Fruitful Conversations

Sanity breeds sanity. It is something that we undergo more than something that we create. We become more sane the more we are in the presence of sane people in sane spaces. To be sane is a gift. In this way, sanity is evangelistic. As St. Seraphim of Sarov said:

"The Kingdom of heaven is peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Acquire inward peace and thousands around you will find their salvation." - quoted in The Orthodox Way, Kallistos Ware, p89

Sanity is generative; captivating - it draws us into itself and in turn draws other into its circle. If we can identify it (which I suggest is a key skill for us to develop) and draw near we are drawn closer and begin to undergo it. It is like the mystery St. Paul writes of in the letter to the Collossians - it has been revealed and yet ever more remains. Kallistos Ware writes:

"A mystery is ... something that is revealed for our understanding but which we never understand exhaustively because it leads into the depths of God." - The Orthodox Way, p15

While I would not like to draw the parrallel too closely, there is something of this kind of mystery in entering into a sane space. The task can be grasped with the understanding but it is in entering into its practice that we are formed by it and find that there is yet more to undergo. Once we open a sane space and enter into it, in turn we are opened by it, we undergo it.

In his book on Self-Sufficiency, John Seymour suggests that keeping a cow has this generative quality:

"When you get a cow you immediately find the pace of all your other smallholding activities will be forced on. To feed the cow you will have to grow fodder. To use up the manure from the cow you will have to dig ir plough more land. To use up the milk by-products, such as skimmed milk or whey, you will have to keep other small stock - probably pigs. Your pigs will then produce even more manure and you will feel like ploughing more land. Besides, you will need to grow crops for the pigs. You will have calves to dispose of - what will you do with them? Your cow will go dry one day and you will need another cow to fil the gap. Then the time will come when boths cows are in milk. Unless you are part of a community you will then have too much milk. What do you do then - put the two calves on one cow and milk the other? Whatever you do you will find the purchase of a cow will push on the pace of your other self-supporting activities." - John Seymour, Self-Sufficiency, p42

What is of interest to me here, as you may imagine, is the way that the task of keeping a cow is described. The simple act of acquiring a cow demands many other tasks. It is a good reason not to get a cow if the satisfaction of the task cannot be entered into. However, where the fullness of the task can be taken up, keeping a cow, it seems, is a catalytic act.

I'm sure that most of us have experiences a creative action that we want to keep doing even as it gets dark or some other thing like sleep demands that we stop. For me it is building projects. The task draws me in to its ending - it is fun - satisfying - and I forget the time. It is such acts as these that I believe our lives may and must consist of - tasks which draw us into their satisfaction, their fullness and ours.

Of course, I am not suggesting that keeping a cow, to return to the primary example, is not demanding and costly. In fact, it is just its insistent nature which is important. I imagine that getting up early to milk is not always more attractive than sleeping in but it must be done and so a cow keeps us from sloth. If we do not heed the demand then waste occurs. The cow will experience pain if not milked and manure will because something to 'get rid of' if it is not returned to the garden.

The fact that entry into sanity is costly is precisely why I have called these reflections subsiding sanity. However, it a particularly satisfying cost and it is because I believe that a low energy, productive, sane life is a joyful one that I am driven to write about it. Like the mystery of Christ revealed and yet ever revealing, a sane space ushers us into its costly satisfaction and into other tasks of sanity. To step into a single sane space and accept its fullness is to enter into the whole world of sanity: the Kingdom of God.

We must learn to distinguish between mere financial cost and the cost of subsidising sanity, between acts of consumption and steps into sanity. We can change the light-bulbs and continue to use more electricity with no negative feedback (unless you live next to a coal station). To keep a cow demands change of us and then opens us to new and more sane vistas. We must bear in ourselves the costs in time, money and repentance that place us in proximity to sanity such that we begin to undergo it for ourselves. As we do so, others too "will find their salvation."

A sane space is something which forms us in the rhythms and patterns of the Kingdom of God. Of course, the premier examples of such spaces are liturgical and sacramental, although these are not my concern here. The eucharist, its associated practice of fraternal admonition, footwashing and baptism form us in sharing, in peacemaking, self-emtying love, and love relations which are extended to neighbour and enemy and are not dependent upon blood, nationality, race gender, sexuality or any other such arbitrary distinctives. I would like, now, however to focus on more banal examples, ones which we may find less easy to assimilate into our modern lives. These banal examples are dependent upon a liturgical formation for their practice and are an integral part of liturgical practice. A sane space is one which is fertile and which generates fertility and so is creative of independence, moves us into satisfaction, is communal and draws us further into the rhythms of sanity. Geoffrey Lilburne writes:

“Place is not conceived as a mere point, a location, but as an arena which partakes of the qualities of that which dwells there ... space is charged with qualities, is able to shape and transform us as we come to know it and enter into relationship with it.” - Geoffrey Lilburne, A Sense of Place: A Christian Theology of the Land, p82

A sane space is a space ’charged’ with the qualities of sanity. Every task we perform is expressive of and formative of who we are. Particular spaces are expressive and formative of us. We have allowed most spaces to be ’mapped’ and colonised to such an extent that there is little of the gospel expressed in them, few of the patterns and rhythms of the Kingdom of God, and so little sanity. This includes the aforementioned liturgical spaces. We thus undergo an alternative formation, one characterised by the rhythms, patterns and disciplines of an industrial consumer society. A sane space is one which is expressive of our gospel hope and moves us into it.

3.1 Keeping Rabbits

Did I mention banal? Perhaps for some such an example is plain distasteful. Nevertheless, the husbandry of rabbits has been in my mind as something exemplary of the kind of space I am attempting to describe. William Cobbett writes of keeping rabbits that:

“Of all animals rabbits are those that boys are most fond of. They are extremely pretty, nimble in their movement, engaging in their attitudes, and always completely under immediate control. The produce has not long to be waited for. In short, they keep an interest constantly alive in the little chap’s mind; and they really cost nothing; for as to the oats, where is the boy that cannot, in harvest time, pick up enough along the lanes to serve his rabbits for a year? The care is all; and the habit of taking care of things is, of itself, a most valuable possession.” William Cobbett, Cottage Economy, p141

If the gendered nature of this excerpt may be excused for the purpose of being able to use an historical source, other noteworthy elements become apparent. The last point is of particular interest to us here. What Cobbet proposes is a task that forms a part of the domestic economy of the cottage, which does not afford mere amusement. This productive task is itself interesting as well as making a certain kind of boy (or girl or anyone, for who does not need to learn care). For Cobbett, keeping rabbits forms the keeper in care. The activities of that care extend beyond the immediacy of the rabbit hutch to involve collecting food for their upkeep and so it is an extensive care.

The task of keeping rabbits has its own structure, its own ecology. It is a task chosen because it is productive and, once chosen, it also structures the lives of those who participate in it. Intrinsic to that structure is the pattern of care. As I have been thinking about these things, one of my fellow communards and I have been in the process of building rabbit hutches in order to keep rabbits for our community, the Peace Tree. This complex of hutches should provide the community with as much meat as we need (which is almost none presently). The act of building the hutch builds our relationships and skills. Very likely, my co-worker will take responsibility for the care of the rabbits once we have them. This is a deliberate attempt on his part to begin to participate in just modes of gaining sustenance. We will also attempt to grow or gather as much of the feed as we can and so participate in the natural rhythms of planting and harvesting and observation of where and when the best wild feeds are to the found. This latter portion of the task ensures that other people and places are not exploited for our benefit.

Keeping rabbits, in ways we do not yet know about, will demand things of us which, I submit, are significant acts of non-conformism to ’the patterns of this world’. It is one task representing participation in a sane ordering of things. I am not, of course, suggesting that readers of this essay must all keep rabbits but I am suggesting a certain way of thinking about the tasks that we presently consider most important for our response to climate change and a low energy future. To my mind, the priority tasks are those which form us in fertile and just rhythms and make us more sane in the way that keeping rabbits does.

3.2 A Hotbed

If you will permit me another banal example, perhaps my meaning will be clarified, for it is not only care that I am suggesting we must be formed in. There is a whole range of disciplines now foreign to us which are a part of the joyful patterns of sanity. The Shaker Gardener’s Manual mentions that keeping a hotbed:

“... is quite particular, and requires you to be thoughtful and regular; but this is only promoting a good habit and if you were inclined to forgetfulness, it would almost justify keeping one expressly for that purpose.” quoted in Rita Buchanan, The Shaker Herb and Garden Book, p18

A hotbed doesn’t make as much sense in Perth, Western Australia as in, say, Peasant Hill, Kentucky or Lebanon, New York but it is another good example of a sane space. A hotbed consists of a large wooden container which can be half filled with composting horse manure and covered with glass. Seedlings are grown in soil above the manure, which provides heat from below. The ’particularity’ in the management of hotbeds is in regulating its heat by removing and replacing the glass at the right times to keep a good temperature for the growing seedlings.

I suggest that, like the Shakers, we must be more aware of how particular activities form us and our loved ones. What kinds of activities move us into the compulsion and forgetfulness of consumer society where we recall and are recalled primarily by advertisements and what kinds move us to be ’thoughtful and regular’ in the production of healthful produce for communal enjoyment?

Sane spaces such as these are creative of independence in our communities - they are productive They are fruitful in ways which are not exploitative, use available resources and build fertility. The Shakers used horse manure because that’s what they had. On the other hand, I can go to a suburb on Perth where race horses are kept and find bags of manure lining the roadside. This is characteristic of an insane space - the fullness of the task is denied and waste and expense are created.

As we approach the fullness of the task we enter into its satis-faction and ours. If we accept the fullness of the task of keeping rabbits, for example, we will not buy (much) food but grow it or seek it from ’wild’ places and so learn care. The same act of accepting the fullness of the task makes it a just act, for we do not exploit others to do what we will not, nor use energy or resources we are unwilling to expend or which are not ours to use. We do not create ’waste’, which is in fact fertility for the sustenance of our land and lives.

Each of these tasks can (or must) be done with others or with reference to others and so they are personal, or communal, tasks - they are tasks that children can play at and join in.

These are some of the characteristics of sane spaces. Changing lightbubs in comparison, while important, is more an act of consumption than it is productive of real change and greater sanity in our selves and communities.

A sane space is also one that sweeps us up into sanity, a space which draws us ever deeper into itself. The generative and creative nature of sane spaces is what I would like to address in the next section.

1 Sanity: A New Order

Sanity is participation in the Kingdom of God. It is a participation characterised by certain postures, dispositions or virtues and by particular material manifestations, things which are formed by us and things by which we are formed. We will find ourselves sane in an order which is not ours - in a ’given order’ - an order within whose limits we are held in flourishing; an order we undergo. I would like to suggest that in the present we have access primarily to a ’sanity’ which is a very pale likeness of that which comes of participation in a ’given order,’ the Kingdom of God. In fact, I would like to show how this ’sanity’ which is a likeness only, actively prevents us from entering into the dynamics which might form us in the sanity of participation in the Kingdom of God. This anemic ’sanity’ is intensely supported and subsidised by the structures of modern life: technologies of diverson; 'ease' born of cheap energy; comforting consumption. It is from these subsidies and diversions that I suggest we must move to subsidise, in as much as we can, a ’given sanity’. A 'given sanity' is a sanity which cannot be manufactured, marketed or consumed - it is given to us; we undergo it. How is it then that we might in any fashion subsidise something given? My supposition is that we might work to co-create particular kinds of spaces, what I call sane spaces. Through opening spaces which possess particular characteristics, notably fecundity born of care, we may ourselves be opened by these spaces into the rhythms and patterns of the Kingdom of God: sanity.¹

2 Cheap Energy and Subsidising Sanity

It takes merely a moments reflection, armed with the knowledge that many synthetic products such as plastics and fertilisers are fossil fuel based, to realise that we are intensely dependent upon cheap fossil fuel energy for most of our daily acts of living. Fossil fuels have made many things ’easier’. For example, not many of us bottle and preserve fruit and vegetables anymore. We can easily go to the supermarket and buy all the fruit we want fresh, even out of season, because it is transported vast distances according to what is ’efficient’. Apparently, it often seems more ’efficient’ for lemons to be imported from California to Perth while the lemons from many a suburban backyard tree rot on the ground. To my mind, however, this ’ease’ is the comfort of our captivity. Like the Israelites who would groan in the desert for the fleshpots of Egypt, we remain in a life which is destructive of the creation, our relationships with each other and our mental health. In response to the first, we might change our lightbulbs and recycle, to the second we might structure into our lives more social activities and ’quality time’, to the third we might get a hobby or go on holidays. Of course these are merely a few of the things we might do. I mention them by way of suggesting that most of our responses to our malaise of comfort, while helpful to a certain degree, fall short of a full Christian work. These responses remain deeply dependent upon existing energy intensive systems and do not have the liberating and celebratory element that a Christian response must have. There may be a certain liberating simplicity and ’sanity’ or ’health’ offered by these strategies but they are sometimes subtly additional stresses and sometimes merely diversions from an underlying weariness.

What I am suggesting is something hard-but-good. The kind of thing that will never be a vote-winner and so will not be proposed by any but a career-sacrificing politician. The very last thing that I want to recommend is something simply hard-but-right, something which we berate ourselves into, which we do only because we must, not because we are caught up into a joyful and creative Spirit. I expect that what I am proposing will ultimately be necessary but I think that there is more than necessity to recommend it. One of the peculiar insanities of our age is that is it structurally quite unsatisfying. Indeed, the very unsatisfying nature of the ’work’ most of us do drives us to recreate ourselves, to divert ourselves, to be amused and entertained. Of diversion, Pascal writes:

It is just this kind of diversion that I would like to equate with the pseudo- ’sanity’ which we are so ready to subsidise with cheap fossil fuels. If we are to be able to accept the negative feedback of weariness and form ourselves for a true sanity we must proceed with discernment, lest we become weary unto death.

Something I would like to point out is that this pseudo-’sanity’ which I put in scare-quotes purports to be a kind of true sanity. It parades as something categorically similar and would fool us. This is important for, while it has the nature of what Pascal calls diversion, it is in fact a complex of coping mechanisms and techniques which help us to ’soldier on’ and give us the appearance of sanity. To come off these coping mechanisms too quickly or without something with which to replace them may place us face-to-face with realities with which we are unable to cope and send us deeper into our diversions. Jaques Ellul uses the example of a deep-sea diver who uses technological assistance to enter an environment which is otherwise hostile to human life. So it is for us. We are assisted to cope with the manifold alienations of modern life with our fossil-fueled and subsidised technologies of diversion. A deepsea diver cannot at once cast from him his industrial lungs lest he be too deep to reach the surface or risk the bends in trying. In the same way, should we attempt simply to dramatically reduce our consumption, unaccompanied by new structures of a joyful and productive life, we may find ourselves, in the difficulty of low energy life, slipping quickly back to the things that have always provided us with comfort in hardship, things which move us back into a numbed alienation. It is even more difficult to start again from here; we are more weary and so more heavily invested in our diversions.

Attempts to simply reduce consumption, I suggest, are actions born of a narrow analysis. This is a negative strategy and sees over-consumption as the primary problem, not as a symptom of deeper, structural issues. To merely ’flee-from’ overconsumption neglects to consider an alternative destination and the joyful possibility of ’fleeing-to’ something.

I am reminded at this point of Jesus’ parable of the return of the unclean spirit in Matthew 12:43-5 and Luke 11:24-6. Jesus warns that unless something new comes to reign in the ’empty’ space created by the departure of an unclean spirit, a full complement (ie. seven) of impurity will return. Some new thing must arise in an emptied house, swept and tidied. If we are not to continue in ways that offer only the cycle of ever deepening enmeshment in alienating ways, we must hear the liberating word say ’Come ye out from among them’ (Cor 6:17) - out into the promised land, a new and wholly different order. What then might constitute a gentle entry into this new order, one that is wholly committed and yet discerning? What I suggest is the creation of sane spaces.