Save the Bees, Save the World

I like eating. I don’t just mean that I enjoy the food that I eat (though I do), I mean I like having food to eat. I like being able to eat. I like other people being able to eat, too. Food is necessary to life, and I’m a big fan of living. Which […]

Recipe: Squash Fritters

In the last couple of recipes I’ve published, I might have disparaged my dad’s cooking just a bit. While I stand by my claim that he was not and is not a gourmand, I do want to clarify that he did more than his fair share to keep my brother and me healthy and well-fed. […]

A Little Goes a Long Way

It’s a compliment that I hate to get. Since I began the ministry I’ve had this sentiment expressed to me a handful of times in a variety of ways, a variety of phrasings, but they all come down to the same meaning. They are always intended as compliments, fully given with utmost sincerity and kindness, […]

Your Church Should Have a Garden

Given the sheer prevalence of churches- the fact that there is some kind of church in nearly every community in North America- the local church has the best ability to combat hunger, food injustice and corrupt food systems on a local, immediate level. Even in food deserts, places where healthy food is not available, there […]

Recipe: Beef and Broccoli Stir-fry with Ginger/Garlic/Honey Sauce

Growing up, my dad regularly made stir-fry using bags of frozen stir-fry vegetables, whatever meat seemed like a good idea, and little else. As a result, I never really liked stir-fry. After moving out on my own, I attempted my own stir-fries, with fresh vegetables and complicated concoctions of soy sauce and citrus juice and […]

We Must Be Born Again

Being born is a reality-altering event in your life. The dark confinement, the warmth, the safety that you have always known in the womb are left behind, never to be returned to. A new reality of heretofore-unimaginable breadth and depth and height, of sensory explosion and unfathomable learning, lays before you like a vast plain […]

How Does Your Garden Grow?

“It sure growed!” Peggy exclaimed, looking around. We were standing in Selah Community Garden at the beginning of another session of Senior Seeds, our health initiative to get local seniors involved in the garden. I smiled, feeling my head swell just a little bit, because she was right; it sure growed. Last year, in our […]

What Have You Been Reading? Scouting the Divine

Margaret Feinberg set out to do something I myself have attempted to do: better understand the Bible (and thereby better understand God) by observing the agrarian mainstays that repeatedly crop up in scripture. Specifically, she visited a shepherd, a farmer, a beekeeper, and a vintner with Bible in hand, asking their thoughts on Bible […]

Established: 1776

Anytime I see those stars, I remember that night. I was maybe four or five years old when my father took me out to show me the Big Dipper. We were at my grandparents’ house on the family farm, and it was dark and cloudless. I cannot say why he took me and my brother […]

Recipe: Sweet Potato Taco Bake

Yes, I know it sounds weird. Jessica and I eat a lot of sweet potatoes, primarily for three reasons. 1) Sweet potatoes are the easiest, most abundant crop I’ve ever grown, so we have on multiple occasions had an abundance of them. 2) Sweet potatoes are pretty healthy for you. 3) Sweet potatoes are delicious. […]