| | | | | Ready to take your Farm experience to the next level? APPLY to be a Summer Servant! The priority deadline is February 17th.  REGISTER FOR ADULT AND FAMILY WEEKS Adult Week: July 27- Aug 2 Send us your paperwork and $50/person deposit to reserve your spots today! The priority deadline is February 1st. 
CAN'T MAKE IT TO ADULT OR FAMILY WEEK? 18 OR OLDER?
Join us for our
March College Weeks
(March 2-8 & March 23-29) Questions? Contact Laura at:
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Farm Recipe
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Mexican Quinoa
From Claire Watson
2 tsp. olive oil
2 cloves garlic
3-4 jalapenos, seeded and minced
1 C uncooked quinoa, rinsed
1-1/4 C vegetable broth
1-1/2 C cooked black beans
1 (14.5 oz) can diced tomatoes
1 C corn (or kernels from 2 ears)
1/2 tsp. salt
1/3 C fresh cilantro, chopped
1 quarter of a lime, juiced
Heat
olive oil in a medium-sized saucepan over medium heat. Add garlic and
jalapenos to the pan and saute for 1 minute. Stir in quinoa, vegetable
broth, beans, tomatoes (and juices), corn and salt. Bring to a boil,
then reduce the heat to medium-low and cover. Simmer for 25 minutes, or
until the liquid is completely absorbed. Remove from heat and stir in
cilantro and lime juice. Serve warm or cold with cheese, salsa, avocado
and sour cream. "Wood Stove"
By Colleen Doyle
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| Caretaker Residence Update
By Eric, Director Donate Now to help bring the Caretaker Residence to completion! 
In between winding down the home repair projects of 2013 and executing
the planning and groundwork of 2014's ramps, roofs, floors, garden
plans, and so on...we have been working diligently through the winter on
bringing the Caretaker Residence project to completion. Since the fall
newsletter went out, walls have been insulated, soffit installed, a
chimney erected, drywall hung, 15,000 gallons of rainwater containment
excavated (to make 20,000 total gallons), siding hung, solar hot water
panels (mostly) installed, tile laid, deck footers poured, interior
painting (nearly) completed, doors hung, trim sanded, sealed and hung,
and roofing begun. If you have not gotten the chance, you should view
the latest video update on the website: (http://www.bethlehemfarm.net/campaign/category/the-latest)
Still
to come are the deck between the two buildings (square dance!),
completion of the electrical, plumbing, trim, heating, greenhouse,
passive solar lighting, final grade and move-in. We are getting closer
each day! The benefit helped quite a bit by netting almost $14,000
toward the completion of the Caretaker Residence, but we still have
$196,000 to raise to reach our goal. Many of you have come out to swing a
hammer and many of you have helped by donating funds to the effort. We
are grateful for all of your help in building this "House Where Love Can
Dwell" and ask that you consider renewing your support of the effort at
this time, as we run the home stretch. |
The Power is in the Circle By Moira, Caretaker We
are pleased to introduce Bethlehem Farm's newest community member Tim
Peregoy, who joined us as our first Farmer-in-Residence this fall. Tim
brings a passion for health and education to his organic farming and
work with Bethlehem Farm. Several years ago, Tim's desire to serve the
local community brought him out of a teaching career to organic farming,
providing the residents of Greenbrier County with high quality, healthy
food at an affordable price. "I lived [out in nature] like John Muir,
the first conservationist, who realized the interdependence and
universal harmony of ecosystems...that's where I feel the most
spiritual. " But something was missing. Tim still  desired
to educate the next generation, but now on food, health, and farming.
Reflecting on his involvement with the Lewisburg Farmer's Market, Tim
said, "I realized I'm a people person, and in order to fulfill my goals
of being open-hearted and reaching out, I would need to surround myself
with people with common goals...here at Bethlehem Farm I'm able to
educate people about agriculture and experience the spirituality, the
love, the open-heartedness, and follow in God's light. And that's very
powerful. The Lakota medicine man, Black Elk, said 'In our hoop of the
nation, the power is in the circle.' I always feel the power of the
circle when we hold hands, when we open up to each other, and when we
pray." Tim has been a shining example of generosity and open-heartedness
to all of us, and is continuing his faith journey by taking part in the
RCIA program. Thank you Tim! We love you. |
An A-MUHS-ing Friendship By Jenna, Caretaker Bethlehem
Farm was introduced to Ralph and Kay Muhs on an autumn day a few years
ago when a group of parishioners from St. Catherine's Catholic Church in
Ronceverte were cutting down a tree on the church's property. A
Bethlehem Farm car pulled up, a window rolled down, and Joe called out,
"What are you planning on doing with that firewood?" (Of course you did,
Joe.) Ralph said we were welcome to the firewood, and there began a
great friendship.  Ralph and Kay came to West Virginia from Illinois about 6 years
ago, and have been building houses and friendships here ever since.
They have two sons and five grandchildren. Their elder son is a surgeon
at Yale University and the younger is a social worker here in Alderson.
Kay is a retired dietician, and Ralph is a retired elementary school
teacher and contractor. That may seem like a full life already but the Muhses
also ran an Illinois bed and breakfast together for eight years in a
building Ralph constructed. "We never made a lot of money, but we did
make a lot of great friends," Ralph reminisces. In
the time since Joe's initial forwardness about the firewood, Ralph and
Kay have become regulars at Community Night Dinners at the Farm. "We
just made a bunch of friends, and we like friends." Ralph says that the
idealism, sincerity, and mission of the Farm resonate with them and the
high value they place on helping those around them. And fortunately for
us, Bethlehem Farm has often been the recipient of this generosity. Most
recently, Ralph and Kay are providing us with natural wood for the
Caretaker residence and teaching us how to plane, sand, and rip it down
into wood paneling. "Hurry up, you're burning daylight!" Ralph greets me
one morning as I hop out of the truck for a day of wood working at his
property. Evidently an early riser, Ralph is already knee-deep in a pile
of boards twice-planed. What ensues is a day of hauling lumber,
adventures with a table saw, and a budding dream of turning pro as a
carpenter. It also includes a tour of Ralph's most recent construction
projects, a feast on Kay's homemade soup, and an afternoon of great
conversation. However, if you look more closely, perhaps the most
important skills taught that day are the value of hard work and the
importance of leveraging it to help others, the importance of reshaping
the world around you - either tangibly by building a structure or
intangibly by building the confidence of those around you, and a deep
respect for traditional handcrafting trades like carpentry, which
connect our minds, bodies, and selves to the natural world around us
through the dignity of the work done with our hands. "My hobbies grow
all around me on the mountain top. I built these houses out of materials
cut and milled locally. I like doing that, I like being creative,"
Ralph says. And we at the Farm can appreciate that.
Do the Muhses
have any final words of advice for aspiring carpenters? "Be open to all
possibilities...but then I don't have to tell people at Bethlehem Farm
that, do I?"
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| The Return of the Joe-di By Joe, Caretaker In
March I will have been at Bethlehem Farm for five years. When I moved
away from the Farm to be with Julie as she finished graduate school, we
talked about coming back to WV, but we had no idea if it would be a
possibility or not. When she began searching for a job, she contacted
the therapeutic boarding school in Pence Springs (4 miles from the
Farm), but they said there were not any openings. We both figured that
was the end of it and that we would not be coming back to WV, but a few
months later, they called and told her they wanted to interview her for
the job, which she ended up getting. So it seemed that God intended for
us to return to the Farm after all. All of this occasions me to ask what it is about the Farm that makes  me
want to keep being part of this mission. The hours are long, the work
can be challenging (even exhausting), and living in community seems at
times as if I have nine spouses to navigate instead of just one. So why
do I want to keep doing it? I think the answer lies quite simply in the
words peace and joy. To be sure, on any given day I often wish my
outward countenance were a lot more peaceful and joyful than it may be,
but underneath everything, I find deep joy, peace, and satisfaction in
my work at the Farm. I think the way that we integrate so many different
aspects of Gospel living into one package is fairly unique, and it is
one that I find deeply moving and challenging. I love the work that we
do, the joy of community and friendship, and the natural beauty of this
place. At the end of the day, I go to bed feeling that I am where God
wants me to be, and that is a blessed feeling. |
The Discomfort of Comfort By Matt, Caretaker "The
dignity of the human person and the common good ranks higher than the
comfort of those who refuse to renounce their privileges.When these
values are threatened, a prophetic voice must be raised." -Pope Francis, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium I
feel unsafe. Society tells me that I should feel very safe: I am a
brilliant (and apparently humble), college-educated, middle class, 6' 5"
male human being from the United States of America. I am Caucasian, so
statistically even though I have the same percent chance of being a drug
user or dealer as every other race I have an unimaginably lower chance
of being searched, arrested and imprisoned than people of other skin
colors. I should feel safe. And yet, I do not. Catholic Social Teaching
states that our human dignity is not fully realized until the dignity of
the entire community is upheld. The dignity of my brothers and sisters
is constantly being undercut (often with my thoughtless complicity), and
therefore my dignity too is undercut.  Renouncing
"privilege" and "rights" is something that Pope Francis calls for twice
in his Apostolic Exhortation. He calls for those with societal rights
and privileges to willingly renounce them as part of building the
kingdom of heaven on Earth. Let's review the past year of the life of
the man now known as Pope Francis: he was appointed to one of the
highest spiritual positions on the planet and immediately renounced the
golden palace, the limo, the fancy clothes and the servants that came
along with the position. He instead picked up a sponge and basin and
washed the feet of prisoners in Rome. Not particularly a physically
comfortable position for an old man, I imagine. In season one of the FX show Sons of Anarchy John
Teller's voice-over says "Most human beings only think they want
freedom. In truth they yearn for the bondage of social order, rigid
laws, and materialism. The only freedom man really
wants, is the freedom to become comfortable." Being comfortable is
achieved in the kingdom of heaven when we have met the needs of human
dignity for everyone. Currently, comfort is acquired in excess by some
while others starve and die. This excessive comfort is a right that
Francis calls us to renounce in the pursuit of the beautiful community,
the kingdom of heaven on Earth. As
a Caretaker I see this ideal take place in a special way 16 weeks of
the year. Society tells us that middle to upper-class college students
have the right and privilege to go to Florida for Spring Break to get
drunk. Bethlehem Farm gets to meet 400 students per year who renounce
their right to relax or party on their breaks in pursuit of a
transformative experience which may hopefully bring them closer to that
kingdom. They renounce even their societal right to feel freshly
showered in the name of conserving water and electricity. We
are told that we have the right to as much electricity as we can
afford. We forget those harmed by the production of that electricity.
300,000 people in the state of West Virginia recently could not even
touch their water because of the toxic chemical that was spilled into
the Elk River. The chemical is used by coal companies to process coal
that will be burned for generating electricity. Only when coal mining
processes go wrong does it get media attention. Only when miners are
killed by a collapse or mass amounts of toxins are poured into the
drinking water of the state's capitol do we take interest. What about
when everything goes according to plan? When mountains are blown up on
schedule there is no notice. When a person is able to light their tap
water on fire because of natural gas extraction there is no call to
action. The dignity of the people, the mountains, the streams, the
animals, and the plants of Appalachia are threatened currently and
constantly. Our
privilege and right to be comfortable is destroying the lives of our
brothers and sisters. Christianity calls us to follow the life of Jesus
of Nazareth. Unless he was a much worse carpenter than he was an orator
he probably could have led a relatively comfortable life. An example to
us all, Jesus renounced that comfort, finding rather his joy in the
pursuit of making whole a broken society. He explicitly calls us in the
Eucharist to give of our body and blood (our entire self and entire
life) to our brothers and sisters just as he exemplified. So
as Christians do we answer that call? Not just the call of Jesus and
Pope Francis, but also answering the constant call of all oppressed
voices of the world. They cry at the top of their voice for justice and
we answer, "Shhh, Mad Men is starting." (I only use that example because I do love Mad Men.) Pope
Francis has passed us the ball on this one. Are we going to have the
courage to raise a prophetic voice when the rights and privilege of
society threatens and directly attacks the dignity of humans and the
common good? Will we succumb to the poisonous disease of comfort? Will
we have the courage to find that perfect freedom that comes with
community; the gritty, natural, joyful reality of the interconnectedness
of all beings? We cannot realize our full dignity until the entire community realizes its dignity together. You can read the full text of Evangelii Gaudium at http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium_en.html This article is made possible by a grant from the Our Sunday Visitor Institute |
| | | If
you have questions about this newsletter, or would like to submit an
article for a future publication, please contact Katherine or Matt at caretakers@bethlehemfarm.net |
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