in defense of weeds… May 6, 2008

This is the time of year for it. Every other ad on television shows some guy freaking out about dandelions in his yard. God forbid there should be something besides one specific type of grass growing in that yard. Somewhere along the way an advertising genius figured out how to perpetuate the notion that a monocrop of Tall Fescue or Kentucky Bluegrass is preferable to encouraging biodiversity in your lawn.

During the recent drought our lawn has remained one of the greenest in town. People are constantly asking what we put on our lawn to make it so lush and green. The answer that nearly always surprises is “nothing.” We let the lawn get a little shaggy two or three times during mowing season to allow the weeds a chance to propagate themselves. Beyond that, we do nothing. We do not water. We do not spray poison. In return we have a lush green lawn. In the spring we have a yard full of beautiful wild flowers. And we have an herbal medicine chest nearly year round.

Here is a partial list of the “weeds” that we have growing in our yard. Click on each for more information on their use as food or medicine.

Dandelion – The most dreaded of all “weeds.” The greens are nutritious and delicious in a salad, or cooked. The roots are great for building Iron in the blood. They are also useful in treating issues with the kidney and liver.

Plantain – No, not the little bananas. This is one of my favorite plants to use as medicine. Makes a great “chew and spit” poultice for cuts, bites, and stings. Eat a few leaves for heartburn. Drink as a tea for ulcers, heartburn, inflammation of the organs, and as a mild laxative. Soak it in olive oil for 7 days, strain, and melt in bee’s wax. Top it off with tea tree or lavender essential oil, and you have a miracle salve that will take care of any cut, sting, bite, dry skin, etc.

Wild Lettuce – I always say, “this is one of my favorite plants” about many plants. I can’t say it enough about Wild Lettuce. It is a great astringent. It is used in a soap and a face wash by Burt’s Bee’s. That use aside, Wild Lettuce is one of the best remedies for stress headaches. It is specific for those headaches that you get from tension in the neck and shoulders. It is a great sleep aid, and a wonderful pain reliever.

Burdock – Used as a treatment for most skin issues. Tired of acne? Try powdered Burdock Root.

Ground Ivy – I drink this in a tea for dull, congestive headaches and migraines.

Star of Bethlehem – Another favorite. This is a truly beautiful little flower. The bulb is very similar to garlic or onion. It can be eaten raw, boiled, or toasted (as is often done in the East). Homeopathic medicine uses the bulb in a treatment for cancer. Dr. Bach used this flower as one of the five flower essences in his rescue remedy. Alone the flower essence is used for shock or trauma, or to encourage a sense of inner peace and a connection to God.

Violet – Violet flowers and leaves are both great in salads. They are a great source of Vitamin C.

Mugwort – Useful as a tea for digestive issues. Also great to encourage dreaming. Specifically useful to encourage dreams that have meaning. It may be used as a mild sedative, to expel parasites, and to bring on suppressed menstruation. It is also used by acupuncturists for the process of moxabustion. A variety of Mugwort is being grown in many parts of Africa for use as an insect repellent to help fight malaria.

Lamb’s Quarters – This one gets pulled from gardens to make room for spinach. Lamb’s Quarters are actually more nutritive than spinach. They have a similar flavor, but a “meatier” texture. The seeds are similar to Quinoa and may be cooked in a similar way.

Clover – Both Red and White Clover are used. Red is the popular one, and is a bit tastier, but you can use either Clover. The flowering tops are used to purify the blood. They are specific for many types of cancer. They can also be used to lower blood pressure, and to balance hormones.

That’s 10 plants off the top of my head! That is just what grows of its own accord in a yard that isn’t sprayed with “weed” killer. Next time you see a commercial that reminds you to buy grass seeds, monocrop, and spray for weeds; burn your television. At least then it will be good for providing warmth.

a quick thought on guilt… May 6, 2008

“Cheer up. You are worse than you think you are.” – Martin Luther

I heard a sermon this week about the difference between true moral guilt and the guilty feelings we constantly deal with. I started thinking of the ways that I am truly guilty. It’s a pretty depressing list. I started thinking about a “My Name is Earl” type list that I could check off and make these things better. Then the Spirit said, “Do you honestly think that you can cross off everything on your list and then be perfect?”

At first this sounds defeatist. But at the same time it is really freeing. By trying to cross things off my list, I’m trying to save myself. Of course I need to try to make amends when I have wronged someone. But that is not going to earn me anything. And really, once I cross this thing that is nagging at me off of my list, there will be more things that I find. A friend described this process as living in a dark and dirty room. Then someone comes along and starts turning the lights up on a dimmer switch. Slowly we see the major filth of the room. We clean it up. Then the light gets brighter and we have to clean it again. Then the light gets brighter and we clean again.

The closer we move to God, the brighter the light becomes. It is important to clean up the mess. Realizing that we need to clean the mess is what true moral guilt looks like. But working feverishly to clean up the mess, thinking that we can ever totally clean the room; this is the problem. This is where the psychological “guilt” (maybe this would better be termed “shame”) comes in. When we think that we couldn’t possibly be lovable because of the filth we live in, and that if we could just clean it up, then we’d be lovable, we are doubting the love and forgiveness of God. God knows even better than we do what kind of mess we live in. The light of God is not a light of condemnation for those who have accepted the gift of Grace. It is a light that shines on the areas where we need to work in order to live in the abundant peace we are offered.

Our responsibility to be introspective… May 3, 2008

Proverbs 20:5 – The purposes of a man’s heart are deep waters. But a man of understanding draws them out.

Too often when we do things, we never really stop to question why. We suppose that we are somehow of higher intelligence than the animals because of our ability to reason. Maybe this is true. Maybe it isn’t true. But either way, we waste our ability to reason by not using it. We behave like robots. We behave in knee-jerk, instinctual ways. We are Pavlov’s dogs. Our real motivations are buried under layers of conditioning, and often work against our own best interest. This verse in Proverbs tells us to draw out those reasons and examine them.

But what do we do with these things once we have them? Without some sort of perspective, we are basically like a dog that caught a car! We can never really have perspective on ourselves (or much of anything for that matter). Early scientists used their observations to determine that the earth was the center of the universe. In the same way, from our own perspective each of us is the center of our own universe. We have to find some way to look from outside ourselves. Many people have found ways to do this through meditation, entheogens, trances, etc. But even if you find a way to use those methods to look at your life from the outside, there is still a problem. Anything we observe is subject to Von Newmann’s Catastrophe of the Infinite Regress.

Huh? Von Newmann’s Catastrophe of the Infinite Regress states that anything we try to measure can only be as accurately measured as the flaws in our measuring device. The infinite regress comes in by the fact that any device we put into place to correct the flaws in the original device are subject to their own flaws, on through infinity. Wigner says this conundrum is only terminated by the choice of the observer. So, in a mechanistic, dead, scientific world nothing can ever be known for certain without the understanding that it has been filtered through our own presuppositions and flaws.

This is even more of a problem when you consider this; our own nervous system is the first tool we use to measure anything. As difficult as it may be to determine what flaws we have superimposed on a device we are using to measure something, it is exponentially more difficult to understand the flaws in reasoning and the presuppositions of our own nervous system. If we want to know how long a piece of wood is, we can look at it and say, “That’s about 3 feet.” This is based on our ideas and recollections and skewed remembrances of what 3 feet looks like. Then we take a yard stick and lay to the piece of wood. Then we realize that it’s actually 2 feet and 7 inches. Then we look more closely and realize that there is thickness to the line that denotes the 7th inch. This throws off our measurement even farther. The closer you look, the more you realize that your measurement can never be exact. And that’s just measuring a piece of wood!

How do we get out of this? We have to look for some other source of knowledge. In order to have some idea of what objective reality is, we have to look to a being that is all-present, and all-knowing. God is the only possible device to measure anything with assurance. Proverbs 20:24 says “A man’s steps are guided by the Lord. How then can anyone understand his own way?” Without God we are, at best, groping in a dark room, seeing by flashes of distant lightning. We are looking at a newsprint cartoon with our noses to the page. All we can see is a jumbled chaos of color and dots. There is no way from our perspective to ever fully understand the whole picture. We have to rely on God to give us as many glimpses of the big picture as we are able to fit inside of our tiny minds.

So, what does this look like in practical terms? David asks God in Psalm 139:23-24, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” This is not a challenge. David is not saying, “I betcha can’t find anything.” He is acknowledging that without God’s perspective, he can never hope to really uncover all the deep-down motives for his actions. We need to follow suit. Whatever we do, whether it is good or bad, we need to draw out the depths of why we are doing it. We need to ask God to reveal our motives to us. So many “good deeds” are done from a wicked heart. Many more are done from an even worse place… a sense of “duty.” God wants our hearts to overflow with love. Our actions should come from that overflow. If we are ever to get to that point, we have to know why we do what we do. We have an incredible ability to lie to ourselves. The Spirit won’t lie to you.

It is tempting at this point to give up. If even our good actions are not really good because of where our heart is, then where is the hope? If it is not good enough to do something good out of a sense of duty, what do I do with the notion that sometimes I just don’t feel like it? This is where C.S. Lews comes in. He describes this in his book Mere Christianity.

“Do not waste time bothering whether you “love” your neighbour; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less. There is, indeed, one exception. If you do him a good turn, not to please God and obey the law of charity, but to show him what a fine forgiving chap you are, and to put him in your debt, and then sit down to wait for his “gratitude,” you will probably be disappointed. (People are not fools: they have a very quick eye for anything like showing off, or patronage.) But whenever we do good to another self, just because it is a self, made (like us) by God, and desiring its own happiness as we desire ours, we shall have learned to love it a little more or, at least, to dislike it less.”

So, there’s the trick. Don’t try to manufacture some feeling that you are doing good things out of a joy that you don’t necessarily feel. Don’t try to force yourself to do some stoic, Kant-ish good deed that has no ulterior motives. Just do the good that you know you should. Then ask God to show you the ways that you can do that good thing better, and from a better place in your heart. And ask God to show you how you can do bad, harmful things less. But let your main focus be on doing the good. If you worry with doing more good, you’ll find you have to waste less time on trying not to be bad. Let God guide you. You may be shocked. You may be amazed. You may be shattered by new understandings of the depths of your soul. But I can promise, you will never be disappointed.