J.J. Buckfart* communications * environment * leadership * science *

One of my two composters. Photo taken January 30, 2009.

It’s a sad day, both my composters are nearly full and there’s still a bunch of sub-freezing winter ahead of us. Not much happens in compost heaps when the temperatures drop below freezing.

You might be surprised that a family of three would nearly fill two composters mid-winter. We’ll here’s the secret. All that lovely stuff in my composter is not ours. Each week a team of dedicated volunteers and I provided food to families in need at the Redwood Park Opportunities Centre. Local grocers donate to us perfectly good veggies and fruit that cannot be sold. It’s amazing how fussy consumers are. A tiny blemish or bruise and the apple -or whatever- cannot be sold.

As we sort through the produce at the Opportunities Centre, the stuff that is actually fit for the compost heap, makes it to one of my two backyard composters. That is until now.

In the fall, I rake up the leaves from the huge elm tree in our backyard and store the leaves in our shed. I then add the leaves as needed to the composters. The secret to good composting is having the right ratio of carbon to nitrogen. Rotten produce has a lot of nitrogen. Brown leaves have a lot of carbon. Too much carbon and your heap won’t do much. Too much nitrogen and you have a very nasty smelling heap.

As a side note. Here’s some funny comments from my facebook friends about the above picture.

Randy at 14:18, on 30 January.
looks like dinner was colourful!

Linda at 20:19, on 30 January.
Looks delicious…NOT!

William at 22:27, on 30 January.
YUMMMY!!! Canadian stew!!

I just started reading Jacques Cousteau’s biographical book “The Human, the Orchid, and the Octopus.” What an amazing story so far – shark attacks, poisoned air tanks, a narrow escape from an attack by indigenous people in S. America and an antarctic storm that almost made the Calypso inoperable. I am only a quarter through the book.

What is absolutely striking to me is how Cousteau risked his life on a number of occasions in order to follow his passion to explore the oceans. There is a whole section on how his team managed risk, and I think I will talk about that theme in another post. I think churches, businesses, etc. and learn a few things about risk from this explorer.

When equipment didn’t exist to allow Cousteau to explore, he and his teams would develop and test the needed equipment – sometimes nearly killing themselves. From the book, I learned that Cousteau and his team were the folks who first developed the regulator that makes modern-day SCUBA possible.

As I read, it struck me, “What if the church lived out our passion for God the same way Cousteau lived out his passion for underwater exploration? What if we became as passionate as Christ did, to make this world a better place seeing people’s lives changed for the better?”

We’ve become complacent. I don’t think we have fully allowed our passions to translate into any appreciable action. We don’t take risks often enough. Or perhaps even more discouraging (I hope I am wrong), we don’t have deep motivating passions for God; we don’t have deep motivating passions for seeking lives change for the better, we don’t have deep motivating passions for making the world a better place.

I think we the Church can learn a thing for two from this passionate captain of the Calypso.

Henry over at ElementalCM posted about how a Christian group is raising awareness about climate change by dressing kids up in animal costumes and boarding a modern-day ark. I like the idea. Check it out.

Why do some Christians think that caring for the environment is a waste of time? In the early twentieth century, fundamentalists placed defending the faith as the top priority with such an intensity that there was little energy left for anything else. Christian movements that countered this notion of “defense at all costs” included the Salvation Army, and the Christian and Missionary Alliance. These movements tended to communicate the Gospel with words and actions. For example in the early days, the Christian and Missionary Alliance’s work included a rescue home for women, a home for rest and healing, a training centre for evangelists, missionaries, and rescue workers, an orphanage, and work with German immigrants.

Currently we are facing an environmental crisis. But what does environmental crisis have to do with faith in God and love for neighbour? I have noticed that some Christians have downplayed the necessity to care for God’s Creation to humanity’s determent. In a world where many cannot find essentials such as clean water and proper food, caring for Creation becomes an issue of caring for our neighbor and I believe is very important to God’s heart. The people most affected by climate change, excessive air and water pollution will be the world’s marginalized. They are already living at the margin.

Consider any large city. Generally, where are the poorest neighbourhoods found? Are they in the green manicured suburbs? Or are they located near dirty industry, or noisy rail-yards? Should the church love our neighbours by helping to create an environment that helps protect the most vulnerable populations from environmental health issues?

Oh of course not! If you did, you would definitely go to hell*.

Yesterday, I was walking** through the Thunder Bay Centennial Botantical Conservatory. I had been there numerous times and had never noticed that Thunder Bay has its very own coffee tree. This was very exciting for me.

In the Genesis account God created trees and seed bearing plants on the third day. God saw that the plants were good, and who am I to disagree. I especially agree with God, when it comes to those plants that I have a particularly strong affinity for. I especially like apples (Malus spp.) and coffee (Coffea arabica).

I wonder if God put the coffee tree on the earth with pastors in mind. I have yet to meet a pastor who isn’t borderline addicted to the drink made from Coffea arabica. Doing ministry, studying the Scriptures, counselling people, writing sermons and lessons, practicing prayer, etc. is rarely done without a cup of coffee nearby.

I can quit drinking coffee if I wanted to … really … I just don’t want to.
I bet you heard that one before.

Interestingly, caffeine acts as a natural defence against the coffee plant’s predators, but it looks like that strategy backfired. People figured out that we could pick the “beans,” roast ‘em and grind them up, then run hot water through the grinds, then after our hard work, drink the remaining liquid.

Scriptures are clear that we should have no false gods before us. I wonder if our love for coffee approaches worshiping a false god. Would God may make an exception in this one case?

* You won’t really go to hell. That was a joke.
** OK, actually I was playing hide and seek with my three year old daughter.

On a shady note: Some folks know that it is more ethical to purchase shade coffee rather than errr… non-shade coffee, but don’t know why. Coffee trees don’t grow very tall, are very shade tolerant and naturally found in the understory of forests. Shade coffee is generally grown in a more naturalized setting which sustains higher biodiversity. Compare that to areas where natural forests have been cut to make way for coffee plantations which support less biodiversity and require more human inputs such as fertilizer and chemical controls.