Day 406 April 26th 2021

The two Berrys and the universe of wonder

“I take literally the statement in the Gospel of John that God loves the world. I believe that the world was created and approved by love, that it subsists, coheres, and endures by love, and that, insofar as it is redeemable, it can be redeemed only by love. I believe that divine love, incarnate and indwelling in the world, summons the world always toward wholeness, which ultimately is reconciliation and atonement with God.” ― Wendell Berry

Our celebration yesterday left me with many questions. First of all, I got confused between Father Thomas Berry who wrote

“…the universe, by definition, is a single gorgeous celebratory event."

or importantly:

"The Earth produced and sustains us, and we need to care for and respect it just as your right arm needs to care for and respect the rest of your body, as essential to its survival."

And farmer - poet Wendell Berry who writes

"Wonder is what carries you, for it is always there, even in the dark, or most in the dark, but shining out at times like gold stitches in a piece of embroidery. ”

Wow.

Thomas Berry: “We come into being in and through the Earth. Simply put, we are Earthlings. The Earth is our origin, our nourishment, our educator, our healer, our fulfillment. At its core, even our spirituality is Earth derived. The human and the Earth are totally implicated, each in the other. If there is no spirituality in the Earth, then there is no spirituality in ourselves.”

And he also wrote so simply: "Gardening is an active participation in The deepest mysteries of the universe."

Many of the observations and gratitudes from yesterday come from this wonder in the universe.

So many green colors!

The deep black of night

Wriggly worms and composting

A profusion of flowers shared on Facebook

The wind and all things of the Spirit

Wonder will guide us

“So, friends, every day do something that won't compute...Give your approval to all you cannot understand...Ask the questions that have no answers. Put your faith in two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years...Laugh. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts....Practice resurrection.” (Wendell Berry)

(Chapel of St. Anthony's minor seminary in Santa Barbara where I spent 4 years -

and where the St. Anthony's Community meets)

And then to be joined by Cindy and Jerry Yoshitomi from the St. Anthony’s Community in Santa Barbara.

Check out their website at:

https://www.st-anthony-community.net/

Here’s how they describe their community from the front page of their website (sound familiar?)

WELCOME to the St. Anthony’s Catholic Community! We are an Old Church with a New Heart. Current and former Catholics interested in an alternative vision of church, as well as those of other faiths seeking a spiritual community, will find St. Anthony’s an attractive and welcoming place to gather on Sunday mornings and on other occasions. Our priests, who preside at our Eucharistic celebrations and other sacramental functions, are duly prepared and ordained without regard to their marital status or gender. The words of one of our favorite hymns says it perfectly: All Are Welcomed in this Place!”

WE WELCOME ALL PEOPLE NO MATTER WHAT STATUS THEY HAVE IN CHURCH OR SOCIETY.

Who we are…

St. Anthony’s is an Inclusive Catholic Eucharistic Community where all are welcomed.

We exercise Eucharistic hospitality; we invite all believers to share in the liturgy of God’s Word; the breaking and sharing of bread; and the service of others. No one is turned away. Our welcome is deep and sincere.

Our members believe it is the Spirit of God who has nurtured and led this independent, intentional faith community from its beginnings, in orthodoxy, to its present inclusive services, led by married priests. We define ourselves as “Pilgrim people,” a phrase used by Vatican II to remind all Catholics that they are the church. We consider our community to be in unity with the larger Church, rooted in the teachings of Jesus and the viewpoint of Vatican II. We recognize that all baptized persons are called to ministry, not just a clerical caste. This belief results in a revived spirituality that sees us as adults before God, able to make and act on sound decisions, as led by the Holy Spirit.

Our focus is on doing what Jesus taught. Creeds and dogmatic statements are important, but it is how we live, as well as what we say, that is important. We strive to live by the love the Gospel proclaims and to daily apply that love to the journey of life.

We are a hospitable and friendly people. We take our worship seriously, but we don’t stand on ceremony. Our love for each other–and all in attendance– is palpable. We say of ourselves: “We are a pilgrim people, a people on the journey, a people seeking and responding to truth. We are witnesses to Christ, who is salt, leaven and light.” We are a people who chose to remain Teachable. We are a people experimenting with the future of Church, in the sacred rootedness of Roman Catholicism.

Jesus is Risen! Alleluia!

Zoom MASS st 9:30 AM: Sundays

April 25, 2021 Fourth Sunday of Easter

“I know my sheep and they know me”

For Welcome and Chat sign on at 9:15

Please join us

To receive code for entry:

Email CYTweetie@aol.com OR

dudpatcon@gmail.com

To Sign up get on our email list:

Rev. Dr. Grandma Cynthia Yoshitomi: CYTweetie@aol.com OR

ChildWisdom1@gmail.com

Rev. Dudley Conneely: dudpatcon@gmail.com

It's hard (if not impossible) to grasp the largeness of the universe or even the story of earth and its amazing evolution. But Steve, Ed and Victoria gave us lots to think about and placed us right in the middle of the story. What to think about? It helps to have a guide as wise as that other Berry, Thomas:

“We need a spirituality that emerges out of a reality deeper than ourselves, a spirituality that is as deep as the Earth process itself, a spirituality born out of the solar system and even out of the heavens beyond the solar system. For it is in the stars that the primordial elements take shape in both their physical and psychic aspects. Out of these elements the solar system and Earth took shape, and out of Earth, ourselves.” (Thomas Berry, “The Spirituality of the Earth,” in The Sacred Universe, 74).

Berry said at one point:

“We need to put the Bible on the shelf for about

20 years.”

He believed that our lives and the fate of our planet home depends on some

rethinking of pour deepest religious views:

God’s revelation to humans needs to be widened drastically to include the natural world around us, to the amazing and awesome story astronomers and other scientists are telling us about the origin and development of the universe itself, and to what biologists are telling us about how life developed and evolved on planet Earth.

All of these sources of divine revelation need to be considered together to get a true estimation of who we are and what our destiny is as humans living on a fragile planet.

“In our contemplation of how tragic moments of disintegration over the course of the centuries were followed by immensely creative moments of renewal, we receive our great hope for the future. To initiate and guide this next creative moment of the story of the Earth is the Great Work of the religions of the world as we move on into the future.” (Thomas Berry, “Religion in the Twenty-first Century,” in The Sacred Universe, 87).

“The journey, the sacred journey of the universe, is the personal journey of each individual. …The universe is the larger self of each person, since the entire sequence of events that has transpired since the beginning of the universe was required to establish each of us in the precise structure of our own being and in the larger context in which we function.” (Thomas Berry, “Cosmology of Religions,” The Sacred Universe, 122-123.

“The human venture depends absolutely on this quality of awe and reverence and joy in the Earth and all that lives and grows upon the Earth. As soon as we isolate ourselves from these currents of life and from the profound mood that these engender within us, then our basic life-satisfactions are diminished.” (Thomas Berry, “The Dynamics of the Future,” in The Great Work, 166).

“So, friends, every day do something that won't compute... How about doing a little gardening this week or looking at the blueness of the sky, the myriad greens of Spring, the brilliance of the flowers with who we share our earth home? After all, we all come from the same miraculous stardust.

ANNOUNCEMENT #1 from John Poole and his friend Paul Harris

Composting at Santa Rosa Creek Commons:

There are 4 compost piles at Santa Rosa Creek Commons, they are under the round tarps.

The 3rd one is next to the trash can and the 4th one is in the shade near the trash can.

The circle in the center is where garden debris is deposited to add to the compost pile.

Leafy greens and non woody stems are best for the compost piles. Woody stems, oak leaves don’t decompose well, and any weeds with seeds should be left out because home compost piles generally don’t get hot enough to kill the weed’s seeds.

It's important to avoid spreading the weed seeds when using the finished compost in a garden.

The 4 compost piles accommodate the kitchen scraps of the 33 people living here. An individual or family would only need 1 compost pile.

Community members deposit their kitchen scraps in the trash can. Once a week or so the can is emptied onto the compost pile.

Green debris is added on top. It can be grass clippings, leaves & other garden green debris mentioned above.

Once a month or so the pile is turned with a pitch fork to mix up the materials and get even heat.

A black tarp is secured on top to keep the heat in. Its the heat and microbes that break the material down into useable compost in about 4-6 months. The cover is held down tight to the ground with stakes to keep varmints from getting into the pile. Wild turkeys, rats and other critters can make a mess of a pile if not kept out. The lid of the trash can is kept on for the same reason.

After 4-6 months the result is beautiful, healthy compost that can be added to garden soil, used as mulch or potting soil.

Kitchen green waste is recycled into compost for the garden instead of going to the dump.

It’s good to leave out meat products, they attract varmints.

Paul Harris

pwh@sonic.net