Bear with me, because I’m just starting this up, and I’m a little starry-eyed.  It feels like one of those deep dark secrets we used to fondle, a little afraid of it and totally enticed.  And now I’m pulling it out of my pocket, covered in lint and crumpled, ready perhaps to show it to someone before it falls apart in the wash.

A blog like this seems the last hope of the desperate.  And a particular kind of desperation at that: a kind that demands that life have meaning and beauty and some sort of order.  A kind that insists we keep growing, even when it hurts or seems just plain stupid.  So here I am, typing away in my effort to keep living the questions I’ve been teaching about for years.  Yes, this blog’s title comes from a course I designed way back when: “Passion and Sustenance: On Crafting a Life.”  It was a study of community, vocation, sustainability, and work.  Ever since I left my paid work to raise my family, I’ve been trying to cleave to these questions, to remember the readings and to live with the ideas we bandied about so carelessly in the classroom.  And now the questions matter even more, because now they are wrapped around more of us.

So what will I do here?  Remains to be seen.  But at this moment, here are my topics:

Working (paid, free, idealized, crap, whatever)

Living (on earth; in the land; in community)

Growing (plants, people, whatever)

Making (food, art, words — craft is everywhere)

Hoping (what some might call faith, love, or imagination)

Nothing is neatly sorted or sortable, but as you’ll soon see, that’s just my speed.  It’s all connected, anyway, so we might as well take a deep breath. Keywords: patience, humility, generosity.  And hope.