I Am My Grandma...and other Revelations

My Mammaw with my newest cousin, Tyler

Rev. Laura Barclay

As I transition to life in Kentucky, I am also learning more about gardening, vintage items, older homes, and new neighbors. I have spent more time with my grandmother, who has a love of antiques, canning, and telling my Pappaw to get out of the kitchen and stop telling her how to cook.

In my conversations with her, I have discovered that she is resourceful, tough, funny, loves children, and cares very much about preserving the past. As a women who watched one daughter suffer and survive polio and lost another suddenly only a year and a half ago, I understand that this love of the past is also deeply personal. Because of this realization, her words carry more weight as someone who has endured much and has life lessons to teach.

Mammaw warns about the costs of vegetables rising and supplies her own by canning the veggies from Pappaw's thriving garden. Yet she shares readily with neighbors, relatives, and whoever might show up at her door. She attends church and volunteers regularly. She could the quintessential character in a Clyde Edgerton novel.

I have since noticed the cost of vegetables and have considered canning. I learned we have an interest in estate sales and antiquing in common because you can get wonderful items at a great deal, and I think if either of us could live in a museum, we would. She was influenced by the times in which she was raised--the Great Depression. My generation has been shaken by the Great Recession--no longer do we believe in a guarantee of jobs, retirement, monetary success or a stable housing market. My grandmother watches her Social Security checks fail to meet inflation and wonders if she'll always have enough. For all our political differences, both believe the government has failed in its promise to care for veterans like my grandfather.  Instead of caring about living up to societal standards of success--whatever that means--we care more about the ideal of living in community instilled in us from church.

Now, on the eve of my grandparents 65th wedding anniversary, as we bond over gardens, antiques, church talk, looking at pictures of long-lost relatives and our concern for the present, I'm thankful that instead of thinking of all the years between us I can focus on our commonalities and learn more about my grandmother beyond her identity as "Mammaw."

How about you? Is there a relative of family friend you have had or wish you had the opportunity to get to know beyond their relational identity to you? What is your mother, father, brother, sister, grandma, or aunt like outside of their identity as family member?

Night Gardening

by Rev. Laura Barclay 

Since moving to Louisville about two weeks ago and having a backyard, I have been covered in dirt and sweat almost everyday. I have long felt that my grandfather's love of farming and working the earth was an innate part of my being, instilled at birth. Living in a condo without even a patio to have a potted garden made me, on my best days, stare wistfully at nearby trees out the window. On the worst days, I could be spotted prowling the aisles at Lowe's or Home Depot, daydreaming about a future garden in another locale.

The day we got home with our plants and soil, the sun was setting, but my enthusiasm bubbled over. I just had to start now! My husband looked quizzically at my while I hauled plants across the yard and into raised beds. 

"Shouldn't you wait until morning?" he asked.

"I know. I'm just so excited though. I want to plan a few things tonight." And there I was--night gardening.

This leads me to two conclusions. First, I'm right where I need to be and the energy and enthusiasm of my actions seem to concur. Second, I must be getting old! Gardening after dark seems like a thrill!

In thinking about the last few weeks, I realize I have learned several things since embarking upon the cultivation of our yard:

1) There is little else in life as satisfying as working up a sweat, being covered in dirt, and seeing the fruits of your labor. This is a satisfaction that will never come from sitting behind a desk. God's vision for humanity to care for the earth and all the creatures in it in Genesis 1 never seems more true than when carefully setting aside earthworms and pill bugs as I dig, putting them back to symbiotically work in my garden. So, especially for those like me who mostly work behind desks, get out there and start a garden or help with a community or church garden!

2) Everything seems connected and anything that is in disharmony with God's vision is seen for what it is: disruptive, unimportant, and out of unity with God and God's people.  Road rage? It's a useless expense of hate and energy. Gossiping about that person you don't like? It won't do anyone any good and it will make you feel worse afterwards. Having divisive arguments with a family member or friend about politics? Well, being "right" won't win you any friends or convince anyone of your viewpoint!

3)  I am literally stronger now than ever before. Gardening is hard, messy, heavy work. But if you invest in it, your body will thank you after you work through the muscle pains. Your body will strengthen and respond to your efforts. Many Christians get hung up on the 1 Corinthians 6 text, "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you?" They will preach never to have a sip of wine, yet sit down to Wednesday night church dinners of fried foods, bread pudding and sweet tea. As a result, the Bible Belt is straining from the excess weight. The most obese states are in the South. However, when we understand where our food comes from and have a relationship with the land, we can strike an appropriate balance in our lives.

I look forward to learning more lessons on gardening and life from neighbors, family and friends! 

Live Simply That Others May Simply Live!

by Dr. Dennis Herman

It’s tomato season again. This year I have again fought drought and deer to have a few tomatoes to harvest. My tomato plants are, again this year, in my front yard. It’s the only sunny spot in my yard and I am convinced that it is more important that I grow some food, no matter what the neighbor’s say about “Dr. Herman’s front yard, overgrown veggie patch.”

Why fill the yard with vegetables rather than petunias? For one, I want to remember where my food comes from. And I want all the kids on my street to see that food actually grows on plants and just doesn’t “appear” in the produce department. I am hopeful that the kids on my street (unlike the young clerk at the supermarket where I shop) will someday know the difference between a tomato and a turnip.

I am defying my professional yard “fertilizers” and going to a natural lawn care service. I am attempting to eat less meat because the way our meats are raised and processed tend to, well, turn my stomach. I don’t like the fact that poultry cannot breathe or even walk where they are raised, or that beef is injected with any number of hormones and antibiotics, or pork is...well, you get the picture.

No, I’m not a rabid animal “rights” person, or a tree-hugging environmentalist, or a fanatic about every health fad that comes along. But I am seriously trying to understand “Christian stewardship” as being about more than giving to the Church. It’s about how we treat our earth, our animals, our humans, and our food and water sources.

I believe some resources of our earth are limited and others, while limited, are replenishable. I believe there may just be enough food and resources for all of us if some of us don’t mess it up or use it up! And I believe that good stewardship calls me to live simply that others may live.

This is a counter-cultural idea and you may not agree. But if you can’t get any tomatoes or basil, come by my house. I don’t mind sharing.

Dennis Herman is the senior Pastor of Greystone Baptist Church in Raleigh, NC. He will be retiring next week. This article originally appeared in the church newsletter, Greystone Today.