wastelands and desert people gardeners

Wasteland
1. Land that is desolate, barren, or ravaged.
2. A place, era, or aspect of life considered as lacking in spiritual, aesthetic, or other humanizing qualities; a vacuum: a cultural wasteland.

Wasteland is a word, when Googled, brings up 9,010,000 entries in .20 seconds. From bands to songs to poems to suburbs, our world is full of examples of wastelands. There is a song called Baba O’Reilly, often labeled, “Teenage Wasteland,” by the Who. Waste Land is one of T.S. Eliot’s most famous poems. It describes a journey of the human soul searching for redemption using a revolutionary style at that time. The Wasteland is a Celtic motif that ties the barrenness of a land with a curse that must be lifted by a hero. Wastelands shows up in Irish mythology and French Grail romances, and hints of it may be found in the Welsh stories as well. In the Bible, wastelands and deserts surround communities.

There are many stories in the Bible which show wastelands (deserts) as places of testing. The people of Israel wandered 40 years in the desert to learn faithfulness to God. John the Baptist was the voice calling from the desert of the coming Christ. Jesus was tested for 40 days in the desert by Satan to grasp the reigns of empire and spiritual power. Wastelands are testing and proving grounds.

I am being tested.

I am a desert dweller in just on the perimeter of a metro area in a community which is far from the intense life of inner city Kansas. In fact, many of the metro areas I’ve traveled through or lived in over my lifetime have a pattern of weaker inner cities (services, money, etc.) surrounded by more affluent neighborhoods and communities or ‘burbs with less visible poverty. Yes, all cities have poverty, but it seems to concentrate in the rundown areas of the inner city cores in a seemingly downward spiral of despair. The result of this isolation is a wasteland of comfort and affluence is a life cut off from people in the city, numbing my ability to recognize need, want, to the stories of the homeless. Where I live feeds the ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ paradigm through geographic separation, commuting between suburbs to work, and the lack of constant visual reminders of suffering.

This is what the Lord says: “For three sins of Judah, even for four, I will not turn back my wrath. Because they have rejected the law of the Lord and have not kept his decrees, because they have been led astray by false gods, the gods their ancestors followed, I will send fire upon Judah that will consume the fortresses of Jerusalem.” This is what the Lord says: “For three sins of Israel, even for four, I will not turn back my wrath. They sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals. They trample on the heads of the poor as upon the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed. Amos 2:4-7

I am being tested not to ignore the cry of the poor and oppressed. Tested to look past the Applebee’s and Chili’s, the Mall, the Wal-Marts and other strip mall, cookie cutter establishments that dot the suburbs to the cry of the poor and needy in the town where I live. Tested to look deeper into what I consume and ask, “Who made this? Were the people who made these garments treated with respect or in a sweatshop? Do I need another one of these things?” More and more I think, “Should it be this way?”  For the last question, the answer is a definite no. I do not have all the answers to these questions, but I keep searching and keep asking more questions. In the meantime, I look for more ways to love my neighbors, wherever they live.

Jesus did not think that only he sowed the Word of God. He was constantly sending people away, telling them also to sow the seed of the kingdom . . . a distracting, violent, and tempting world, keep sowing the seeds of love. Sow it everywhere, even when Herod cuts it down, and even when the world’s riches try to choke it.

Sowers must not become discouraged easily. The disciples were constantly butting up against Jesus’ thoughts about the way God’s reign comes on earth. ‘It will never work that way!’ you can hear the disciples thinking at almost every encounter. They thought the kingdom would come quickly like the apocalypse, as almost all revolutionaries from Marx to Guevara have insisted. But Jesus’ revolutionary patience claimed that another kingdom is coming—one that you can participate in but cannot build; a seed you can plant and water but cannot make grow. You can’t drag the kingdom of God into the world. But you can’t stop sowing the seeds either. Sow them everywhere. “Jesus for President,” (Claiborne and Haw) You can read more about this book here.

I leave you with these lyrics from the ‘80’s band Tears for Fears. The still ring true after their release in 1989, almost 20 years ago. Something to ponder as you ask your own questions and search for answers.

Seeds of Love

By Tears for Fears

High time we made a stand and shook up the views of the common man
And the lovetrain rides from coast to coast
D.j.s the man we love the most
Could you be, could you be squeaky clean
And smash any hope of democracry ?
As the headline says youre free to choose
Theres egg on your face and mud on your shoes
One of these days theyre gonna call it the blues

And anything is possible when youre sowing the seeds of love
Anything is possible – sowing the seeds of love

I spy tears in thier eyes
They look to the skies for some kind of divine intervention
Food goes to waste !
So nice to eat, so nice to taste
Politician grannie with your high ideals
Have you no idea how the majority feels ?
So without love and a promise land
Were fools to the rules of a goverment plan
Kick out the style ! bring back the jam !

Anything…
Sowing the seeds
The birds and the bees
My girlfriend and me in love

Feel the pain
Talk about it
If you’re a worried man – then shout about it
Open hearts – feel about it Open minds – think about it
Everyone – read about it Everyone – scream about it !
Everyone, Everyone – read about it, read about it
Read in the books in the crannies and the nooks there are books to read
(Chorus 0

(mr. england sowing the seeds of love)

Time to eat all your words
Swallow your pride
Open your eyes

High time we made a stand and shook up the views of the common man
And the love train rides from coast to coast
Every minute of every hour – I love a sunflower
And I believe in love power, love power, love power !!!

Sowing the seeds
An end to need
And the politics of greed
With love