Summer Synchroblog: What I've Learned from Tomatoes

(Thanks to those of you participating in the synchroblog... let me know when you've posted, and I'll put up a link here.)

Once I put this nutty idea up here, and started asking a few friends to participate, I got to thinking about how I got here -- thinking that there might indeed be a connection between the journey I've been on towards eating fresher, mostly locally grown produce and the strange spiritual meanderings of the past few years. The first journey is a bit easier to plot out.

Our old house sat on a tiny lot with a backyard dominated (and nearly completely shaded) by two large trees. I tried planting tomatoes on the tiny strip of dirt beside the kitchen door, but they were cramped and caterpillars got more out of them than I did. The next year I tried to opposite side of the house, which got a bit more sun. The tomatoes thrived for several years. I loved having a bounty to share with neighbors and people who came to our house for kinship. One year I had a yellow plum tomato bush that got away from me and started crawling up the neighbor's house!

Then I had babies two summers in a row. Somehow the tomatoes got planted, and sometimes watered. Neither one of my kids eats tomatoes now, though they both went through phases of picking and munching on all the green ones they could lay their pudgy hands on. The last few years my tomatoes languished in soil that was becoming depleted from growing the same crop every year and under my more and more distracted attempts to care for them.

But somewhere along the way, I was converted. I still plunked down my cash for the occasional Roma from the grocery, but only for a specific purpose. Tomatoes slipped off my list of "staples," though there were plenty of other out of season items I bought regularly. Once you've enjoyed a summer of fresh, flavorful goodness, there is no going back.

I didn't think I was doing anything radical, just using common sense and the taste buds God gave me. Coincidentally, we joined a nutrition company and started learning a bit about more about our industrialized food supply. There are well-documented studies around that show the nutritional content of fruits and vegetables sold in the U.S. has decreased dramatically in the past few decades. No wonder. The phytochemicals that give the tomato its flavor (and nutritional value) develop during the last few days on the vine. Yes, you can pick the tomato green and gas it to make it turn red, but that will not make it produce those valuable nutrients. It's rather appalling to think about: we have a food industry in this country that is dedicated to producing food that is cheap, easy to harvest and transport, pretty to look at, but nutritionally depleted. (It's worse than that when you think that people in the poorest areas have little access to fresh produce of any kind, and the cheapest calories in the grocery store are in the junk food aisles.)

There was a grocery store strike in Los Angeles a number of years ago. All the major chains were affected, and my grandfather didn't struggle to unionize a meat packing plant to have me cross picket lines at a grocery. I found alternatives, and the farmer's market became a regular stop on my Sunday morning routine.) Except for the occasional "necessity" like real mayonnaise (has to be Best Foods/Hellman's), I've hardly been back to the regular grocery stores. Before we moved last year, I had already scoped out the two closest farmer's markets, and was looking forward to joining the CSA at a farm near us.

A bit more than a year ago, I ran across a book called the Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. His exploration of the industrial food system and various alternatives opened my eyes to a picture bigger than the fact that fresh produce tastes better and is probably better for you. The way our food is grown, transported and sold to us impacts the environment, issues of fairness and justice (farmers get precious few pennies out of the dollar you spend at the store), and food safety (did you notice tomatoes disappear from your local restaurants this summer?), just to mention a few. It's like pulling the thread hanging from the sleeve of your sweater: quit eating store-bought tomatoes and your willingness to participate in the whole agribusiness system may just unravel. Think a bit more careful about what's "good" for you (and the land and the people who grow it), and you change the way you live.

Which brings me back to that other journey I've been on. That other journey is hard to map out: it's about dislocation and disorientation and I don't think I've glimpsed where it comes out on the other side yet. As best I can tell, it's been about getting my faith out of my head and out of a special realm of privileged emotional experience and into the rest of life. I used to be pretty good at spiritual disciplines. When I first came to faith in college, I was taught to have a daily quiet time, study some Scripture and pray every day. I made myself do it for years. I have notebooks filled with my impressions of verses day after day. Then I encountered the Holy Spirit in a new way and found myself drawn into prayer and intercession. I longed for the hours of solitude and listening and meditation. And then I had kids and all of that pretty much went out the window.

In my dislocation and distress, I found the best place to connect with God was at a little oasis in the midst of the San Fernando Valley, where I could try to spot a few birds and then just soak in the beauty of creation. I've struggled to have those times the past year, in a new place abounding in natural beauty, to find that place of peace and inner quiet. I've wrestled with what this season is about -- is God leading me through this dryness or am I just wandering off by myself? I come back to two things: sureness that God led us here, and hope that some of these changes have to do with preparing me for the season ahead.

So I find myself focusing on trying to be faithful in the little things, especially the things I put in my mouth. Committing to buying (and someday growing) local food is a discipline. It has a lot to do with waiting. Watermelons aren't ready in June. The season for asparagus goes by in a flash and then you wait till next spring. It has to do with gratitude for the gifts of today. I never would have tried my hand at fava beans if they hadn't been in my CSA share, but what an amazing shade of green and taste of spring when you finally pop them out of their skins! It has to do with seeking justice: knowing that I'm putting my dollars directly into the hands of the people who do the hard work of growing my food. It has to do with letting myself be planted in this particular soil and seeing what will grow.

I was only looking for a nice red splash on my salad when I planted those first tomatoes, but tomatoes have been teaching me about living a life of faithfulness.

Summer Synchroblog Participants:

Christine Sine - Godspace
Stephen - Where there are gardens and bicycles
- with part 2 here