Reaching for Resources
Ever wondered where I find all those interesting articles I post? Here are a couple of places I monitor regularly.
One of Tom’s and my favourtie magazines is YES Magazine and I wanted to share it with you.
The YES website has posted some great articles in the last few weeks on community. Here are my favourites
Ten Ways to Love Where You Live by Ross Chapin
How to build community here and now—because neighborhoods are more than houses in proximity. Read the article here
Cheaper Together. How neighbours Invest in Community by by Miriam Axel-Lute, John Emmeus Davis, Harold Simon.
Cooperative financing and community land trusts keep rents affordable and homeownership within reach. Read here
Inhabitat: Design will save the world is another great site with very innovative housing and environmental designs like this one: PHOTOS: Get a Sneak Peek of HWKN’s Giant Blue Smog-Eating Wendy Sculpture Before It Opens Next Week | Inhabitat – Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building
And Grist Magazine is always worth a visit. For example I loved this article Have Sledgehammer will farm
I also love to check out the latest at ECHO, ; Plant with Purpose and A Rocha
Obviously this is only a very short list of possible sites to visit for environmental issues. I would love to put together a more comprehensive list. So what are your favourite sites to visit?
So what are your favourite websites on environmental issues, green living and community?
Tom & I at the Mustard Seed/Overflow booth at Wild Goose
Tom and I are back home after several wonderful days at the Wild Goose Festival in North Carolina. It was hot, humid and dusty but in spite of that we had a wonderful time. Tom was in fine form talking about intentional community and moving beyond the Western dream and I had fun speaking on reimagining how we pray.
Tom was in fine form
More than anything we enjoyed meeting old friends and making new ones. Had lots of good discussions, shared lots about the Mustard Seed Village and Cascadia and just thoroughly enjoyed a relaxed but provokative festival.
Together with fellow Australian Dave Andrews
I also loved the grievance wall and the opportunity for people to share their frustrations with life & faith
Grievance wall Wild Goose festival
What I didn’t enjoy – having to check for ticks every day and came home covered in itchy bites.
Uninvited guests
You can check out my complete festival album on facebook. enjoy
Still to come for the summer – Creative World Festival in Mission B.C. and Wild Goose West
Earth touches heaven – photo by Coe Hutchison
This week’s round up of prayers is written from North Carolina where I am attending the Wild Goose Festival.
Teach us to pray O Lord,
Draw us closer to you, to your world , to each other.
Teach us to pray, O Lord,
With compassion and love and forgiveness.
Teach us to pray, O Lord,
Until all that we are and all that we do,
Becomes a gift of prayer to you.Teach us to pray O Lord,
Draw us closer to you, to your world , to each other.
Teach us to pray, O Lord,
With compassion and love and forgiveness.
Teach us to pray, O Lord,
Until all that we are and all that we do,
Becomes a gift of prayer to you.
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The glory of God’s presence surrounds me
The wonder of Christ’s love holds me close
The comfort of the Spirit makes me strong
God you who are the three in one, the one in three
Be with me forever.
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Lord God almighty,
You are a shield of love,
You are a rock of protection,
You are a God of unfailing love.
I trust in you with all my heart,
My future is in your hands.
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Here is a beautiful prayer written my my friend Gerard Kelly for his twitter feed @twitturgies.
Rumours of your kingdom God rise around me. The soil itself stirs. The winds bring whispers of you. My heart too cries welcome
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God protect and bless us,
From enemies seen and unseen.
Be like a pillar of fire before us,
Be like a cloud of glory around us,
Be like a rock of safety beneath us,
Keep us Lord in the shadow of you wings.
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let us rejoice and sing,
For the wonder of God’s love.
For the joy of Christ’s salvation.
For the glory of the Spirit’s presence.
Let us give thanks and praise,
For we are surrounded by a shield of love.
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Bread – the staple of Life
Yesterday our summer intern Chris Holcomb made bread – not the fast bread machine type, not the intensive “knead for 10 minutes” type but the slow natural “lets take 24 hours to do this” type. Amazingly it is not labour intensive – a few minutes at a time is all it takes. It was the best home made bread I have tasted for a long time so I thought that I would share the recipe plus links to other articles on no knead bread that I thought may interest some of you.
What it made me realize however is that here is another aspect of life in which we so often miss the best because we want it in a hurry. Our bread machines make 1 hour bread for a quick loaf or else we dash to the store for a basic mass produced loaf because we think we don’t have time. Makes me think of the way we treat our faith. We want a quick fix. We want it now and we are not particularly concerned if it lacks flavour and quality.
Jesus the bread of life is I think like this slow process bread – something to take our time over. Something to savour and enjoy. Something that has us wanting to come back for more all the time.
All that said here is the recipe:
1 ib unbleached white flour
1 tsp dry yeast
1 tsp salt
1 1/3 cups water
Baking stone or cookie sheet, Pizza peel or heavy sheet of cardboard
Starting the night before baking day, in a large mixing bowl use your hands to mix the flour, yeast, salt and enough water to form a soft and sticky dough. Cover and let the dough rise overnight at room temperature. This long cool rise (don’t use warm water) lets the the yeast and various enzymes develop maximum flavour in the dough and also makes for a chewy texture. When you get up in the morning, wet your hands, lift the dough onto a flat, wet surface, then gently stretch it and fold it in half 2 – 4 times. Return dough to the same bowl, cover and let rise until doubled in size. While the bread is in its second round of rising line a bowl with a cotton or linen cloth heavily dusted with flour. When the dough has doubled turn it out onto a work surface and with wet hands stretch and fold, and turn 2 – 4 times until dough begins to stiffen and assume the shape of a ball.
Place the ball into the bowl on the well-floured cloth. Cover and let rise until the dough has almost doubled again. (1 – 4 hours depending on room temp). Turn onto pizza peel or well floured piece of heavy cardboard. Slide onto a baking stone or cookie sheet. Bake at 500F until the crust is golden brown on top and the bottom crust is hard and thumps like a drum when you tap it (about 30 – 40 minutes). Allow to cool before slicing.
The recipe comes from Mother earth News December 2010/January 2011. I could not find the same recipe on line but came across these other articles and recipes at Mother Earth that are definitely worth reading and experimenting with:
Healthy No Knead Bread Recipes
Five Minutes a Day For Fresh Baked Bread
And these great looking recipes from Grit: Rural American Know How
You might also enjoy this video clip.
Gathering at Romana Lee Cafe in Stanwood
Yesterday our Celtic Visioning Team met on Camano Island to discern together the way forward for the Cascadia program and the Mustard Seed Village development. This is the first time that we have gathered as a team that includes not only our long term commitment community: Tom and myself, David Vandervort, Doug Woods, Cindy Todd and Forrest Inslee, but also our new members Jessica and Ryan Weemhoff who will be aour programme directors for the Cascadia/CCSP programme. We started with a check in time that allowed all of us to express our joys and our struggles especially as they relate to the development of this project. Some of this I expressed in my previous post MSA Imaginings.
Then we drove out to the land. We drove through the narrow tunnel of trees to the existing clearing. Its beauty was breathtaking. It welcomed us with a sense of belonging, a feeling that this is home for us. Being on the land was so important for us and being together with this core community which longs to bring God’s vision into being was very special.
Gathering at the Mustard Seed Village site
Taking time to listen to God in the place where we are planting, and with the people we are planting with is essential whatever our vision might be.
Some of what we felt God saying was unexpected. The dirt bike riders have been back driving round the clearing and through the trails. Others have dumped rubbish in the clearing again. One of our team commented – We have always seen this negatively but maybe we need to welcome them. Their presence has helped keep the trails open, and maybe in the process they can somehow meet with God. Some of what we heard was a reassurance of God’s presence with us. The sense of hospitality we felt as we arrived. The welcome of this beautiful part of God’s creation where all of us feel alive and renewed. Some is still just glimmers of vision on the horizon. How to finance not just the building but the development of the programmes as well is an ever present challenge.
Interestingly the scripture for the day was Mark 4:30-32, which includes the parable of the mustard seed
He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.” Again he said, “What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds can perch in its shade.”
It was a wonderful reminder that God is the one who does the growing for us. The trouble is that we are tired of planting seeds and we want to see that growth take place. We appreciate your prayers and supportiveness as we move forward… and if you have any words of wisdom for us we want to hear from you.
Our next gathering on Camano will be for the Celtic prayer retreat August 17 – 19th. We hope that some of you can join us.
Mediterranean diet food pyramid
One of the things that I always like to do to relax after a long trip is to get into the kitchen and cook. Replenishing supplies like my breakfast granola and eggplant dip (baba Ghannouj) which have become staples for our Mediterranean style diet are always fun. I have posted the granola recipe before, but thought that some of you may would appreciate this very healthy version of Baba Ghannouj too. I took my original recipe and added the pepper which I think gives it a richer flavour and the yoghurt adds a nice tang. If you like it hot at a 1/4 tsp chipotle pepper powder too. It makes a great lunch spread or addition to a Middle Eastern meal.
1 medium sized eggplant
1 red pepper (capsicum)
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/3 cup taheen, (sesame paste)
1/2 cup yoghurt (Greek style preferable)
1 tsp. salt
1 tbsp olive oil (optional)
2 spring onions finely chopped
2 tbsp parsley, finely chopped
1-2 cloves garlic, crushed
Wash and dry eggplant and pepper. Prick eggplant with fork in 3 -4 place. Place eggplant and pepper on a baking sheet and broil (grill) 4 inches away from heat, turning them on all sides until the skin is charred. 20- 30 minutes. Allow to cool. Peel off skin, cut off stem and deseed pepper. Chop eggplant and pepper finely by hand and mash eggplant pulp or blend garlic, pepper and eggplant in a blender until smooth. Combine lemon juice, yoghurt, and salt. Add to eggplant mix. Blend in taheen, mix well. Add spring onions and parsley. Place on a serving plate and drizzle oil over it.
This morning we have an MSA Board meeting which made me realize that I have not posted our monthly MSA update for June.
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“God instructs the heart, not by ideas but by pains and contradictions.”
This wise quote by 18th century French mystic Jean Pierre de Caussade was sent to me a few weeks ago shortly after we heard that a grant application we hoped would support the start up of our Cascadia program, had been rejected. In the midst of our disappointment we found ourselves turning back to the heart of God in prayer, seeking wisdom and discernment.
One of our Board remarked,
“Mustard Seed Associates is about planting mustard seeds and this was certainly no mustard seed.”
Its true, we have always excelled at networking, collaboration and the planting and nourishing of small kingdom seeds that grow and produce fruit. Many of you are examples of that kingdom fruit.
This does seem to be a time of contradictions for us at Mustard Seed Associates. On one hand God is blessing us in amazing ways and we have much to celebrate. Plans are completed and we are moving forward with the first building of the Mustard Seed Village. Construction should begin shortly.
Cindy Todd is making amazing connections in the Stanwood/ Camano area and has been asked to co-chair the education for Port Susan food and farming center. Our annual Celtic retreat on Camano Island August 17-19 is shaping up to be the best ever. Our theme is gratitude and thanksgiving. Internationally known musician Jeff Johnson will provide music with a special Selah service in the evening.
CCSP/Cascadia is definitely sparking the interest of Christian Colleges and Universities across North America and we have a growing list of those who plan to add it to their semester away options. George Fox University recently added it to their options of semester away programs. We see the coming year as an opportunity to build our team and prepare for a better launch. Over the summer, Tom and I will participate inWild Goose Festival in Shakora Hills NC, Wild Goose West in Corvalis OR and the Creative World Festival in British Columbia. We would love to spend time with those of you who are also at these events.
MSA seeks to stir imagine and encourage creativity. We add daily to resources at Godspace and MSAimagine that inspire and encourage many to reimagine their lifestyles and faith observances. Andy Wade’s latest article Creepy Community is both thought provoking and instructive. We want to expand these resources and need your collaboration to connect us to other creative possibilities and inspiring stories. Where do 
you see the kingdom emerging in creative and imaginative ways? Where do you see God’s mustard seeds emerging like The Overflow Project– small and seemingly insignificant but making a kingdom difference. How could we reimagine our lives to more authentically live into God’s kingdom ways? Post on our facebook page or email us with suggestions for articles or communities and ministries to highlight.
We have a remarkable team at MSA. Most are volunteers. Our architect David Vandervort has generously given time and resource over many years to the Mustard Seed Village project. Douglas Woods moved his family up to Seattle from California ten years ago because of his vision for this project. Dr. Forrest Inslee contributed numerous hours to the development of the Cascadia/CCSP curriculum. Tom and I receive no salary and Andy Wade and Cindy Todd contribute far beyond their part time salaries. Ryan and Jessica Weemhoff who will be our program directors for the Cascadia/CCSP program will volunteer over this next year to help provide new and exciting opportunities for future students.
We are privileged stewards of what God has given us but we need your help to establish what we believe God is giving birth to. Together we can make a huge difference in God’s world.
Please plant a mustard seed today and help us bring this dream into being. Your gift of $10; $15; $25 or more will enable us to support the growing work of Mustard Seed Associates. Your monthly pledge of $10; $15; $25 or more would enable us to see the Mustard Seed Village move from dream to reality. Various options to support MSA can be found HERE
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