimacy.
They report it is better, fresher, more enduring,
because it's less about self-fulfillment,
and more about giving oneself away.

Give the whole thing a read.

The Password for the Free Book Giveaway: Covenant2008

A Prayer for the Country

2008-07-04T16:41:29Z

I'm a distant relative of the man, the Cardinal of the Church, who wrote this beautiful prayer. In fact, it's not just any Cardinal. It's John Carroll, who was the first bishop appointed for the United States in 1789 by Pope Pius VI. He was made the first archbishop of the United States when his see of Baltimore was elevated to the status of an archdiocese.

Cardinal John Carroll was a cousin of Charles Carroll of Maryland, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and an ancestor of Suzanne and her family (on her dad's side.)

So now, quite distantly and by marriage, I'm related, and proud to be...

Happy 4th, and God Bless America yet again...

PRAYER FOR GOVERNMENT

We pray, Thee O Almighty and Eternal God! Who through Jesus Christ hast revealed Thy glory to all nations, to preserve the works of Thy mercy, that Thy Church, being spread through the whole world, may continue with unchanging faith in the confession of Thy Name.

We pray Thee, who alone art good and holy, to endow with heavenly knowledge, sincere zeal, and sanctity of life, our chief bishop, Pope N., the Vicar of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the government of his Church; our own bishop, N., all other bishops, prelates, and pastors of the Church; and especially those who are appointed to exercise amongst us the functions of the holy ministry, and conduct Thy people into the ways of salvation.

We pray Thee O God of might, wisdom, and justice! Through whom authority is rightly administered, laws are enacted, and judgment decreed, assist with Thy Holy Spirit of counsel and fortitude the President of these United States, that his administration may be conducted in righteousness, and be eminently useful to Thy people over whom he presides; by encouraging due respect for virtue and religion; by a faithful execution of the laws in justice and mercy; and by restraining vice and immorality.

Let the light of Thy divine wisdom direct the deliberations of Congress, and shine forth in all the proceedings and laws framed for our rule and government, so that they may tend to the preservation of peace, the promotion of national happiness, the increase of industry, sobriety, and useful knowledge; and may perpetuate to us the blessing of equal liberty.

We pray for his excellency, the governor of this state , for the members of the assembly, for all judges, magistrates, and other officers who are appointed to guard our political welfare, that they may be enabled, by Thy powerful protection, to discharge the duties of their respective stations with honesty and ability.

We recommend likewise, to Thy unbounded mercy, all our brethren and fellow citizens throughout the United States, that they may be blessed in the knowledge and sanctified in the observance of Thy most holy law; that they may be preserved in union, and in that peace which the world cannot give; and after enjoying the blessings of this life, be admitted to those which are eternal.

Finally, we pray to Thee, O Lord of mercy, to remember the souls of Thy servants departed who are gone before us with the sign of faith and repose in the sleep of peace; the souls of our parents, relatives, and friends; of those who, when living, were members of this congregation, and particularly of such as are lately deceased; of all benefactors who, by their donations or legacies to this Church, witnessed their zeal for the decency of divine worship and proved their claim to our grateful and charitable remembrance.

To these, O Lord, and to all that rest in Christ, grant, we beseech Thee, a place of refreshment, light, and everlasting peace, through the same Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior. Amen.

The Password for the Free Book Giveaway: Covenant2008

Every Day

2008-06-22T01:11:28Z

I've been going through another one of my phases lately where I want to listen to Country music whenever I'm listening to music. (Jason, of course, would argue that the music I call "Country" isn't really "Country", but alas)...

In fact... driving home from the airport last night after landing from California, it was good to belt out the words along with Brad Paisley... it felt like I was back home, midwestern, heartland, American.

The last few days, though, the lyrics to Rascal Flatts' "Every Day" have really struck me as amazingly deep. In hearing them, I think of Christ, His Sacrifice and gift of Salvation, and the Eucharist made present in the Mass every hour of every day everywhere in the world.

Every time the hook/refrain "Every day" comes around, I can visualize the Host being raised by another priest somewhere else in the world as day breaks in the never-ending praise and worship of the Lamb.

Every time I hear the words about the brokenness, the frailty, the wrongs, I think of my own sins and what Christ came to accomplish.

It's pretty powerful imagery in the lyrics that for me, at least, connect very strongly to God and Church and the faith experience.

Here are the lyrics:

You could've bowed out gracefully
But you didn't
You knew enough to know
To leave well enough alone
But you wouldn't
I drive myself crazy
Tryin' to stay out of my own way
The messes that I make
But my secrets are so safe
The only one who gets me
Yeah, you get me
It's amazing to me

CHORUS
How every day
Every day, every day
You save my life

I come around all broken down and
crowded out
And you're comfort
Sometimes the place I go
Is so deep and dark and desperate
I don't know, I don't know

Repeat Chorus

Sometimes I swear, I don't know if
I'm comin' or goin'
But you always say something
without even knowin'
That I'm hangin' on to your words
With all of my might and it's alright
Yeah, I'm alright for one more night-
every day
Every day, every day, every day
Every day, every day
You save me, you save me, oh, oh, oh
Every day
Every, every, every day-

Every day you save my life

Here's the song:

The Password for the Free Book Giveaway: Covenant2008

My Vocation: Husband, Worker, Father

2008-06-20T21:25:42Z

This entry is 2 in a set of 4 that I was inspired to write during our May trip to Peoria, IL for our friend Robert's Ordination to the Priesthood. All four entries will appear over the course of this coming week.

My close friends know that I went through a period of time in which I wandered from the Church and her teachings. I'm not alone - it's something that the media and statistics tell us that many, if not most, of my contemporaries have done and are doing. It started innocently enough with immersion in and exploration of what can most fairly be described as New Age philosophies and "spirituality."

My close friends also know that during that time, I was "searching" for something that I had named "?", or the "unknown", or the Spirit that ties us all to each other and that powers, drives, motivates, inspires, and gives life to each of us.

During that time, I often looked at Christians with some level of disbelief that bordered on disdain. I couldn't believe that "they had missed the boat" and were still following Christ when He had specifically told the Apostles that he must leave them and would send them a new advocate. I thought that even if the Gospel and the Story of the Lord were true, then why would the even call themselves "Christian"? I was looking for the word for that new advocate He had described. I was looking for that very advocate.

It wasn't until a lifelong friend invited me back to Mass - to a 10 P.M. Mass at SLU's St. Francis Xavier College Church, actually - that I found what I had wandered and stumbled in search of for so long.

When the priest raised the consecrated Host and the Chalice of the Precious Blood and invoked the Spirit, I realized the great gift I had been given in the Faith as a child that I had not seen before.

I had found the "?". The fullness of the Spirit was there, precisely because of the unity that existed in the Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that enabled the Spirit to flow forth from that loving embrace.

I share this story, because close friends also know that at that point I started to explore the possibility of a Vocation to the priesthood as a Jesuit.

I explored that until I re-met Suzanne, who I had known as a child and had seen off and on since we had both graduated from high school and went our own ways.

Through a series of signs, God made His plan of marriage and biological fatherhood apparent to me, and I chose to embrace that Vocation and have never regretted it or looked back.

This back story is important, because as we drove home from Peoria after Robert's Ordination weekend, Suzanne asked me a question that she had not before asked in our almost four years of marriage. She asked "Did this weekend make you regret not becoming a priest?"

As I discussed with Robert over lunch on the Tuesday after that weekend, that was a question that had an easy answer that was hard to put into words.

Certainly and unequivocally, I have no regrets in the Vocational path that God made apparent to me and that I chose.

Without a doubt, priests of Christ are truly called, consecrated, and set apart to be "priest forever, according to the line of Melchizadek." There is a very special and distinct reality to the Holy priesthood from all other Vocations.

But there is an equally special and distinct reality - in a completely different sense - to the Vocation of husband or wife in marriage.

I love the reality of that Vocation.

At its core, it is a loving human type of the divine communion between Father and Son, bearing forth the Spirit.

It is an objective reality that the man and the woman must fully and completely give to one another for the marriage to be true and real. The more full and complete that mutual self-giving is over time, the more full and complete the marriage.

As time wears on, it's certainly easy to erect a brick wall in the communication with one's spouse. Every time they do something that angers you in the slightest, every time they ask you to sacrifice and do something that pulls you from something that you'd rather be doing, there's a tendency to block off a little corner of your life from them and withdraw.

The image of God in the Trinity shows us another way altogether, though, and it is echoed in the reading from the First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians that so many couples choose for a reading at their wedding. (Love is patient... Love is kind...)

Being a priest (even without being one, I am certain) is a tough Vocation.

Being a husband or wife (being one, I am quite certain) is a tough Vocation.

Both are called to be witnesses to a world that has all but abandoned the Christian worldview of the fruitfulness and happiness of true, mutual self-giving.

As husband, I frequently have to set aside something I'd "rather" be doing or somewhere I'd "rather" be going to spend the time I should spend and do the things I should do with my wife and my sons. In making the choice to do these things, I honestly feel more grace and peace - and am filled with sometimes unexpected happiness.

As husband, it's my vocation to work to provide for my family. After all, it was Adam who God told (in the Garden, after the fall) that he would forevermore toil for his living and to provide for his wife.

As father, it's my vocation to be an image of the Heavenly Father in my household - to show loving authority, be truly just, be compassionate and forgiving, and to completely give of myself for my family.

I have no regrets. My life as a husband is my priesthood, as our Popes of late have made it very clear that all the Baptized have a very real call to Christ's royal priesthood. Not in the tangible, real, and self-sacrificial sense of a Holy Priest, but in a different, real, and self-sacrificial role in a household.

Here's the exciting part: What we brought home from Father Robert's Ordination weekend was a very real, tangible, and living reminder of the rich variety of Vocations to which God calls believers - to that of the Holy Priesthood, to other aspects of religious life, to single and chaste living, and to the marriage that completely gives to another in order to produce offspring and perpetuate humanity and God's family. Each has a richness of spirit to share with the others, and each has much to gain from the others. I am so happy to be in mine, with my wife - my life partner and best friend, and able to share in showing the Light of Christ to the world through our life in our vocation.

The Password for the Free Book Giveaway: Covenant2008

Old Meets New

2008-06-20T01:21:59Z

At long last! This entry is 1 in a set of 4 that I was inspired to write during our May trip to Peoria, IL for our friend Robert’s Ordination to the Priesthood. All four entries will appear over the course of this coming week.

Funny story from our trip to Peoria for Father Robert’s Ordination:

At his first Mass on Sunday morning (the day after the Ordination) at St. Mark Church in Peoria, we were just gathering when something uniquely Catholic happened: Old met New in a very real and tangible way.

The congregation had been gathering for close to an hour in the church, and the priests, deacons, acolytes, et al were making final preparations and moving to the back of the church to prepare to begin.

Being very “by the book” new priests (Alleluia!), Father Robert and the others had of course a thurible - loaded, nonetheless - and, as a result, a LOT of smoke from the incense.

It resembled the times at camp when a new scout would try to start a fire with a bunch of large logs by loading it with a pile of leaves.

Yes, there was that much smoke.

It was glorious!

As I prayed, I found myself thankful for how gracefully and simply the smoke served to raise my thoughts and prayers and pull me from the temporal world into the reality of the Heavenly world that we would soon enter into in the Mass.

But that was quickly interrupted by The New.

Lights. Flashing lights. Loud beeping and sirens. Alternating. Lights. Beeps. Sirens. Lights. Beeps. Sirens.

For a moment, I was taken back to the last time I had been pulled over by a policeman.

But I immediately snapped out of it and started looking for the fire, the exit route, Suzanne and the boys and my parents.

And quickly noticed that no one else was moving. Except for the pastor and another man from the congregation who were hurriedly darting from the front of the church to the back - and again, and again, and again.

It seemed that someone had neglected to turn off the smoke alarm system that was obviously overly sensitive for a Catholic worship space.

Of course, the modern world has its imposing way of taking over even the most sacred of spaces and times. The sirens and lights continued for minutes - many minutes - until the sirens of the fire truck arrived and the firemen were able to verify the safety and disable the alarm system.

And Mass began and continued without a hitch.

But buried in these simple moments - and 20 minute delay to the start of Mass that really didn’t phase anyone - was a wonderful reminder of the reality of the Church in modernity.

In our Catholic faith, the oldest of the Tradition and the unwritten teaching of the Apostles meets the newest of the realities of our world, science, technology, and culture. And at the synapse, despite the debates and arguments and finger-pointing that can sometimes result, is the reality of God’s Will meeting man’s humble working and re-working of the world that he was given.

In a sense, what we saw that morning was a symbol of the reality of the Gospel brought into modernity. The message of a Law higher than all powers on earth. The message of a choice more important than any a man has made before. The message of a God of justice and compassion who gives much and anticipates much. The message of Love, of our highest calling as mankind, and of a world and a life beyond the present.

Old meets New every hour of every day as Christ continues to make Himself and His Sacrifice present on every altar of the world. As Christ enters this broken, troubled world. But which is Old and Which is New? Is Christ and the Church the “Old” and the world the “New”? No, I choose to think that we as Christians are called to see the world as the “Old” and Christ and His Church as the “New”, the goal, the normative end which we seek. Such it is in our New Life in Baptism. And are call is to carry that flame of Christ through our life here into the next.

The Password for the Free Book Giveaway: Covenant2008

Free Book! Yeah, that's right.

2008-06-14T03:35:51Z

For Father's Day, I'd like...

To give YOU a free book!

Yes, you read that right. It's time for a little GodInTheGarden.com giveaway.

From now (Father's Day weekend) through July 4, I'm giving you, my favorite reader, a chance to win one of three books of which I have extra copies.

The books:

First Comes Love (Scott Hahn) - A wonderful read on the basics of marriage, life, children, and family in the context of Christian doctrine.

ManAlive (G.K. Chesterton) - A (short fiction) book by my favorite English-speaking author of the last century about the sheer joy of being alive and how fun it is to push life's little boundaries.

The Online Advertising Playbook (the Advertising Research Foundation) - For my ad junky friends, this is the "textbook" of online ads that ARF released last year.

How to score a free book?...

From now (Father's Day weekend) through July 4, there are four ways to enter into the drawing for the free book:

1) Post a comment to any entry. Be sure to leave the correct contact info in your post so that we can contact you. Every approved post equals one entry into the blind drawing for the book.

2) Sign up for RSS updates via your RSS reader. A secret code will appear at the bottom of all entries via RSS. Email me your contact info and the secret code for an entry.

3) If you have a blog, link to this post. Email me a link to your post mentioning the contest so we know to add an entry for you.

4) Order an item from the God In The Garden Online Store (see the button in the navigation above.) Score one entry for each item you order.

You can enter one or all of the above ways - and you can enter via #1 multiple times (for multiple comments.) The deadline to enter is Friday, July 4 (Happy 4th!) at 9 PM Central (just as the fireworks should be kicking off.) The winner will get their choice of book from the above and will be introduced to you on Monday morning, July 7.

The Password for the Free Book Giveaway: Covenant2008

Fathers' Day: by Father Corapi

2008-06-14T03:00:00Z

I share this (obviously) in the spirit of wishing all of my dad peers out there a happy and blessed Fathers' Day - with special prayers and thoughts for all the moms who are making their way through raising their kid(s) without the presence of a father in the house. In my book, they're "dads" worthy of the praise and prayers of today as well.

Father's Day - By Fr. John Corapi

As we prepare to celebrate Fathers' Day we should reflect a bit on what a father is. Today I'm afraid that there are a large number of people who can no longer relate to the reality or the concept of a father. This was not always the case as most marriages never suffered from the ravages of divorce. Many individuals today did not have the benefit of a father at home, or even in their life to any extent. 50%+ of marriages, including Catholic marriages, end in divorce. Single parent families are painfully common.

A human being needs both a father and a mother, male and female, to receive the fullness of nurturing, love, and support. One parent can try heroically to fill both roles, and do quite well, but it is never the same as when mom and dad fulfill their respective roles.

A father, along with a mother, obviously collaborate with God to bring life into existence. You will never know the eternal joy of Heaven without your father and mother saying yes to life. A father protects and supports his family. If evil in any form threatens his family a father must engage the evil and protect the family. This is true most of all spiritually, but also physically, emotionally, economically, and morally.

[Emphasis here is mine:] Dad has to fight many a battle to win the war of the salvation of the souls of his spouse and children. If dad doesn't even know there is a war, where would that leave his family? How many sleepless nights fathers have had had worrying how to provide for mom and the kids? How many days he has come home from work bone tired, trying to provide a life for the family better than he had? How many deaths has he died agonizing over the welfare of each of his children?

Remember your father this Fathers' Day. Pray for him, alive or deceased. While you are doing this, hopefully through a day started with the Holy Eucharist, remember your priests, who are truly fathers in the spiritual sense. They too have expended a lot of 'blood, sweat, and tears' trying to insure the well-being of their spiritual children. Without the priest there is no forgiveness through the sacrament of Reconciliation. Without the priest there is no strengthening through the sacrament of Confirmation. Without the priest there is no anointing of the sick. Most of all, no priest no Eucharist - the Source, Center, and Summit of the Church's life.

Let's pray for our fathers, both biological and spiritual, this Fathers' Day, and every day. We need them, and they need us.

God bless you,
Fr. John Corapi

Online version of this email can be found here.

The Password for the Free Book Giveaway: Covenant2008

The Scouts. The Camp. The Tornado.

2008-06-12T20:33:52Z

Taking a break from work at the airport, waiting for my flight, to blog about this, since this article just hit Drudge...

I remember a time early in my 9 years on camp staff when I was on Staff Duty Office (SDO), the camp staff member who stays in the main lodge all night to monitor the camp, the weather, the phone line, etc... all to maintain safety and order if anything comes up.

Once in 1993, there was a tornado watch - then warning - late into a night I was on SDO. I was freaked out. We were in the middle of Nowhere, MO with no Internet access, sketchy weather radio access, no cell phone towers within miles at that point in time, and KMOX (the big talk station in St. Louis) not really giving many updates about Nowhere, MO an hour south.

I was up late that night, and when the tornado threat passed, I was blessed with some rest. Only to wake up to feet of floodwaters from the creek all the way up to the main lodge.

Different outcome to the same backstory. So I empathize with the scouts at the camp in Iowa last night.

And THIS is the story I've been waiting all day to finally read:

Boys Scouts praised as heroes after twister kills 4

(from the AP)

When the howling winds finally died down, the Boy Scouts -- true to their motto, "Be Prepared" -- sprang into action.

Putting their first-aid training to use, they applied tourniquets and gauze to the injured. Some began digging victims from the rubble of a collapsed chimney. And others broke into an equipment shed, seized chainsaws and other tools, and started clearing fallen trees from a road.

Dozens of the Scouts, ages 13 to 18, were hailed for their bravery and resourcefulness Thursday, the morning after a twister flattened their camp in Iowa and killed four boys.

"There were some real heroes at this Scout camp," Gov. Chet Culver said, adding that he believes the Scouts saved lives while they waited for paramedics to cut through the trees and reach the camp a mile into the woods.

Read the whole story.

The Password for the Free Book Giveaway: Covenant2008

Weekend Recap

2008-06-09T02:44:46Z

- Suzanne had a girls' night out with her mom & sister while I watched the boys.
- Threw 3 going-away receptions for Father Jeff (one after each Mass).
- Thomas played the pipe organ at Holy Family for the first time. Thomas: "Loved it!"
- Went to O'Guinn's graduation party.
- Moved just about everything out of the C'Ville office.
- Watered plants several times.
- Suzanne's just back from the grocery store.
Praise to God for such a great and productive weekend!

The Password for the Free Book Giveaway: Covenant2008

Matthew. Tax collector. Come, follow me.

2008-06-08T01:41:37Z

This weekend is a special one for our family. In the Gospel for this weekend (the Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A), Jesus calls Matthew the tax collector to follow Him. And Matthew "got up and followed Him." That simple. That easy. That moment of total openness to grace, calling, and mission - and acceptance of it.

As Jesus passed on from there,
he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post.
He said to him, "Follow me."
And he got up and followed him.
While he was at table in his house,
many tax collectors and sinners came
and sat with Jesus and his disciples.
The Pharisees saw this and said to his disciples,
"Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?"
He heard this and said,
"Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do.
Go and learn the meaning of the words,
'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.'
I did not come to call the righteous but sinners."
(Matthew 9: 9-13)

We joked around a bit while we were expecting Matthew (at the time we didn't know if he was a girl or a boy - we've waited until the birth of both of our children to see what God had in mind for us.) At the time, Thomas LOVED when his Uncle Michael came over and gave him gold coins. He'd stock all the coins he could in his many banks. We joked that little Thomas was our official family banker. Since we knew that if the next baby was a boy we were going to name him Matthew, it became a running joke that we were going to have a little tax collector to go along with our banker.

Jesus called one of the class that many people considered the evil and vile of their time - a tax collector. He didn't just call him... He went to his house and dined with him - and many other sinners, as we read.

Of course the righteous of the time asked what was going on. If Jesus really was the messiah, the God, the savior, why was he hanging out with "those people"?

And Jesus gave the obvious answer... that if you're not sick then you don't need a doctor. It's the ones who need healing that He comes for. If he came for the perfect, then the cross probably would've been a lot easier than it was.

And the Gospel is absolutely packed with stories of His encounters with those for whom He came. Those needing physical healing, those needing spiritual healing, those needing moral healing. Types of you and me and our brothers and sisters.

In Jesus, we see the full depth of humanity's mirror of God's image - the full and true LOVE that becomes clouded in man over time, as we are an imperfect mirror of the perfect and divine.

A close friend of mine who is gay once asked me how, when my Church (as he thought) teaches that "the way he is" is so wrong, I could still find myself friends with him and care so much for and about him.

And I explained some of the above. That Jesus' message wasn't all one of fire and brimstone and going to Hell.

Sure, He preached the Truth, and that Truth is a call to live fully the divine as exposed through Natural Law. BUT the exposition of that truth always came over time, through personal, loving encounters, and through fully living and exemplifying the fullness of joy of living God's Will, not our own.

Christ came to show a mankind who had grown very familiar with the rules that they could be exemplified in love, not judgment and vilification.

"You catch more flies with sugar than with vinegar", the old saying says.

"Go and learn the meaning of the words, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' I did not come to call the righteous but sinners", our Savior tells us.

Certainly, that sure and true LOVE wants us to be with Him, and being with Him means turning fully toward Him and embracing His law and will.

But goodness knows, I've had a lot of stumbles in my own path... a lot of bad choices that led me down the wrong roads. But I learned from each, and I've come to see that Christ was always there, never turning His back on me, always waiting for me to turn back around and come back to the "True path, the true way, the true life."

Praise be to God for His amazing plan, His grace, His GOSPEL ("GOOD NEWS") for the ones on the dark paths... the lonely... the sad and hurt and weeping and dying.

New life is always a breath - and a choice - away.

He said to him, "Follow me."
And he got up and followed him.

The Password for the Free Book Giveaway: Covenant2008

Gardening: Back to the Future

2008-06-07T01:59:38Z

Part of the thrill of gardening to me is the throwback to when I used to spend my summers as a young boy with my mom's parents. I'd be there for months on end during the summer and one of our activities was tending - and harvesting from - the garden.

I loved fresh-picked and fresh-cooked zucchini. I loved fresh-cut home-grown cucumbers and tomatoes on our salads. And on and on and on...

So part of the thrill as I've been able to get a substantial (well, my most substantial yet) garden going this year has been in sharing the time with Thomas. From filling the beds with soil to letting him poke seeds down into the soil, to letting him help me water it and see the growth each day. Not only is it great father-son time... it's great earthy, home-spun time. And we'll soon start to see the produce of our labors on our own dining room table.

So I was intrigued by this article from the Boston Globe this week that I caught over at the Skippy's Vegetable Garden blog.

The article's title: Amid City Streets, A Growing Trend. High produce prices send urbanites in search of a spade and a handful of seeds.

From the article (snips):

Seed sales are up 20% ... Boston has 3000 community gardens and hundreds of people on the wait list currently (plot fees are $30) .... people turn to gardening in economic slowdowns ... gardeners at least partly motivated by saving money ... 15 healthy tomato plants will produce about 100 pounds of tomatoes ...at $3.99/lb ...$400 ... estimated to cost $55 to grow those 15 tomato plants.

So... a $55 investment in tomato plants could yield $400 worth of tomatoes. Sounds like Thomas might be running a tomato stand instead of a lemonade stand in a few years!

In actuality, we only have 3 tomato plants this year. I only wanted to tend enough for what we needed to put on our table, and a little extra. And since we normally have salads (with tomatoes) every night at dinner, and then oftentimes at lunch, I thought this would do it. Plus one plant producing the bigger slicers for hamburgers, eating raw, and the like.

Nonetheless, it'll be interesting to see how much money we'll save in produce this summer... from being able to harvest our lettuce, cucumbers, and tomatoes for our salads to being able to get our zucchini and spaghetti squash from the garden and even some pumpkins (for decorating AND pies) in the fall.

Reflecting on this also has reminded me of Rod Dreher's (of Crunchy Cons) blog post a couple of weeks ago about kitchen work (not just the gardens, but the food prep) then and now... He talks of Paul Roberts, author of "The End of Food," who writes that we Americans may not all be able to grow our own food, but we can certainly quit outsourcing its preparation:

Beyond the occasional backyard garden, few of us have the capacity to produce our own food. But until the last few decades, most Americans still exercised a lot of control over the quality and cost of the food entering our home: We cooked almost every day. We bought ingredients and turned them into meals; we planned menus and stocked pantries, all of which required being connected to our food.

Today, despite a mania for cookbooks, celebrity chefs and 24-hour programming on the Food Network, cooking is a dying art. According to the Department of Agriculture, half of our food dollars are spent on items cooked outside the home, and almost half of the meals served in the average U.S. household lack even a single from-scratch item.

Marketing surveys blame our crowded schedules, our "time poverty": The average American can spare just 30 minutes a day for the kitchen. But the sad truth is, many of us no longer know what that room is for. Because so many of the roughly 100 million consumers born since the 1970s grew up in households where cooking was already passe, it's a skill we never learned.

Yet if we're serious about reclaiming control of our food, the kitchen is where we have to start.

I'm excited that not only do we prepare most of our own food, but now we're growing a lot of it too. And if this works well, we'll likely expand our efforts in coming years, maybe even looping in friends and neighbors into a garden commune. I love, though, Roberts' point about how people who claim they have no time to cook sure do make time to watch television. How true, how true.

The Password for the Free Book Giveaway: Covenant2008

Zucchini 6/4

2008-06-04T12:13:37Z

Michael

The Password for the Free Book Giveaway: Covenant2008

Veggies

2008-06-03T02:20:12Z

Zucchini. Hoping this one's a female flower.

Tomatoes taking their time ripening.

Beans & peas sprouting - one week after seeding.

The Password for the Free Book Giveaway: Covenant2008

Abp. Burke and St. Stan's

2008-05-29T11:53:41Z

I couldn't have said it any better than Mr. Archibold.

Please join in the prayer of thanksgiving... and for reconciliation.

The Password for the Free Book Giveaway: Covenant2008

From the daddy of the 2 1/2 year old

2008-05-28T01:54:24Z

Some fun & cute updates about Thomas Xavier...

- His favorite part of the Mass is currently the Gloria. He won't go to Mass without giving persistent reminders that he wants us to be sure he knows when it's time for the Gloria. And then he loves to put his whole heart and soul into singing it. It's really, truly something else.

- He LOVED the incense this last weekend at Father Robert's ordination. He hasn't stopped talking about it, and it's certainly his most-used new word. He says he loved the smell of it, uses his flyer of the Cathedral to walk us through (on the map) the route that the incense took, and consistently reminds us of how much he loved it. Tonight, he told me "help me pray." Secretly, I think that the 2 1/2 year old "gets it" more than some graying lay liturgists.

- He really gets a kick out of Father Robert. True, until now it was Father Jeff. Perhaps he loves most the youngest priest he knows at any point in time. But every night when I say prayers with him, we include a prayer for each of the priests he knows. Usually that has included Father Larry, Father Pat, and Father Jeff. Tonight we got to add Father Robert and when we got to him in our prayers, he promptly grew a huge smile and said "Yes, Father Robert. LOVE Father Robert!" You could tell that he really did get a kick out of Father Robert. What a great kid!

- He was a big help in the garden yesterday. Between swings at the softball on his tee and attempts at washing everything he could with the hose and nozzle, he helped plant seeds for about 27 green bean plants. Although I think he's perplexed that we weren't able to pick green beans today when he helped me plant the seeds yesterday. But that doesn't really matter, because EVERYTHING that happened in the past is "yesterday" to him right now.

These are the little moments and stories that make being a dad one of the best things in life. Coming soon: some stories on the ever-growing Matthew James, who just started to army crawl more than his body length today.

The Password for the Free Book Giveaway: Covenant2008