carpe stimuli

hell in a handbasket might perhaps be exaggeration, then again...

A thought provoking post on freedom gardens got me wondering. The neighborhood kid (via parental leading I'm sure) had already made an assumption for the reason behind the garden. I think given the current mood of the nation people are going to start making assumptions about our motives, perhaps placing us in the same category as the perennial survivalist who jealously guards their canned goods with gun in hand.

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it presents to the mind of the beholder a clear picture that "THIS IS A WAY OUT OF THE CRISIS" It connects the dots in a way that is so patently obvious that little explanation is needed. On the other hand it limits the perception of the intent of the garden and the gardener to a preconceived notion, and that notion is largely an unpalatable one. Do I want the casual observer to realize that food security is obtainable by our own hands on our own land? Of course, but to limit the perception to just a solution to a crisis merely allows us to survive the current one, it does not prevent the same thing from happening again.

This is not a discussion that can be confined to food security alone. The issue of crisis is merely the stimulus that makes this change of life more palatable to the "rest of the world."

I spend a lot of time wrestling with the urge to speak up, I don't want to be "that guy" but when silence means people assume I'm something else, then I'd happily settle for "that guy."

The skeptical side of me says that people reading tons of other posts and blogs means that there is no such thing as synchronicity, but odd coincidences in subject matter arise so often lately that part of me wants to think it is meaningful. Anyway, Rob at Onestraw has been staring at the big picture and drawn the conclusion that this entire exercise is not about merely surviving the world but changing it into something new. Amen.