Creating healthy and sustainable communities

[Music]

i am very

excited about this opportunity to share

my passion

for cultivating healthy communities

through the practice of spiritual

agroecology

a faith-based initiative for promoting

unity justice local sustainable

agriculture

and environmental stewardship

to illustrate the power of a faith

movement

i have in my hand a kernel of corn

can you hear the corn speaking this

morning

what would it say it’s a question

how much can this colonel produce

now at the conclusion of my talk i’m

going to give you the answer

or you can try to count all of the seeds

that are contained

in that jar that is the answer

this is not a theory for me

but a life commitment 11 years ago

after having pastored a local

congregation for

many years i felt a need to redirect

my time focus and resources towards the

needs of the community

our church had land that was available

a decision was made to plant an organic

farm

and to start a missionary farm intern

training program shortly thereafter a

partnership was formed with a local food

pantry

it’s called lake cares and it

serves many of the communities found

here

in lake county during these years

many people have come to volunteer many

hours of community service and volunteer

service

has been given to help grow the produce

thousands of pounds of food has been

given free of charge

to people of our communities with the

greatest

need we’ve also been blessed with people

coming

from around the world and across the

united states

to serve as farm interns they have

helped

with every aspect of growing the food

and

serving our local community i think of

one young man by the name of kenneth

he’s a student in michigan studying

organic agriculture

his family owned a farm in mississippi

i can only imagine the hardships that

they must have faced

farming at that time the farm is now

no longer in operation but kenneth’s

plan

is to return to mississippi and open

that farm again i’m excited about

so many young people with a passion for

sustainability

and environmental stewardship

in my christian faith tradition

agriculture is often used as a means

of communicating spiritual truths it

begins with a story

of a garden that god planted

he placed man there to care for the

garden

and during the cool of the day god would

come

and walk in the garden there are three

principles i

learned from this story one god set an

example for us

by planting a garden two we have a

responsibility to take care of that

which

god has created and three the garden

is a place of spiritual encounter

a place for reflection and prayer

this is confirmed in the new testament

on the night that jesus was betrayed he

went to a garden

there to pray and prayed what i consider

to be the most

intense prayer of the bible when he

cried out

father if there’s any other way for the

redemption of humanity

let this cup pass from me but not

my will be done but the will of the

father

judas came that night with soldiers to

make the arrest

they were looking for a place to find

jesus without crowds

surrounding him how did judas know that

jesus

would be in that garden on that night

and the answer was jesus went there

frequently with the disciples

to pray the garden is a place

to encounter god and to find spiritual

insights also through history

agriculture and land ownership at times

has been used in an oppressive manner

but in the old testament the jewish

farmers were commanded

when they harvested their fields to

leave behind

part of the crops this was for the poor

of the community

to be able to come and gather for

themselves

it was called gleaning in addition to

this

the four corners of the field were not

to be harvested

they were to be left entirely for

helping the poor

there were three classifications of

people who were most

vulnerable to poverty they were the

widows

the orphans and the foreigners i love

the thought that farming can be used

to extend generous justice to the

community

speaking on the subject of environmental

stewardship

my thoughts go back to my childhood

growing up

here in central florida i remember a

time

when there was a lot of agriculture

the citrus industry being the largest

i remember orange groves spread

over the hills as far as your eye could

see

we would see the buses carrying the

workers to harvest the fruit we would

see the trucks

carrying the citrus to the to the plants

to be processed

there was the smell of the oranges in

the air

to me it was a wonderful thing

my mother’s family owned citrus groves

and managed packing houses

i had a lot of opportunity as a child to

play in the orange groves

it was not until later that i realized

there was some devastation to our

environment that was occurring

and many people’s health was being

placed at risk

the groves were being sprayed with a

type

of equipment that was very powerful it

was pulled by a tractor this large

sprayer

and they would go down through the rows

of citrus trees

and the force of the spray was so strong

it would shake the trees and the spray

would be

blown high into the air i was in the

orange grove playing many times when

this was happening

i saw workers in the groves during those

times

you could smell the spray in the air

matter of fact the force of the spray

was so strong

it would drift into our neighborhoods

it was not until my teenage years

that i saw a change and i began to see

signs

placed around the perimeters of the

orange grove when they were being

sprayed warning people not to enter

and for the first time it dawned on me

hey there might be a problem

with what’s being done i also have

another memory

visiting my grandparents who lived in

winter garden

along the shores of lake apopka which is

classified as the number five

largest lake in the state and also

became

classified as the most polluted

large lake of the state

my father told me that when he was a

child

this lake was crystal clear there was an

abundance of waterfowl

and so many fish in the lake i never saw

the lake like that

i only remember it being a pea green

color

and at times there being the terrible

smell of massive fish kills on the lake

if you know a little bit of the history

in the early 40s

a levee was built and the marshes were

drained

they were turned into farmland we called

them

muck farms they were used for vegetable

production

during the early 40s they began to use

pesticides

every year those waters would be pumped

from the farm into the lake

in the 40s there was a massive algae

bloom

in lake apopka part of the problem was

not only lake apopka

this is the headwaters of a chain of

lakes which we call

the harris chain of lakes that continues

on into the

akuaka river basin there were not only

muck farms along lake apopka

but also around other lakes and along

the aklawaka river

in 1980 there was a tower

chemical spill into lake apopka

lake apopka was designated a supersite

fund for cleanup and a process began

of appropriating the land

and returning it again to marshes what

they learned was

that marshes helped to filter the water

from the lake

now 30 years later

we’re beginning to see an improvement in

our waterway

it’s better it’s cost a lot of money

but it should have never happened

on the subject of sustainability

i agree with the statement by the united

nations

sustainability is about meeting

our present needs without damaging

the ability of future generations to

meet

their needs mahatma gandhi says

the earth provides enough to satisfy

every man’s need but not

every man’s greed

now i would like to give you the answer

concerning the corn

there’s great potential in a kernel of

corn

one kernel of corn can produce

one stalk of corn on the average one

stalk of corn will produce two

ears of corn now those ears of corn

vary in size they can have anywhere from

500 to 1200 kernels of corn

on the average 800 kernels of corn

on an ear of corn times two

is sixteen hundred kernels

of corn and you do believe me i counted

every kernel

in that jar

that’s in the first planting

if you took all of those kernels of corn

and planted them again that would be

sixteen hundred times sixteen

hundred or 2 million

560 000

kernels of corn if we were to go

to the third planting i think i’m going

to call a time

out it’s a lot there is

such potential in faith

and sustainability i want to close today

by challenging you to plant

seeds of hope and change

in the communities where you live

thank you

you