Circle of Hope

(Joel McIntosh writing)

There is a fig tree outside my window on my roof, sitting in a container I built, that I’ve been caring for now for a little over two years. Actually, it’s more of a bush right now, but it does bear fruit. In the past few weeks it’s started producing it’s first leaves and I love it. Like many other things around this time of year, it’s come alive again with almost perfect synchronicity to the Season of Easter. It’s caused me to think and draw some metaphors (just for the first time this year, for some reason) to the story of Jesus cursing the fig tree (Mark 11:12-14, Matthew 21:18-22). This story has probably caused endless debate, and my own speculation has some theological holes in it, but observing the tree come back to life feels like some kind of curse has been broken or reversed. Personally, the winter this year definitely did seem like a curse to me, and so much pondering death and dying during Lent was additionally exhausting.

I was thankful the other night when someone in my cell reminded us that Resurrection is not something you can just understand from picking up and reading in a textbook. You have to experience it. You have to be part of the cycles of life and death that are all around us. Jesus incarnates new life through his resurrection this season, and to me the fig tree sitting on my roof is a reminder of it. I am intrigued by Ched Myers’ interpretation of the story of Jesus cursing the fig tree (found in his books “Say to this Mountain” and “Binding the Strong Man”). Ched says that in the Hebrew Bible, the fig tree was a symbol of peace, security, and prosperity in Israel. Jesus’ cursing the fig tree, who’s time had not yet come to bear fruit, becomes a symbol of judgement and lament of those who would not heed to the coming Kingdom of God. However, Jesus immediately follows this by an admonishment for faith that will move the powers of earth into the seas. What an incredible charge for change!

So, I start thinking of the times and season we’re in when I observe my fig tree. I also think about the projects and ambitions of the Urban Farm Team this year (which was supposed to be the focus of this blog and I somehow so far have just talked about Jesus cursing figs). I am excited about the opportunities that this team is providing to experience resurrection through compassionate service. The season is ripe for advocating for vacant land in North Philly to be put in community hands through a land trust. Abandoned land is being revitalized, old windows are being built into coldframes and greenhouses, biodegradable waste is being diverted to nutrient-rich compost piles, rooftop rainwater is being reclaimed for irrigation, and need I mention the hundreds of vegetable seed packs that Art Bucher salvaged and redistributed from the dumpster?. We’re participating in transformation, seeing dead (“cursed”) spaces in our urban landscape become healthy and even grow food. There are 3-4 projects in our Circle of Hope network now that are connected in the efforts of urban farming, and many in our community are taking up small food growing projects of their own in their homes. We’re offering friends and neighbors the chance to see and learn how this happens, dig around, get dirty and participate.

I hope by this point you want to get involved with us.  Here’s one way:  May 1st we planning a Network-wide Urban Farming Day from 11-5pm. Stay tuned for more information!

Here are a list of our lead people, you can contact, who are tending gardens in their neighborhoods:

Germantown: Amanda Staples- amandastapes@gmail.com

Kensington: Rachel Summerlot, thayloos@gmail.com

Camden: Rob Lairmore, rlairmore@gmail.com

South Philly: Art Bucher, artbucher@netzero.net

(Paul Kohl reporting)

The men retreated last weekend (4/9-4/11).  We retreated from the things that scare us, drive us, box us in and cover us over.  We sang, we prayed, and we spent time in the furnace of solitude.  We slept in bunks made for 14 year olds, we ate camp food, we endured teenagers on a zip line.  We made up our own song and sang it.  We got precious little sleep because some of us breath loudly when we sleep or we simple did not go to be until late.  We ran ourselves to exhausting on the basket ball court or the soccer field playing Frisbee or we learned a new board game.  We explore the limitlessness of God and how we can tap into that by creating art from what we found in nature.  We grew in trust by sharing intimate feelings and thoughts with one another.  We learned at the feet of wise men.  We gained access to the David as a boy, as a man, as a king, as an old wise man.  We built a fire and tended it as the High Priest we are and worshiped in truth and light.  We are learning to take our own internal fire seriously and to tend it as well.  We are definitely doing this again next year.

On Good Friday, Shalom House, our West Philly community of proactive peacemakers,  led us to partner with Heeding God’s Call to hold vigil at the Shooter Shop in Kensington .  It was a powerful way to collectively engage and reflect on Jesus’ death and mourn victims of gun violence in our city. In 2009, in Philadelphia , 173 people were killed by firearms.

A group of 32 people from Circle of Hope processed from our building at Frankford and Norris and met with at least 30 more people from our church community. Circle of Hope really came out strong! We gathered outside the gun shop with neighborhood families, some who have lost loved ones to gun violence, and 39 other faith-based groups that partner with Heeding God’s Call. We are calling on all gun shops in Philadelphia to sign the Code of Conduct that would help eliminate guns from illegally entering our streets.

Photographs are courtesy of Jamie Moffett (link: http://www.jamiemoffett.com) More images are posted here

outside the Shooter Shop/NRA counter-protesters