fish feeds plants, plants clean water, water feeds fish… rock/paper/scissors II [aka Aquaponics at TSW]

so this past week and coming week at the Simple Way we have had a bunch of volunteers fly in from California as well as some local guys helping out with our latest project which is known as Aquaponics and i thort i’d stick some of the updates here so you can check it out – most of this is lifted directly from the Shane Claiborne page on Facebook:

Check out our newest adventure — Urban Aquaponics!!!

Over a year ago, we began to dream of creating an aquaponics system on our block — raising fish that “enrich” (poop) and fertilize water that gets pumped to raised bed gardens where fresh veggies grow like crazy. Hundreds of you have supported us in this adventure (we raised over 10,000 dollars!)… and tomorrow is the day we start to construct the whole system. We are thrilled to see another dream come true. Thanks for making it happen. Keep an eye out here for regular updates over as we build this sucker over the next two weeks. And check out this video from several months ago where we cast the original vision for Simple Ponics!

or alternatively click here. but not here as that is just a link to the fire ant wikipedia page which does not have a lot to do with aquaponics at all.

It won’t be long now until we have fresh fish tacos right in the food desert of North Philly.

here is a link to day 1 as the team arrived and started to get the equipment ready for the big build [our local team had spent more than a week digging and laying the foundations and creating the cement slab it would be built on]

another update which shows the framework of the greenhouse that will house most of the aquaponic system…

and finally a short video of day 3 of the work as the team realised they were way ahead of schedule and were almost needing to slow down to make the most of the two weeks set aside for the job.

and so that it just a taste – i have really enjoyed connecting with the team and getting to know them a little bit and share stories of life and adventure and God – some are leaving this weekend, more are arriving every day and we have local volunteers coming in and helping clean up the block and start prepping the greening of the H street lot across the road – really has been a community event and we look forward to the community benefitting from it for years to come…

and finally there is the closing piece [well of the two week build] of the two week build… ha ha

Living in fear in the inner city…

so my beautiful wife Valerie moved to kensington in philadelphia, americaland just over 8 months ago and quickly got the vibe of what this place is about… within two months of being here, the newspapers posted an article with the top ten drug corners in Philly and all ten were within 5 miles of where we live… when we are in the city and people ask us where we live and we answer, “Kensington!” people always give us the “no, really” look and give some kind of “what good ever came out of Kensington?” follow-up… and many people ask, “aren’t you scared to live there?”

and after 8 months of living in this place, if i have to answer that question honestly, then i will have to give an emphatic “Yes!” A very large percentage of the time I am really scared living in this house in Kensington. and i am talking ‘freaked out of my bean’ scared.

but not for the reasons you may expect. it is not the drug dealers that scare me or the occasional violence that spills on to our streets or the police sirens we hear almost daily or anything like that.

it is the light switches. and you might think i am being funny but i am not. every one in ten times that i reach out to switch a light on or off in the house we live in, about ten mazillion volts go through my body and it freaks the bean out of me. i think the combination of some kind of static build up from the carpets and possibly some dubious wiring, but it really has caused me intense and real fear. half the time i reach for a light switch i wrap my hand in my shirt or go for a quick-as-lightning-reflex flip-the-switch and it usually works… in fact it works for a while and then lulls me into a false sense of security until i lose the fear and start turning lights on and off normally again and then suddenly KAZAAM! man, i have become so nervous when needing to work the light switch – the one time i literally saw a huge burst of sparks.

and so this largely appears to be a nonsensical blog and to some extents it is… but the deeper story is a profoundly exciting one… because i live in kensington, philadelphia, an area that many people and municipalities and governments have given up on, an area rife with drug use and violence and killings, and the thing that scares me is light switches. and really the only thing that scares me. there have definitely been moments when things have happened and i haven’t known what to do or others when i am really close to a violent situation and know the potential for things to go horribly wrong, but i just have not had fear here. and i think it has a lot to do with being in the place where you know God has called you to be. and tbV and i know that without a doubt. right now, this is where we are meant to be. the closest thing to a fear apart from electrocution-by-lightswitch is that of the potential of missed opportunities or not having a significant effect on people or the community.

we will continue to wrestle with those questions and with how to live well here, and how to be significant both in how we serve and how we allow ourselves to be served and taught and informed and challenged… and until something bigger comes along to fear, i will just keep as much distance as possible from those light switches…

best Christmas EVER!

this year was tbV and my first Christmas away from family and so we really wanted to get started on some traditions of our own to make the time meaningful and significant… for Christmas eve we had a really great dinner with Monkman [aka A-Ron, one of our fellow interns] and then on Christmas day we wanted to do something with some of our neighbors in kensington…

so we invited a few of them round [mom and daughter, couple and single lady] and they brought some food and dessert and we had some snacks and some food and they joined us for a meal and conversation – i got to know people val knew that i didn’t so much and she got to know people i knew that she didn’t so much and it was really a good time…

after the meal we sat in the lounging area and invited the neighbors to take part in our new tradition, inspired in part by one of the alternative seminary classes we attended this year, run by will o’ brien:

we turned off the lights and each person was given a candle [tea light, if you’re a girl and know what that means] and then we took some time to speak out some of the darknesses of this past year, acknowledging that as much as Christmas can be a time of joy and celebration, for a lot of people it is a time of pain and loneliness and burden… so struggles and mess-ups and death and sicknesses and regrets and disappointments were mentioned and everyone got really into it to a far deeper level than val and i anticipated and i was on the verge of tears from early on and we let it go on for quite a while and took our time on it…

then, i wrapped up that section in prayer and we moved on to the next part which was each person sharing a prayer or a hope for the new year and then lighting their candle… so as people spoke out their hope/prayer the light increased and we ended up putting all the lights together in the centre of the room and holding hands and praying for each other as we headed towards the new year – it was an incredibly powerful time, both just having neighbors in our house to share food with us, but also that they invited us into their lives and pain and dreams for the future.

we ended the evening by inviting a bunch of children round to watch Elf with us on the projected movie screen and had some, who had never before entered our house, join us for that – it was a lot of laughter and fun and a great way to end off the day.

it was great to create a Christmas tradition and spend the time reaching out to others and hopefully having deep impact and opportunity to grow those relationships in the new year – there seriously is nothing better than transforming the ‘me’ focus to an ‘us’.

perspex’tive

this evening one of our neighbors came round so i could help him download a word type program for his computer so that he could start compiling all the incredible ideas he has for gardening in and around our street – we got to hear some of his dreams in that area a few weeks ago and i told him i could help him find a simple way of recording it…

he finally came over tonite and started showing me some video clips of stuff he could do with tyres and with old wooden crates that are free and easy to find all over the place – i was thinking of what videos i could show him on the internet and it pretty much came to japanese people with giant elastic bands over their face trying to bite into a marshmallow suspended from a strong or else a tongue-twisting program where if they get it wrong, this giant fly-swatter comes out and nails them in the nads…

and i was really smacked in the face [once again, sometimes a daily occurance here] how superficial i can be and how there are people all around dreaming of life-giving things and sometimes i am preoccupied with watching someone get hurt or pull a funny face… it reminds me of how in ephesians 3.20 we are told that the God we serve is able to do more than all we could hope or imagine… and i do talk about this one a lot cos it’s one of my many favourite verses, but i think that sometimes we [especially us as Christ-followers who are connected to the ultimate power source of the Universe, thru none of our own worth or doing] hope or imagine too small and so, even when God comes thru and we get what we wanted, it isn’t that impressive…

what we did for our neighbour was so small [a free, legit word program, and then the beautiful Val showed him how to download and use pinterest and he just took off] and yet he got so excited, because his dreams are so big – dreams for himself, his family, and the community…

i hope sometime soon to move from marshmallows and nut-cracking to tyre-walls, wooden crate compost pins and plastic cup gardens…

what is wrong with the world.

we live in a pretty tough area with some hectic stuff going on around us at times and it can often be quite frustrating trying to figure out what we can do to make a real difference around here and the other day when i was praying about it and asking God what could be done specifically about the drug dealers who work in the road next to us, i had a sense of God saying, “Change yourself.”

As G.K. Chesterton famously responded when asked by the Times to write an article on the subject “What is wrong with the world?” he wrote the words “I am” as his whole essay.

And it was totally that. It’s great advice anyway because i am really the only person i have any direct power over. i can influence or encourage or inspire other people, but i can only change myself.

IN ME

the problem, or the manageable problem in this neighborhood lies in me.

fortunately, that’s where the solution resides as well…

“Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness— the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.” [Colossians 1:24-29]

i love those words – Christ in me, the hope of glory. they are powerful words, and they are Truth. i do have something in me that does have something to offer to this neighborhood, to the people who live here and to those who sell drugs outside our back door. i have the key to life to the full. abundant, adventurous, radical world-changing life.

now i just have to figure out how to join the dots, so back to my knees it is.

chasing sexy

yesterday i hooked up with the school for conversion that the simple way/camden house are jointly hosting which is basically a weekend long adventure/discussion into new monastics/community living, where twenty people from all around the country [and canada] come together to learn and experience and be challenged by a different way of living and some different ideas on various topics…

i joined them as they were setting out on a tour of camden and chris was leading that part and took us to a spot next to the river and was talking about some of the history of this area which much like kensington where we stay is a “can anything good come out of…” type of area which some people are saying should just be bulldozed and start over again…

chris and his community are doing some cool things in that neighborhood which they also live in. anyways someone asked the question along the lines of, “Are there any ways of making a difference to this community and turning it around?”

And his answer picked me up and slapped me in the face and then gently laid me out on the floor, cos he said this:

“There are a thousand different ways, but none of them are sexy.”

because that’s what we want isn’t it? We all want to make a difference and be the change in our family, in our neighborhood, even in our town, country or maybe world. But we want to do it in a way that is easy and comfortable and doesn’t cost much and certainly still allows us to do all the things we currently do for fun or enjoyment and pleasure. We want it to be sexy. Noticed. Not full of drool or vomit or stench or cost.

i was writing a message to a good friend of mine today and i had this inspiration to add to the message i was writing encouraging them to follow their dreams and so on and i said something like this – what would your dream look like if God had full editing rights? so not necessarily throwing out the dream completely, but giving it a God tweak…

so for example if your dream is to run a coffee shop and create a safe and warm and friendly place, how would that dream look if God challenged you about starting it in a poor, rundown area where people live lives often lacking hope and self-worth instead of in an upmarket feel-good yuppie part of town… same dream, just a God tweak…

would you be willing to do the kind of thing needed to change your family, your street, your town and even your country if it didn’t look or feel sexy?

in your fa-ace, in your fa-ace, communi-ty communi-ty community-y-y

tbV and i have lived as part of the simple way community for more than three months now.  i may have mentioned that it’s the absolute best place we could be right now. [note clearly how this may not be the best place for you to be right now – hopefully where you are is and if not you should find it and get there quickly]

one of the things i like the most about living here is that community and intentional pouring into community is in my face every single day.

back home when i lived in stellenbosch, for the first couple of years i lived at the back of someones house with a big wall and gate and much protection from the community when you look back at it. the only people i knew in my street were some guys across the road who were on a ministry team for one of the local churches. beyond that i didn’t know a single name of a person in the street and doubt i could even identify a single face from a line-up.

now, even on my worst day, if there is a time when i am totally self-absorbed and over interacting with people and not in the mood, i am faced with community. some aspect of intentional community living happens every single day. from the village house [the name of the internship house we live in] where we stay with erica and aaron [aka monkman] to the people on the streets surrounding our house, and especially potter street where we have the most relationship with people. every day i walk down the street to work there is a conversation with a neighbour [who i know by name, usually], a kid screaming “hey Fish” across the street [most of the kids in the street call me “Fish” cos when I say “Brett” americans hear “Britt” most of the time and it just takes way too long to put right so i stick with my nickname] or a gentle nod of existence-acknowledgement with the teens at the end of the street.

it is incredible. there is a strong inner sense and feeling that this is how it is meant to be. [probably some of that is genetic, because my parents modeled it very well in terms of knowing their neighbours and being in and around their lives, just taken me a bit of time to catch on]. and on a good day there is a game of street dominoes with the men or helping one of the kids fix their bike puncture [yes dad, miracles are happening in this place] or inviting some of the neighbours into our house for nachos and a game of mexican train or stepping out into the street at 4am in the morning to be a presence in a potentially violent situation and help calm it down.

back home [and i imagine in the majority of the states and a lot of other countries] community can look a lot like a sunday meeting [altho a lot of people manage to go to a sunday meeting and leave it without even a hint of community] and possibly a small group meeting in someones home during the week.  because of the nature of living and working here, Val and i have not always been able to make the sunday meeting, but there is never a sense of no community happening in our lives.

john 13.34-35 ‘A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you mus love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.’

how each of us experience community does not have to look the same. that’s a given. but i truly believe all of us need to experience community. and i lean strongly towards believing that we need to experience it to some extent on a daily basis. how this looks for you is not important. that you have asked the question and are seeking to see it happen is.

i’d love to hear some comments on how you are seeking to live out intentionality community or what else God has been saying to you on the topic…

braai vs barbecue

this moment outside epitimises life in kensington – street closed off [each block has a block captain which is really cool cos encourages community and they have the right at certain times to officially close off the road and make a block party happen], fire hydrant spewing water into the street, little kids playing in that water, at least three barbecue/braai type structures cooking up a storm, neighbours sharing food, music pumping [somewhere in the middle of a best of michael jackson cd at the moment, usually more hip-hip dodgy lyric fare so this is a welcome change], most of the families out sitting on stairs, laughing vibing, kids running down road, some basketball being thrown across the road, three porta pools filled with splashing laughing kids, shane walking around offering a plate of watermelon to the neighbours having been one of the barbecue/braai protagonists and my little friend adriana offering me sesame seeds and a bit of corn… great times…

earlier we were packaging some cookies that were donated a while ago and had been frozen so heated them up [mint in them but the mint here is red – interesting but tastes great] and stuck cute little ribbons on the packs which will be added to the food packs that get distributed closer to half past four…

then heading to the bus stop to pick up some new people who will be staying with us [in the hospitality house] for the next month and getting involved here – and then we will be heading out later to a party on the philly art museum [Rocky movie steps] steps with a couple of bands [earth, wind, and fire, Dj Jazzy Jeff and others – yup certified A list of American culture] and a huge fireworks display… gonna be a party, but in the meantime i will be heading back outside to rejoin the one already on.