Chronicle of Gratitude

"It's never too late to start a chronicle of gratitude." A word of wisdom from A Circle of Quiet.

As was firmly, lovingly pointed out to me (again) today, I most certainly need to change how I experience life and the world:

Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world. ~John Milton~

1. People who care enough to speak to me the truth in love.

Each person finds his good by adherence to God's plan for him, in order to realize it fully: in this plan, he finds his truth, and through adherence to this truth he becomes free (cf. Jn 8:22). To defend the truth, to articulate it with humility and conviction, and to bear witness to it in life are therefore exacting and indispensable forms of charity.

From the introduction to the Encyclical Letter "Caritas in Veritate" from Pope Benedict XVI.

Labels: Gratitude

posted by JBB at 9:33 PM  |  

Chesterton and Dervaes

From "Food Frenzy," by Roy F. Moore in the March 2009 issue of Gilbert Magazine, a magazine devoted to the work and legacy of G. K. Chesterton. This essay applies Chesterton's economic principle of distributism.

Chesterton said in Orthodoxy: "We must hate the world enough to want to change it, and yet love it enough to think it worth changing." Among the things that make the world go 'round, the most important is food. How we grow it, sell it, and ship it is more vital than ever before. [...]

Thanks to the domination of global food exchanges by modern agribusiness, ownership and control of food production is shrinking into even fewer and fewer hands. Despite their allies in big government, family farms and food cooperatives are being squeezed out of existence on purpose. [...]

But there are those who set shining examples of resistance to the dark vision of these self-proclaimed elites. One particular family of five is leading the way in a unique manner.

The Dervaes family of Pasadena, California, has redefined the name of "small farm," or rather they have revolutionized the concept of "urban homestead." On a plot no larger than a quarter of an acre, this family of five are able to produce six thousand pounds of produce per year. They're aiming for a goal of ten tons [edit: ten thousand pounds or five tons] from the tenth-of-an-acre. Their Dervaes Institute Web site (http://www.pathtofreedom.com) is a cornucopia of information for admirers and imitators worldwide.

Labels: Path to Freedom

posted by JBB at 4:23 PM  |