The kids playing “Hobbits.”

Earth Day was on my birthday again this year. Somewhat ironically the day
before was my/our last day to recycle all our food waste. Since mid-June
last year we were recycling about 99% of our food scraps. I’d bought a bag
of fermented grains (bokashi mix) and would sprinkle some on every day’s
worth of waste. The fermentation process makes it possible to compost meat,
cheese, and bread in high quantities without any major issues.

Why did we stop? Well, I’m just taking a little hiatus, I guess. We’re
still composting veggie scraps and egg shells. I just don’t want to have to
empty a smelly bowl every day at the moment. And My compost bin is sort of
“cooking” and I want to just turn it another dozen times as it is before I
use it to plant a new garden. I don’t want to add any new stuff to it.

I’m impressed that it’s so possible for people like us to do something so
significant. They say food waste accounts for 40% of an average Australian
home’s rubbish bins. So by making a single change we made a major
difference.

What I’m most pleased about is the use of the composted material. Months
ago I dumped a full bin of it onto a more or less dead spot in the garden
near some sketchy looking plants. Quickly, those plants came to life and
continue to exude life now in a spot that I never water or fertilise. It
did smell for about a week. I wish I’d had some hay straw to cover it. That
would’ve helped.

Another neat thing about the pile I made from the composted grass clippings
and food waste was the attraction of Blue Tongue and other lizards. There
was a time less than two years ago when I squashed 100 heinous leaf-eating
slugs in one night. I’ve not seen slug damage since the warm piles
attracted the giant Blue Tongue.

I read a verse from the Bible today, “Act justly, love mercy, and walk
humbly with God.” At the very least, I think recycling all our food waste
is related to these three things. How I treat the Earth is how I treat my
global neighbour and future generations with a blessing. And I think making
the garden hospitable not just to me but to a balance of wildlife is an act
of mercy, in particular to a Blue Tongue lizard crossing busy streets in
search of a safe place like this. And the fact that I can recognise these
things makes it a transcendent experience for me. Of course, I can see God
in my cosy house, but I can also experience the Transcendent One in a
productive garden. It’s like God is walking through the garden with us and
cooperating with us to bring life and beauty.

I was working on a farm today. Actually, it’s not a farm, yet. We’re doing the preparatory work for it to become the beginnings of a city farm. 

My friend Andrew is the farm manager. He was working the mini-excavator to create a third pond. I was spreading gypsum over the muddy earth around the ponds. The earth around there is clay soil. It’s very sodic, which according to Wikipedia means … “These soils tend to occur within arid to semi-arid regions and are innately unstable, exhibiting poor physical and chemical properties, which impede water infiltration, water availability, and ultimately plant growth.”

I got my second lift-heavy-things workout of the week when we wheel-barrelled about 750 kilos of gypsum, dolomite, and a little bit of lucerne hay across wet fields and muddy tracks. And yes the mud on those tracks was very sodic. I felt weak most of the day in a sort of low blood sugar way. I usually don’t feel like that, but I did have a piece of cake before bed. 

Anyway, at one point Andrew was showing me around the land. He suddenly said, “Look, a bird of prey, a peregrine falcon! It got a bird, maybe a pigeon.” We had startled it and it flew away. 

We approached the now dead bird, a white dove. Feathers were scattered, a couple black ones as well. The body was still warm. 

That’s how old I turn on Sunday. We’re having a little party because it’s Bill and Nigel’s birthdays this month as well. Any excuse to have a party, I always say.

I feel young for the most part. I may not be able to jump very high, but I feel like I can jump pretty high. My back feels good pretty much all the time these days. Even my shoulder is going pretty good. 

But man I feel lost sometimes. I have these moments of feeling like, “God, where am I?” And I feel a major lack of confidence in getting to where I think I ought to be.

I realise I can really be scattered, trying to do and be involved in a lot of things at the same time and collecting information about a lot of things. I feel too scattered.

I’m trying to focus on just four goals at the moment. Starting now.

• Know and be known by God in Port Parables and in house church.
• Find people open to Jesus learning by asking them if they are.
• Give Nicole and the kids my Mondays.
• Write/Publish an E-book.

I think I’ll watch Modern Family with Nicole right now, though.

When I’m talking to you, you’re probably not studying my mouth. And even if you are, there’s next to no chance at all that I’m even aware of my mouth while I’m trying to express something to you.

Even language. I’m not really attending to which particular language I’m speaking to you. There’s an idea that seems worthy to me and I want to share it with you. My mouth and our common language and your ears just happen to be the means to an end.

Victor Wooten put me on this line of thinking. He’s one of the best musicians in the world [bassist here in this live video Bela Fleck and the Flecktones]. Some novice instrumentalists were asking him questions in hopes they could be like him. I wasn’t even really following their questions because they seemed so technical. I think they asked if they should pursue musical theory further and further. Victor didn’t say they shouldn’t but he said something like … “I have tools but I don’t carry them around with me everywhere. They’re in the trunk of my car and I get them out when I need them.”

To be a good musician isn’t necessarily related to mastery of music theory or your instrument. Theory has its place, but the big question is, Can you express what you’re feeling or thinking or doing in your music?

Of course, this probably applies beyond music.