I’ve been recently teaching my students Whitman, and introduced them to Ginsberg. While I haven’t written any poetry in a while, I really got inspired by rereading “Howl” and “America” by Ginsberg. At the same time, I have come to the conclusion that I fundamentally hate the 21st century (perhaps more on that later). Anyhow, here’s a quick poem written as a nod towards Ginsberg’s poetry and style.

I saw the best minds of my generation

destroyed by a billion tiny screens in silence.

Dreams, thoughts –personal fucking agency –

abandoned to the quiet cadence of mouse clicks,

rhythmic typing, fingers touching glass, searching for connection

on that cold and flawless surface.

I saw the young bodies of my comrades fold into themselves –

unnatural arches of the spine, heads down-turned in reverence to their

tiny gods.

I saw our hours consumed with raving mad images — bodies and breasts and mountains and makeup –

an unceasing scrolling tumbling river of images,

hope and sighs thrown out tinted windows at highway speeds

I don’t think they’ll be returning anytime soon.

No one howls anymore.

Our pockets contain:  lint, screens, the entirety of human knowledge

and always loneliness, crouching.

Where are our words?

Why don’t we use “whom” anymore?

Why did I find the best of our language outside my neighbor’s trash can, sticky and damp from the rain?

I want to speak with you, brothers.

I want to touch you, sisters.

Let’s tell the world we knew to fuck itself

and then take a walk in the woods.

Let’s call ourselves pirates and go build a tree house.

The only thing the world can’t give us is innocence.

Maybe it’s lying in the neighbor’s trash too.

I better go find it under the rocks in the creek,

maybe in the way you take off your clothes.

Oh, and my friends don’t fuck anymore.

They recline pillowed heads,

intoxicate themselves with their blue pixies instead.

500 million bedrooms are strangely quiet — it’s becoming unsettling to me.

I give up on you, America,

you and your blue pixies.

I’m tired of your madness cloaked in silence,

your impotent, naked demands.

You’ve stolen my mind.

I’m starting to lose it

and all I can hear is your evil touchscreen symphonies.

I’ll find it though.

You won’t keep it from me forever.

And I’m starting to get the inkling

it’s around here someplace.

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Yesterday, a couple of my acquaintances discussed this article, about Christian modesty and yoga pants, on Facebook. The article puts forth the same message I’ve seen or heard from countless Christian authors over the years. The argument goes something like this:

• Women should be modest because that is a huge part of their self-worth and identity.

• Guys are constantly “undressing women with their eyes”

• Yoga pants (tank tops, jeans with holes, bikinis, etc, etc, etc) inspire lust

• If women dress in a way that may be construed as “sexy,” they are inspiring men to sin by thinking sexual thoughts, and are “attention whores.”

• Sexual thoughts and ‘purity’ are some of the most important spiritual concerns.

First, let me say I have nothing against modesty. I’m all for men and women looking classy instead of trashy. What bothers me about this argument (and its many variations) is that it’s a symptom of “1st World Christianity.” Our faith often reflects our culture, and it is never more apparent than in articles like the one above.

Not everything is about us.

1st World Christianity neurotically focuses on the individual. The question,  “Am I spiritually okay?” becomes a repetitive and tyrannical mantra. On virtually every Sunday, in virtually every church, one will hear this same question rephrased and repeated. While there’s nothing wrong with being deeply reflective, taken to the extreme, this obsession with ourselves (and eventually the “spiritual health” of our neighbors)  makes us  fundamentally narcissistic. If I am so focused on myself —  anxious and fearful about my own spiritual health — then of course I will get upset when others become a “stumbling block” and shake my delicate equilibrium.

We need to get out of our own heads, for a spirituality built entirely in our own minds, and centered around ourselves,  is a weak spirituality indeed.

That’s what I find so upsetting about arguments like the article above. The focus is on us and how people perceive us. We are essentially concerned with our image. This attention is not God-focused, it is self-focused. Arguments about yoga pants and Christian modesty encourages us to be just as infatuated with our own self-image as any other member of society. Our standards may be different, but our obsession is the same.

Not everything is about sex.

I swear that one can hear more about sex in many churches in America than on the raunchiest MTV reality shows. Like the rest of our culture, we’re consumed with it. Purity, lust, “courtship”, “taking thoughts captive”: there is an entire vocabulary (and industry) around the idea that our sexual purity is somehow on the very top of God’s priorities.

I’m sorry, but when I read the Bible, I don’t see Jesus criticizing others for wearing headscarves that are too sexy. I don’t remember him accusing people of having sandals that showed too much skin. Instead,  I remember him asking for water from a woman at a well who had been labelled a “whore” by her town. I remember him hanging out with Mary Magdalene and saving the adulteress from getting stoned to death. I remember expensive perfume being poured on his feet as an act of love.

At the end of the day, our obsession with our sexuality (and our sexual thoughts) is not biblical. We live in a culture obsessed with sex, and we’ve simply moved that obsession to the pews.

Maybe we should worry more about the person making the yoga pants.

There is a woman in Bangladesh who made those yoga pants. She lives on 2 dollars a day. She cannot feed her family and lives in the slums.  While she struggles in poverty, American Christians worry about whether their voluminous closets are too lust-inspiring.

I’m not necessarily trying to appeal to our sense of guilt, but I happen to believe that the real sin of yoga pants has nothing to do with the girls that wear them. The real sin is the economic, social, and political systems that allow us 1st World Christians to live in affluence because of the exploitation of others. While I don’t remember Jesus worried about the sexiness of head scarves, I do remember him concerned with the poor, the sick, and the disenfranchised. I remember him flipping the tables of money lenders at the temple, blessing the poor, and encouraging economic justice through a tax-collector named Zacchaeus. In fact, Jesus talks far more about economic issues than sexual ones.

1st World Christians have a lot to worry about spiritually, but yoga pants are not one of those things. In a culture where Mammon is the undisputed god, and both our advertisements and our churches fixate on self-image, being Christ in the world means stepping out of that system entirely. It means getting out of our own heads. It means confronting social, economic, and political Goliaths that are far bigger than ourselves. It means living and speaking in such a way that shouts a giant “F— you” to the destructive and despairing forces of our society and our church. That is hard, dirty work; it will probably ruin your clothes anyway.

Wear what you want.

Ladies, wear what you want. Or wear nothing at all. I’ll be out in my garden, taking care of a small piece of earth God has given me to tend. I’ll be teaching my kids how to live simply and how to find fulfillment in good work.  I’ll be performing small acts of rebellion and resistance to our destructive culture. I’m sure you’ll forgive me if I’m too busy to notice what you’re wearing.

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We just pulled the last of the potatoes and carrots out of the garden today, and I figure its time to reflect on this year’s growing season. 2013 was one of the nicest summers in recent memory. We received a ton of sunshine, and multiple days (and even weeks) in the 80′s. That’s unheard of for this part of Alaska. In addition, this was the first year we had a greenhouse, so I had the opportunity to grow veggies that I’ve never been able to grow before. Below are a series of notes about our season, and some reflections upon it.

The Greenhouse

All of our plants in the greenshouse did well, though our weeks of heat certainly stressed them, particularly the tomatoes. Even with a big wall fan running and all the vents and doors open, the greenhouse was still hovering around 100 F. I think that had a detrimental effect on the tomato growth, as the leaves curled and growth was slowed for nearly a month.

Speaking of tomatoes, we grew three different varieties: a wild cherry, a large slicing type, and Amish Paste. The slicing variety was by far the most productive. Overall, I had hoped for a larger harvest, but the aforementioned stress likely diminished our harvest. Next year I plan to try both determinite and indeterminite varieties and test which type is best for our short growing season.

Our first year of cucumbers was a huge success. We planted pickling cucumbers and an English-style greenhouse variety. They both did phenomenally, and both seemed to deal with the heat well. Our only complaint was that the picking cucumbers became bitter from heat stress during the hottest part of summer.

We planted three different varieties of peppers: jalepenos, a ristra type, and bell peppers. All the peppers did well, though the bell peppers weren’t nearly as prolific as I would have liked. I’m not sure if we planted them in too small pots, or if the variety we had was not ideal, but I’m thinking we won’t be planting many of them again.

Total Failures:

We tried pumpkins, sweet corn, cantaloupe, and watermelon in the greenhouse in containers this year. It was a total failure. Only the pumpkins put out decent blossoms, but even after having hand-pollinating them, the fruits rotted and fell off before maturing. We’ll use that space in the greenhouse for more tomatoes.

Speaking of failures, our onions were a complete failure this year. I bought onion starts and also grew a bunch from seed. I think the heat, combined with a very late spring, did them in.

While our fruit trees blossomed, none of them produced fruit this year. I’m not sure what that was about, but I suspect our strange spring (snow very late into the spring, then sudden, unseasonable warm temperatures) messed with the trees.

Berries:

Currants, raspberries, and rhubarb all did very well. We picked over 10 lbs of raspberries from our humble raspberry patch, and I  was finally able to harvest our domesticated currants before the chickens got them. Wild berries were unbelievable this year as well. I’ve never seen larger blueberries in my life.

Honey:

With the warm summer came an excellent honey harvest. The bees had many, many days to fly and collect nectar. However, two factors worked against me this year. First, the spring was ridiculously cold. I literally had to dig through 2 ft of snow to find ground in order to set up my bee hives. I think the cold weather meant the colonies did not build up their populations as quickly as normal. Second, I had serious queen problems. In one hive, I tried to set up a 2-queen system, but for the second year in a row, it didn’t work out. In the other hive, I had a rogue queen hiding in there somewhere. She killed three other queens before I could confirm she was in there and producing eggs. What a pain. Nonetheless, we ended up with 45 lbs of honey from the two hives. Next year I’m shooting for 60-70 lbs.

Other Notes:

Cabbage, broccoli, potatoes, carrots, turnips, zucchini, salad mix, peas and lettuce all did well. They seem to be the consistently good veggies up here.

We did a bunch of canning this year! With the greenhouse produce, we had the opportunity to try canning a number of different things. We canned tomatoes, salsa, pickles, garlic scapes, and jalepenos. While the canning can be a lot of work, it’s satisfying to finally be able to preserve more of our harvest for the winter months.

A selection of some of the canning we did this year…

The freezers are full of salmon, halibut, moose, and caribou, and the last of the yard chores are done. It’s finally time to wait for our first real snowfall, and look forward to the beginning of trapping season. Once trapping season is over in February, it will be time to start thinking about the growing season once again…

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