Grass pierces concrete

The Church has so much to learn from the rowing community. I contemplate what incredible Christians my rowing friends would make because of many skills they’ve gained from the sport.

I showed up for a 2 day rowing clinic to learn how to scull. The first day was awful, the instructor didn’t really know what to do with me and expected me to be a lot better immediately since I had sweep rowed. And to make matters worse I dropped the boat taking it out of the water and broke of the skag!

The second day, however, a different instructor took me out. It was essentially a private lesson, and she followed my shell around in a kayak and gave me help navigating obstacles. She helped correct my technique and told me when I was skying — things that are hard to tell when you’re doing them unless you have another pair of eyes. She was encouraging and told me I looked like a natural. She didn’t baby me by keeping me close to the shore, either — we went out in the choppy water a little, but she also invited me to come row at the lake with her and some other women to improve my skill on the still waters. When we got in to shore two other women approached me and told me they wanted me to race with them in their barge in 6 weeks. The objective is to have fun and beat the club next door! They are erging 3 nights a week and have happy hour every Fridays.

So here’s the analogy: they didn’t look at my erg times or make me pay money before I was invited to every aspect of the club — all they needed was my interest, which I demonstrated simply by showing up at the clinic. Yet the Church seems to watch newcomers from afar, assessing their qualifications and motivations until they lose their inertia to be a part of something new. The two women invited me to be a part of their team with a clear objective (win the race) and means to getting there (erging together and weekend rows). What a beautiful picture of discipleship. Too often people show up at a church service and get treated as newcomers for a long time, either held at arms length or protected from the not invited to participate in the process of discipleship. They keep trying to “row” alone, but even a single sculler appreciates some help getting her boat down to the water. The tides and traffic patterns are different in every area, so even the experienced rower needs a local to give a brief lesson.

Discipleship is so simple, really — Jesus invited his disciples to train with him for the race, and to do it together. And they were always looking for people to join their team. That’s all we need.

I learned at my organic gardening class that there are two types of plants that are great for urban gardens: mustard and sunflowers. Why? These two plants actually absorb lead from the soil (a huge fear for urban gardners wanting to grow fruits and veggies) and cleanse it! After several generations of plants, if they are disposed as toxic material and not composted, the soil should be lead free!!! I love how God gives us solutions to the problems we have inflicted on our world.

This class is seriously a blast. Today we learned how to harvest seeds, and talked about how each seed is a miracle and has so much potential for life.

Mushrooms are also amazing. Some bioneer, when presented with the task of taking a 3 foot square pile of sawdust soaked in diesel and making it suitable to plant on, decided to innoculate the pile with mushrooms, not know what would happen. Pretty soon he had an amazing crop of mushrooms. But were they edible? He took them back to the lab, ran a ton of tests, and sure enough, the mushrooms can separate the hydrocarbons and return them back to their original elements — they were perfectly safe to eat. But what would happen to the pile? After the mushrooms died off, things started to rot and get smelly and maggots started to hatch. But our bioneer left the tarp off his pile and some seagulls came and ate all the maggots. They pooped and dropped seeds and the soil became mroe fertile and started to sprout life. At the end of three months, the pile had produced a crop of gourmet delicacies, all the diesel was completely gone, and all the other bioneers’ piles were still toxic and barren! Once again, God provides such simple and creative solutions to the waste we create — He is so gentle and patient and creative and GOOD!