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