by Roger Hintze
As I was leaving church this morning I paused to observe a commotion going on in a large tree on the east side of our building. The tree was laden with small red crabapples and there were two different species of birds – robins and starlings – feeding on the apples. Or should I say sharing the bounty of the apples. I found it interesting that there didn’t seem to be angst or disagreement amongst the diverse participants in this activity.
On the way home I pondered the concept of sharing and considered what we at Prince of Peace are doing with the land that we “own”. I’ve always been somewhat troubled with the idea of “owning” property anyway – perhaps using the term “stewardship” of land is more of a comfortable and acceptable concept to me. For ten years now we’ve shared “our land” with immigrant persons from Myanmar and now more recently, with our new Sacred Settlement neighbors. It’s obvious too, that we’re sharing the apple tree with the birds.
“Time and Talents” is a term we’ve used over the years when we ask our members to consider sharing their time and maybe ordinary or unique abilities they may possess. Zeroing in on our outdoor campus realm, we’ve had responses from members and even non-members. We are blessed to have a crew of five volunteers who weekly during the summer have shared of their time to maintain the water supply for the Karen gardeners. There’s the crew of 14 who share their time cutting the grass on our campus as well as maintaining the machinery to do so. There’s a group that shares their time in May to plant and maintain the flower beds. There are sharers who have volunteered their time to help set up the new Settlement garden and do the landscaping around it, and there are others who take of their time to maintain the physical Settlement buildings.
There are always additional outdoor projects waiting in the wings. Our current groups of volunteers are not exclusive ones – there’s always room for more. Please consider sharing your time with them and becoming a steward of the land!