Rainwater Barrels

I'm starting to get excited about implementing some of the "green" practices we have seen on the road and read about long before we even hit the pavement. Some of these are so simple and low cost that it baffles me why more people wouldn't do it. Probably the easiest and low maintenance ideas is that of rainwater barrels. You simply set up a barrel below a gutter downspout and instead of having the downspout drain to the street you re-route it to fill a 55-gallon barrel. The barrel needs to have a spigot at the bottom where you would attach a hose (or you could simply dip watering cans into the barrel and walk back and forth to the plants, but my time is too valuable for that, plus I'm lazy). Then water. That simple! You can get much more in-depth, to the point where you can actually create filter beds, bore wells and open wells all designed to filter rainwater into drinking water. I simply want to water my garden and potted plants more effectively and efficiently.

My plan is to incorporate 3 water barrels throughout the property. The downspouts are usually on the front of your house, near the street drain-off. I can conceal both of these barrels in corners behind fences and use them to water my front and side yard plants, possibly with soaker hoses. The third barrel I plan to put under our patio covering in the back and use in our small vegetable garden. This one will be tougher to conceal, but I have some ideas.

Amazingly, you only need less than 0.5 inches of rainfall to fill one 55-gallon barrel (shown above). As for savings on your water bill, that depends on your water usage, size of your lawn, number of people in your household, but a rough estimate says that 40% of your water usage during summer months goes to watering gardens, lawns and other plants. My average water bill during the summer is about $80. Let's assume that I can cut my water usage by a conservative estimate of 25%, that would save me approximately $20 a month. I could go on a date with Serenity (if someone would babysit for free - hint, hint :)

Spiritual Schizophrenia

This passage from Brennan Manning's book The Importance of Being Foolish, might be the best commentary I have ever read about the individual anemic American church goer (sadly, to one extent or another, myself included). It is a long quote, but it is worth reading:

The crisis of American spirituality, put bluntly, is Spirit versus flesh. The failure or flat refusal to abide in the mind of Christ creates duality and separation within us. We do not choose decisively between God and Mammon, and our procrastination constitutes a decision itself. We carefully distribute ourselves between flesh and Spirit with a watchful eye on both. The unwillingness to sustain ourselves with the awareness that we are children of God causes a spiritual schizophrenia of the most frightening kind. It is not that I am afraid to tell you who I am; I truly cannot tell you because I don't know myself who I am. I have not given the deep inner assent to my Christian identity. I am afraid of losing my life if I were to find my real self. God calls me by my name, and I do not answer because I do not know my name.

The lifestyle of schizoid Christians is erratic because at different moments we deliberately separate ourselves from our real selves. We hug certain events, experiences, and relationships to ourselves and exclude the presence of the indwelling Spirit. It may be a movie, a conversation, an illicit love affair, or a business transaction. Later, we re-enter the self that calls itself Christian and take part in events where God is celebrated in speech and song. Afterward we confide to friends, "Worship was kind of flat tonight."

Heightened by what someone has called "the agnosticism of inattention" -- the lack of personal discipline to overcome media bombardment, sterile conversation, and utilitarian relationship --our self-awareness grows dim, the presence of a loving God fades into the distance and the possibility of trust and intimacy seems less plausible. Inattentiveness to the holy destroys openness to the Spirit. Just as the failure to be attentive dissolves personal love in a human relationship, so inattention to the real self dissolves loving awareness of the divine relationship. A verdant heart becomes a devastated vineyard. It is impossible to consider God with heart and head filled with earthly business.

When we periodically close ourselves off from God, our hearts are touched by the icy finger of agnosticism. Christian agnosticism does not consist so much in the denial of a personal God as in the unbelief of inattention to the sacred. The way we live bears unmistakable witness to our loving awareness or lack of it.

Life in the Spirit implies the existential knowledge of being loved by God and sharing Jesus's own experience of that love. But so many of the things we do in our solitary moments have nothing to do with the Spirit or with the living will of God. Bothered by this dichotomy, we plunge into spiritual activities and get involved in church-related organizations and events in an effort to fill the empty space we know needs filling. Disinclined to renounce managerial control of our lives and unwilling to run the risk of living in union with Yahweh, we seek personal security and reassurance in rituals, devotions, liturgies, and prayer meetings. These structures provide a modicum of peace and promise that comfortable piety and material possessions that constitute the sense of self will not be disturbed.

There is a need for careful discernment here. The evidence of earnestness, sincerity, and effort is considerable. But something is missing.

That something is transparency. The glory shining on the face of Christ Jesus does not shine in many of us. Unlike Jesus, we have not given our deep inner assent to who we are meant to be. We have not surrendered to the mystery of the fire of the Spirit that burns within. We stand close enough to the fire to stay warm, but we never plunge in; nor do we come out burned and incandescently transformed. We might be nicer than most other people or have better morals, but we do not live as brand-new creations. Instead, our opaque personalities reveal our divided hearts.

Beauty of the Lord

“Everybody needs beauty... places to play and pray in, where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike.”

-John Muir (c. 1902)

I had the opportunity to spend the past few days on my own in Yosemite Valley. My campsite was feet away from the Merced River to the East I could see Half Dome and to the West Royal Arch Cascade. I rode my bike from Half Dome to Bridalveil Falls, soaking in the waterfalls, meadows and spring blossoms. Later that day I hiked to the base of Half Dome. I continually was asking God to reveal Himself to me, to show me what He wanted me to encounter, why He was giving me this time on my own. As I walked amongst the pines on my way to Mirror Lake I felt Him embrace me with these simple words: "I love you so much, I just want you to enjoy yourself, this is my gift to you." With the pressure gone of figuring out what God wanted me to understand, I simply rested in Him. It was a time of connection with God that I have never experienced before and it was exactly what I needed. Praise God!

(Yosemite Valley; El Capitan on the left, Bridalveil Falls on the right with Half Dome in the center distant)

The Lord is my shepherd;
I have all that I need.
He lets me rest in green meadows;
he leads me beside peaceful streams.
He renews my strength.
He guides me along right paths,
bringing honor to his name.

Psalm 23:1-3

(Half Dome with Washington Column to the left)

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Matthew 11:28-30

(Mirror Lake reflecting Mount Watkins)

O LORD, how many are Your works!
In wisdom You have made them all;
the earth is full of Your possessions.

Psalm 104: 24

(base of Yosemite Falls)

Beauty of the Lord

Jesus Your love has come one step closer
I will trust that You will never let me go
Jesus Your love has won me over
All my trust has found no other

I will declare the beauty of the Lord
Nothing compares to the beauty of the Lord
Jesus Your love takes my breath away
I’m living everyday for the beauty of the Lord
Jesus Your love takes my breath

Desperation Band

(Lyrics by Jared Anderson)


(Apple blossom in Yosemite Valley)

Let all that I am praise the Lord.
O Lord my God, how great you are!
You are robed with honor and majesty.
You are dressed in a robe of light.
You stretch out the starry curtain of the heavens;
you lay out the rafters of your home in the rain clouds.
You make the clouds your chariot;
you ride upon the wings of the wind.
The winds are your messengers;
flames of fire are your servants.

Psalm 104:1-4

The Catholic Worker

We have been parked at a Catholic Worker House for the past week or so, it is located in the predominantly African American neighborhood of West Las Vegas. If you don't know much about the Catholic Worker movement, read here or here, it is well worth your time. If you don't want to go read those links, I will give you a short overview in my own words and experiences: Basically, the Catholic Worker is a loosely connected group of people (and the houses and farms that they live in) who live incarnationally amongst the poor and meet their basic needs through a gospel centered hospitality. The CW is not under the auspice of the Catholic Church, and in many ways is contrary to the Catholic Church. The term Catholic is from it's very beginning roots meaning "the universal church of the apostles" or simply "the Church" or "Bride of Christ." We have come across "protestant" Catholic Worker houses, and unfortunately, we have come across some Catholic Workers who were non-believers and atheists and distributed hospitality based on a skewed humanism that focused on social justice for social justices sake as well as a lot of activism. Overall however, it is a group of believers who are loving Christ by loving on the least of these in a simple and incarnational way in broken parts of this kingdom.

Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day founded this network of hospitality houses and farming communes in 1933, in the midst of the Great Depression. Day gets most of the credit for starting the CW. She was a remarkable woman and fully understood the need for more than hospitality as she was quoted once as saying "Food for the body is not enough. There must be food for the soul."

What is so very interesting to me is that most times when two people of the opposite sex start something, usually the male ends up with all the credit, even when he doesn't deserve it. In this partnership, Day usually gets most of the credit, and from everything I have read, including autobiographical writings by Day herself, Maurin should receive more of the credit than he did. Which is probably just the way he would have wanted it, the glory going to God and the attention going to others, including the men and women he served. He was more of the philosophical and theological engine behind much of the outpouring. When Maurin was on his death bed, literally the last few years of his life, he refused to live inside of their house in New York City, rather, he lived in the old shed in the back that had just enough room for his bed and some of his reading and writing materials. He didn't want to take up any room that could be used for sheltering and feeding the poor.

"So the last will be first, and the first will be last." Matthew 20:16.

Maurin wrote short "essays" or poems with the core of many of his ideas and philosophies running throughout. He called them "easy essays," here are a few of my favorites:

Christianity Untried

Chesterton says:
"The Christian ideal
has not been tried
and found wanting.
It has been found difficult
and left untried."
Christianity has not been tried
because people thought
it was impractical.
And men have tried everything
except Christianity.
And everything
that men have tried
has failed.

Feeding the Poor at a Sacrifice

In the first centuries
of Christianity
the hungry were fed
at a personal sacrifice,
the naked were clothed
at a personal sacrifice,
the homeless were sheltered
at personal sacrifice.
And because the poor
were fed, clothed and sheltered
at a personal sacrifice,
the pagans used to say
about the Christians
"See how they love each other."
In our own day
the poor are no longer
fed, clothed, sheltered
at a personal sacrifice,
but at the expense
of the taxpayers.
And because the poor
are no longer
fed, clothed and sheltered
the pagans say about the Christians
"See how they pass the buck."

Better Off

The world would be better off
if people tried
to become better,
And people would
become better
if they stopped trying
to be better off.
For when everyone tries
to become better off
nobody is better off.
But when everyone tries
to become better
everyone is better off.
Everybody would be rich
if nobody tried
to become richer.
And nobody would be poor
if everybody tried
to be the poorest
And everybody would be
what he ought to be
if everybody tried to be
what he wants
the other fellow to be.

Fast Food Folk Song

Completely off topic from my usual rants, but my friend Heath posted this on his blog and I had to follow him up. Personally, Taco Bell is my favorite fast food joint, mainly for the price, not necessarily 3 hours later. Watch the whole thing, the most amazing part is after they get done singing.