Sunday, June 27, 2010

Wyoming Trip, day 9

We're having a great time. I have made it my goal to learn about this country, specifically about the 351-person town of Meeteetse, Wyoming. The land where the town sits was originally a seasonal hunting site for the Crows Indians. It was not settled by white Americans until 1877. This is a town and state completely given to the life of ranching. Everyone is in some way connected.

I got to meet a young 2nd year college student, home for summer, and helping her mom run their ranch. She was brilliant and seemed twice her age. Several points stuck with me from our conversation. One is that four years ago, she and her mom decided to raise cattle that will only eat grass, called Heritage Herefords. They are some of the only cattle in the country that don't get sent to corn-fed feed lots, and because they are relatively small, can be maintained on a small amount of land. They can't afford getting the organic label put on their beef, but she was impassioned about raising healthy, natural cattle. One of the many striking things about the conversation is that even though she did not personally agree with the ranching practices employed by her neighbors and family, she supported the industry as a whole. She did not try to tell others why they were wrong. She just lived her life acting upon her ideals, and enjoying good, sustainable farming. She could have been one of the good guys on Food, Inc. We cannot buy her cattle in the Midwest. They sell only locally.

We had a good time horse-back riding with Holly's sister, Faith. Suzy for some reason found that horse-back aroused some affinity for the third reich!









Eli enjoyed himself.


















Yesterday we went hiking in the Rockies. We didn't take a gun. Someone we met today said this is a bad year for grizzlies, and we were dumb to have not taken a gun. Maybe my fears weren't that far off base, after all.

We went to Meeteetse Community Church today. The pastor is Chad and Holly's brother in law. It was a small group that deeply loved the Lord and their town, and that shines with light. The Kingdom of God is among them.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Wyoming Trip, Day 7

We drove across South Dakota in bewilderment. I didn't know there was anyplace so unpopulated in the world. For one stretch we drove for 3 hours on state roads and didn't pass a single habitated home.
























We drove through The Badlands, to which Isaac commented, "these badlands are terrible."












And we saw Mount Rushmore.











And we drove through the Bighorn Mountains.


And we drove and drove and finally, stopped just East of Yellowstone, to this town of 351 people, called Meeteetse, Wyoming, the outskirts of which will be our home base for the next week or so.









So I sat on this hill this morning sandwiched between Meeteetse and the Snowcapped Rockies, and wrote. Here is an excerpt from the thoughts that came out of my pen.


Being out West, I come from Back East. Back East I've got a lot of control on what goes on in my life. I get things. How life works, what people do with their time, who to trust, where to go and when. I'm in the driver's seat Back East. In a sense I'm like a Humanist, who can make decisions, and situate my life to make things happen to my advantage. There's safety and comfort in that reality.

In many ways, these next five weeks represent a period of transition for me and my family. A new baby is to come, I start a new job with new challenges and opportunities, I begin to construct post-National Board life pattern.

And here I am in Wyoming. In more ways than I anticipated, away from it all. On the cusp of the Rocky Mountains, I feel like a grizzly bear could come and tap me on the shoulder -- and then maul me. I'm confronted with unfamiliar fears and insecurities. In a culture wholly different from mine, with stores, and people, and land, and animals, and music, and beautiful landscapes, and sounds, and wildflowers, and customs and rhythms of life, and jokes, and shared struggles of which I can only be a students, with no hope of real participation.

And the humanist in me from back East says, "Why the did you come here? How does this help?" But up from my heart, the Christian reminds me, "watch and listen, He will show you why."

Monday, June 21, 2010

Wyoming Trip, Day 4

My blog is gonna change directions a little for the next week or so. I'm gonna do more status-update type stuff over the course of our Wyoming trip. Read along if you're so inclined.

The plan has been to camp 3 days with my parents and sister, Carolyn, drive two days to Wyoming, stay there with the Kimball family in a cabin for about a week, and be back in Chi-town around the 1st of July.

We finished our fun camping adventure with my parents and sister this morning.








Bein' that I got sick Sunday Night, and that Beth's 8 months pregnant (except her ankles, which are 10 months pregnant), and that Iowa is beautifuller than expected, we decided to turn a 2 day trip into 3.

We drove through Iowa today, most of the way off the interstate. It was great. In hilly country like Iowa's the interstates feel all the more obtrusive. Pieces of land that God made one have been severed by us. With interstates we force land's natural curves and peaks to bow to our will. County and state highways are humbler. And beautifuller.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Two Radio Shows

I want to pass along a couple episodes from shows that have been rattlin' around in my head.

The first is called, "Island Time," from the show This American LIfe. It's about the current state of Haiti and our (Americans) involvement versus some of the Haitian nationals involvement. The show left me wrestling with the wisdom/folly of supporting agencies and people who are in the business of helping the poor. And it makes me wonder: Does anyone know a sound way to support very poor people (like people groups dealing with AIDS and starvation) without paying for a missionary or aid worker's plane ticket or 401(k)? I guess I want to grow up a bit in my giving. It's clear enough that as Christians we are to sell all we have and give to the poor, but I find it hard to give to organizations or people who are paid well to care for the poor, especially after hearing this show. On top of raising these questions, the show highlights Americans who are there doing some really good work. The good ones are not presented as the rule, but the exception, which lines up with what I saw and heard from all sorts of missionaries when in Latin America in 2000. Hear it by clicking here.

The other show I listened to tonight. It's called, "Land, Life and the Poetry of Creatures," from another NPR show, Speaking of Faith. It features one of my oft-quoteds, Wendell Berry, and Ellen Davis, a biblical scholar whom I knew nothing about until tonight. Davis said that as she began to read the bible with "agrarian eyes," she found "there was a huge gap between the kind of exquisite attention that the biblical writers are giving to the fragile land on which they live and the kind of obliviousness that characterizes our culture...in respect to our use of land."

I've noticed the same thing in reading the Old Testament. The land and its care is all over the place. I noticed it most recently, and for me most powerfully, in reading of the Year of Jubilee in the book of Leviticus. In this passage (chapter 25), God grants the land a Sabbath rest(!), and establishes distributive justice by ensuring that none of his people become too rich/powerful/corrupted by thinking the land they have accrued is truly "theirs." Verse 23: "The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants. Throughout the country that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land."

Which gets me back to the radio show. Davis talks later in the show about the way city dwellers can become more agrarian in our mindsets. She recommends being conscious of the sources of our food. I think, and I'm sure Davis and Berry would agree, that this food-source-consciousness is a crucial step in the redemption of our land here in America. And here's a link for that show.

You can download the podcast from both shows at the iTunes store.

I really am curious how others give to the very poor in the world. Please share.