We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The “tide in the affairs of men” does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: “Too late.” There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. “The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on…” We still have a choice today; nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation.

This is a true story. Last saturday I went to one of the local mega-food grocery stores for the week’s shopping. As I drove down one of the parking lanes I noticed a young man standing next to the front…

Yes, well, if Wendell Berry and Wes Jackson have their way, you would only get farm bill reform alerts from the Hunger Program every half century! That’s because the changes in agricultural production they laid out on January 5 are based on ecological principles as opposed to the desires of agribusiness. They also are grounded in the great research on perennials done by Jackson’s Land Institute and on Berry’s sage advice on agrarianism (here is a choice morsel from Orion magazine – The Agrarian Standard). May our new leadership in Washington take heed!

“It is much more comfortable to depersonalize the poor so we don’t feel responsible for the catastrophic human failure that results in someone sleeping on the street while people have spare bedrooms in their homes. We can volunteer in a social program or distribute excess food and clothing through organizations and never have to open up our homes, our beds our dinner tables. When we get to heaven, we will separated into those sheep and goats Jesus talks about in Matthew 25 based on how we cared for the least among us. I’m just not convinced that Jesus is going to say, “When I was hungry, you gave a check to the United Way and they fed me,” or, “When I was naked, you gived clothes to the Salvation Army and they clothed me.” Jesus is not seeking distant acts of charity. He seeks concrete acts of love: “you fed me . . . you visited me in prison . . . you welcomed me into your home . . . you clothed me.” Yes, I spend many hours of each day working “for the hungry.” But I clearly depersonalize them in many ways. Foremost because I am not working with the hungry and dispossessed. Nor have I recently invited a hungry or homeless person to eat at my table or stay the night. And, yes, I just finished writing my end-of-the-year checks to non-profits.

Part of what makes a holiday a holiday is the food. If its the Fourth of July, there should be hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill. Valentine’s day involves chocolate. Halloween involves candy as a whole and even Flag…

Don’t eat the yellow snow. But this is not YS. So you can eat it! But you might choose one of the natural crystals, rather than the artificial snow on the right. Don’t know a stellar dendrite from a cupped column snowflake? Help for you is a click away compliments of Caltech.

Since we highlighted how Cargill was influencing prices on the world market a couple weeks ago, I thought I’d balance things a bit with a reference to this article about Cargill China’s corporate excellence. It is from the US State Department, so we can assume it is an unbiased, non-political assessment. Right?

FDA really needs to crack down on unclear egg labeling. But until then (and the cows don their ice skates in hell) you’ll need to do your own checking.

I’m escaping from the current, overtly worldly stuff – like Zimbabwe, the war in Congo, the food and climate crises, the hub bub of another consumerized Christmas to recharge my spiritual batteries and see if I can lose my self to find Self. At least a bit, I hope. I’ll be silently celebrating advent in a one-room shack alongside a big pond, little lake. In the rain, it seems. And hopefully the beaver is still around. I’m taking along some food and some paper. Specifically, * a pad to draw on * a writing journal * 3 main books: Rudolf Steiner’s How to Know Higher Worlds and Love & Its Meaning in the World, and Buhner’s The Secret Teachings of Plants * 3 other books that I may or may not touch: Tolle’s A New Earth, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying and Andrew Harvey’s Light Upon Light: Inspirations from Rumi * and a paddle to use with the beat up aluminum canoe Oh, and maybe some binoculars. A fry pan and a pot to use on the electric burner.

Our Hungry Planet: Cargill looms as a silent giant Veiled in secrecy, the Minnetonka-based conglomerate — with $120 billion in annual revenues — holds much sway over world food costs. The first segment starts out with a teaser video about palm oil, used in food and other products. So segment I complements the materials for this month’s fast on the Global Food Crisis.