A Few Thoughts from Bren

By Bren Dubay
May 2019

If you have come into contact with or read a word we’ve written since January, you’d be hard pressed not to know that Koinonia has declared 2019 the Year of the Pecan. We are planting 40 acres of new pecan trees — 800 trees of different varieties!

As soon as we decided to do this, we began giving extra attention to the soil in those 40 acres. Koinonia is all about the soil — everywhere on the farm, but, especially, where we’re growing food. Joel Salatin, a farmer and author I highly recommend, writes in The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs —

…soil is a pulsing, thriving community. Our cupped handful [of soil] contains more beings than there are people on the face of the earth… soil is a teeming community of beings… Now we know through work at Stanford that these microscopic beings (nemtodes, mycorrihizae, giberrellins to name a few] communicate. They actually have a language and respond to each other. Page 51

Does it not make sense that to produce healthy food, you need healthy, living soil from which it grows? For our pecans to have the best, most marvelous pecaness of pecans, we (and our animals, too) must work to help infuse life into the soil.

Koinonia has received a great deal of derision for its commitment to soil biology. There is a fungus in our part of Georgia we call scab and it, along with a whole myriad of other pests, will destroy a pecan crop unless you spray heavy doses of fungicide, insecticide and herbicide. We have been told over and over again, “Spray, spray, spray!” Those “cides” do mostly kill the pests, but they also kill those microscopic beings that bring life. And after you spray them, you can’t allow humans or animals to go for a stroll in the orchards for 72 hours.

Does it make sense to eat food doused with poison and grown in dead soil? Wouldn’t we rather eat food from plants that are healthy and thriving all the way from the soil in which they are planted to their highest leaf?  Koinonia must live its values and we know too much about what is happening to this earth to not focus on healthy soil. We are sticking to the biological method no matter the names not fit to print we are called. I like these words from Joel Salatin, too —

I would suggest that a God-honoring farm is one that shows strength rather than weakness. … It’s one that has healthy plants and animals. It’s one that develops food that develops healthier people. This is not a health-and-wealth message. It is ultimately a humility-and-dependency message. God’s designs work. Page 68

So, we are planting 800 new trees and we are looking to get every last one of them a sponsor. If you haven’t already, I am asking you to sponsor a tree or two or three or a whole row. There is a lot of work to do. We could use your help to get it done. Find out more on our website.

I’ll end with these words from Clarence Jordan. Can it be said any better?

… we went there and bought that old, run-down eroded piece of land. It was sick. There were gashes in it. It was sore and bleeding. I don’t know whether you’ve walked out over a piece of ground and it could almost cry out to you and say, ‘Heal me, heal me!’ I don’t know whether you feel the closeness to the soil that I do. But when you fill in those old gullies and terrace the fields and you begin to feel the springiness of the sod beneath your feet and you begin to feel that old land come to life and when you walk through a pine forest that you set out in little seedlings and now you see them reaching for the sky and hear the wind through them… Men say to you, ‘Why don’t you sell it and move away?’…they might as well ask you, “Why don’t you sell your mother?’ Somehow God has made us out of this old soil, and we go back to it, and we never lose its claim on us. It isn’t a simple matter to leave it.”

No, Clarence, like you, we aren’t about to sell this land or leave it. And the only thing we are going to spray on her is life.

For those of you reading this, thanks for your support. It is needed.

By: Bren Dubay
October 2018

When reading a pamphlet about vocations, this sentence caught my eye, “[God’s] love cannot do without personal response. He neither manipulates nor forces anyone. He does not know what we will reply and cannot answer for us.”

For some reason, the sentence turned my mind to Jesus and the Samaritan Woman. It was about noon when she came to the well. That’s not the typical time women in that day and age would go to the well. They would have gone much earlier. This woman comes alone and at noon and that must be significant.

Jesus is at the well waiting.

I have spent a great deal of my life seeking God, running this way and that. Maybe the heart of the spiritual life is how do we allow ourselves to be found by the waiting God.

An analogy I ran across that has helped me — imagine a helicopter that’s trying to land. The helicopter is God’s presence, God’s grace. Our spiritual life is not about finding ways to jump up and grab the helicopter. The helicopter is already there. If we long for that helicopter and we want it to land, we clear the ground so it can.

Find a place and spiritual practices that help clear the ground. Find a spiritual director. I know a person whose spiritual director suggested she write a dialogue between herself and Jesus and others. She wrote a scene where, after a difficult climb up a steep cliff dragging a huge bag of rocks and a tank of helium, she sits down and looks out over a beautiful blue lake. She calls Jesus by his Hebrew name Yeshua. It is a scene of letting go. There are prayers written on the rocks she carried up the mountain. They are her prayers, heavy ones that perhaps have held her back. One at a time, she reads the prayer then heaves the rock over the side of the cliff into the lake. After each rock, she unties a balloon from the helium tank or uses the tank to blow up a balloon; each has a prayer written on it, too, but it is a prayer of thanksgiving. She reads the prayer aloud, lets the balloon go and watches it float up and away. She is clearing the ground. Here is what happened when she climbs back down.

(HERSELF descends the cliff holding onto

the helium tank and the empty bag; SHE loses

her balance from time to time sliding on the

loose rocks. SHE sees YESHUA at the bottom

of the cliff; SHE is out of breath)

YESHUA

Why didn’t you jump?

HERSELF

Excuse me?

YESHUA

(taking the helium tank)

Up there. Why didn’t you jump?

HERSELF

Into the water?

YESHUA

Yes.

HERSELF

From up there?

YESHUA

Yes.

HERSELF

(at a loss for words)

It… what? A bit irresponsible, don’t you think?

YESHUA

Why?

HERSELF

I could break my neck. Rocks. Lots of them. At the bottom of the lake. I put them there. Some of them.

YESHUA

Go back up there and jump.

HERSELF

You’re crazy.

(YESHUA laughs)

HERSELF (continued)

Somebody told you to jump from a precipice once. Are you really Yeshua?

YESHUA

(smiles)

I am.

HERSELF

Very funny.

YESHUA

Climb back up.

HERSELF

(turns and begins to walk up the cliff)

This is crazy.

(YESHUA watches HERSELF climb back

up)

HERSELF

(stands at top of cliff looking down at lake)

Are you kidding me?

(paces back and forth near the edge)

Jump?

(walks away from the edge)

This is crazy.

(going back to the edge; shouts)

You’re crazy.

(sees YESHUA standing on the far shore

facing her; perhaps SHE paces as SHE

talks to herself)

What possible point could there be for my jumping into the lake? Sure, I did it in a dream. Not from a high cliff though. This is for real. Well, maybe not for real. I’m in my imagination. Awake in my imagination. Are you real? I don’t even know if you’re real. Who are you? Do you exist?

YESHUA

(a mighty shout)

I am.

HERSELF

Shut up. You are. What’s that supposed to mean? I am, too, but I don’t know how much longer I’d be if I jump off this cliff.

(pacing again)

I’ve jumped off a cliff having faith in you before. Left a potentially lucrative career path to become a playwright. See where that has gotten me?

(pacing stopped by YESHUA’S shout

across the lake)

YESHUA

Jump.

(HERSELF turns her back on YESHUA,

walks away from the edge then suddenly

turns back runs to the edge then dives)

(HERSELF hits the water diving deep.

SHE opens her eyes and finds peace in

the clearness of the water, in the smooth

sandy bottom of the lake and in the

colorful fish swimming about; SHE smiles

as well as one can smile a smile underwater;

the smile gives way when SHE remembers

the rocks; SHE swims turning this way and

that looking for them, but finds none. Even

if a bit confused and bemused, SHE gently

swims refreshed by the water; finally, SHE

starts for the surface needing air and as

her head emerges from the water, all sorts

of old, disturbing images flash through her

mind; SHE is knocked backed by them and

goes under then breaks through the surface

gasping for breath; this happens again then a

third time; SHE feels a hand on her arm

pulling her, lifting her out of harm’s way)

MARY

I’ve got you. The water isn’t very deep here. I’ve got you. Can you stand up?

(HERSELF clutches and coughs)

MARY (continued)

You’re all right. I’ve got you.

(HERSELF nods; MARY walks her to the shore

and helps her dry off with a big towel then helps

her into a thick bathrobe; MARY leads her over

to the campfire where YESHUA is frying fish;

HERSELF sits; silence)

HERSELF

There weren’t any rocks.

YESHUA

(focusing on the fish)

Nope.

HERSELF

Where did they go?

(YESHUA continues to focus on the fish)

HERSELF (continued)

You took them?

YESHUA

I did.

***

When we reply, “Yes,” the waiting God joins us in clearing the ground.

The Samaritan Woman came to the well alone and at mid-day, a sure sign she was an outcast. At the end of the encounter with Jesus, she puts down her pail and runs to the village to tell others what has happened.

Jesus had said to her, “It is not you who have chosen me, I have chosen you.” Ultimately, after much dialogue between them, she goes to the village shouting, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”

She was found. She chose to reply, “Yes.”

A Few Thoughts from Bren
September 2018

I found this in my notebook — God is not resigned to losing anybody. There was no indication where it came from. Usually, I jot down the name of the book and the page number when recording notes, but there was nothing there. I don’t think I am the author so, “Good author, though I don’t know your name you captured my attention and imagination and sent me looking.” I knew I had read a similar sentiment about God somewhere in Clarence Jordan’s writing. I found it in “The Father’s Pursuing Love” in The Substance of Faith, a collection of Jordan’s sermons. I highly recommend the book.

What if God’s pursuit of us is not limited by space and time? What if the redemptive process does not stop even with death? Clarence admits that “we’re on very uncertain ground here,” but he does go on to use Scriptural references for his musings.

What is the nature of God? Jesus came to give us insight into that nature. He may have asked [and still asks], “You hear what I am teaching you? You see what I am demonstrating for you?”

Clarence points to three parables in chapter 15 in Luke’s Gospel to underscore more about God’s nature. What does the shepherd do when he loses one of his hundred sheep? He looks for her. How long does he look for her? He looks for her until he finds her.

How about the woman who had ten coins, but lost one? She picks up her broom, lights a lamp and sweeps “until she wears out her broom, until the lamp went out, until her husband came home.” Does she quit sweeping to make her husband and herself something to eat? No. She keeps sweeping until she finds that coin.

The third is the familiar The Parable of the Prodigal Son. Clarence suggests that we call it The Parable of the Father’s All Pursuing Love. In Jesus’ culture, a son could ask for his inheritance ahead of his father’s death. If given, the father was then dead to the son even though he was very much physically alive. The son, too, was dead to the father — the relationship was broken. What does the father do in this parable? He waits. And, against all cultural norms, when the son comes home the father declares him alive. How long does the father wait? He waits until the son comes home.

God is the shepherd, the woman, and the father. God seeks the sheep, searches for the coin, and waits for his “dead” child. Clarence goes on, “Doesn’t [this] say to us that God in his relationship to us is not bound by time and circumstances?” Then he points to First Peter where between the crucifixion and the resurrection, Christ descends into Hades and preached to the people there. Clarence asks, “Why would he preach to them if there was no chance for their redemption?”

“This is what the resurrection is trying to say to us — that the grave is not the final answer. The grave has been swallowed up in victory, death has lost its sting,” writes Clarence.

My heart fills to overflowing when I think of being loved like this. My heart fills to overflowing that this is the nature of the Creator of the universe. Like Clarence, I’d like “to be an implement in God’s hand, an agent of his in shedding his love abroad to people.” I’m imperfect at it, but there is something about the collective at Koinonia through the years that has been just such an implement. People come here and feel, if only for a bit, this pursuing love of God. I think they get an inkling of it not being “the will of God that any should perish.” Perhaps they go from this place loving their neighbors and their enemies just a little bit more. Maybe they go from this place knowing a little bit more about God’s nature.

Let it be so.

A Few Thoughts from Bren
August 2018

Aristotle wrote, “beauty occurs when all parts work together in harmony so that no one part draws unjust attention to itself” and “the chief forms of beauty are order and symmetry and definiteness.”

My recent trip to Italy has me reflecting on beauty and what an important spiritual food it is. I got to see so much beauty — frescoes, sculptures, paintings, architecture, music, fountains, Michelangelo’s The Pieta, the Pantheon, St. Peter’s Basilica, the Sistine Chapel, even the Roman Colosseum though some horrible things happened within it. I experienced beauty and was nourished by it

Beauty opens a door and invites you in.

It doesn’t have to be physical beauty. When I visited Koinonia for the first time, there were buildings in need of repair and a coat of paint here and there would have helped. Nonetheless, I remember thinking “this is beautiful.” Maybe it was those few minutes spent in the museum hearing Ellie Castles’ story about the commitment of the members in the early days. Perhaps it was the far off glimpse of the pecan orchards — we had no time that day to go for a walk among the trees.

This encounter with something beautiful led me to read Clarence Jordan’s books and to listen to his recordings. I was fed.

A writer I admire, Robert Barron, offers that of the ultimate values — beauty, goodness and truth — beauty is the most powerful, the most alluring, the most winsome, and can draw us in. When it does, then one can move from beauty to the good and then to the true. Beauty can open the heart so one can come to know goodness and truth.

I confess that too often I am distracted and don’t see the beauty around me. But I have returned from my trip desiring a steady diet of beauty. I live at a beautiful place. Fine works of literature fill our library. We sing often. I want to be aware of the beauty of the lyrics and hear the beauty of the melody. I want to take long, slow walks through the pecan orchards more frequently or I simply want to stand in our garden and watch the organic vegetables grow.

And the incredible people who come here … I want to be more aware of who inspires me and let their inspiration work on me. Just last week we had 47 young people from the Bruderhof Foxhill Community visit us. They were full of joy and their work ethic left us speechless. They had talents and gifts and freely gave of themselves. They were beautiful.

I have come home with my mind on beauty and how we all can thrive from this spiritual food. Who inspires you? Do you look for beauty? What feeds your spiritual life? What is beautiful to you? How can we incorporate beauty into our everyday lives, in big ways and small ways, so we may be fed and come to know goodness and truth? We are starving and we need food — good, wholesome, spiritual food. May beauty fill us up. May it spur us on to goodness, truth, and a full life.

A Few Thoughts from Bren

July 2018

Elizabeth is away this week so I’ve had the chance to facilitate the intern study sessions. I’ve enjoyed every minute. It has been a while since I’ve been able to be with the interns as they discuss their readings. In four different sessions, the interns and I have talked about hospitality to the stranger, Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity, non-violence and God’s economy.

In Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove’s God’s Economy: Redefining the Health & Wealth Gospel, he writes about subversive service. We serve subversively when we take seriously Jesus’ example — he came to serve not to be served. Our culture sets us on our way to climb ladders, to get ahead, to build up treasures and too often we are taught or at least see around us that “becoming great means making someone else small.”

Wilson-Hartgrove shares an interesting take on Jesus reprimanding the disciples for turning the children away. Children were worthless in the ancient household economy. But, to Jesus, the children were worthy of being served and taking their place in his lap and by his side. It is the small, the weak, the blind, the lame, the widow, the stranger, and what our world is quick to call the worthless that Jesus served and so we are to do the same.

As Wilson-Hartgrove writes, “Jesus didn’t aspire to fix the system or to overthrow it [the ancient household economy]. He submitted himself to people in simple service in order to show us a better way. Jesus offers this tactic: we usher in a new way by subversively submitting to others in the twisted economy that is all around us.”

It makes me think that we should rename the internship the Internship in Subversive Service. Interns come alongside us to welcome and serve people. This service is mostly in small ways: a smile, a meal, a clean room in which to stay, a quiet conversation … it occurs to me that the smaller the service, the more subversive it is. Every person is hungry, maybe not physically hungry, but hungry. Every single person is worthy of attention. It also occurs to me that if each of us submits ourselves in simple service then everyone is being served. Everyone is lifted and — using words our culture likes — everyone wins.

Many interns have come through the farm. I am in touch with a lot of them. There have been weddings and babies coming into the world. There was even a birthday party this last weekend in Virginia — Katie and Wyatt Miles who were interns during the spring term of 2014 turned 30. A couple of us got to go celebrate with them. Katie and Wyatt welcomed about fifty guests. We were from all over, of varying ages, various religions, and from all walks of life. For a party favor we got to choose from a stack of well used books — books that were some of Katie and Wyatt’s favorites. There was a personal note in each. We, of course, enjoyed delicious food, played games, and danced. Some of us even got to spend the night. I recognized their hospitality. It felt like home.

I like staying in touch. It helps me know that subversive service is spreading. That brings a smile to my face and adds a jolt of joy to my heart.

A Few Thoughts from Bren

June 2018

“(God) has never learned to deal in fractions.” — Clarence Jordan

Our oldest son was born with a non-life threatening condition that would require surgery. The medical professionals told us it could wait until he was older. He was not quite two when we drove to the hospital for the scheduled procedure. There is one image from that day that still breaks my heart. These last several weeks that image has haunted me.

It was not comfortable seeing our active little boy lying there. The anesthesia had worked quickly. But for some reason, no one came to take him to the operating room where, of course, we would not be allowed to go. I began to worry he would wake up. And he did.

He began to stir so I rubbed his back hoping against hope that he would fall back to sleep. It didn’t work. He sat up just as the two surgical nurses came into the room. They were both friendly and one picked him up surprised that he was awake. She called him by the wrong name as she carried him away from us and into the operating room. He was reaching over her shoulder, crying, calling for me. She kept telling him he would be all right and kept calling him by the wrong name. It wasn’t her fault – we called him by his middle name. I was sobbing so hard I could not correct her. “His name is Dillon. Not Andy. His name is Andrew Dillon. Not Andy. Dillon.” I could not stop crying until long after my baby had been returned to the recovery room.

It is real for me what is happening on the U.S. border. I know the terror, the panic, the helplessness, the unbearable sorrow of being separated from my child. I know the look of my little boy reaching for me, crying “mommy” and how it felt when I could not rush to him and take him into my arms. I know all this, but I knew where he was going and that he would come back. And I had not fled from any horror to get my child and myself to safety. I spoke the same language as the nurses and the doctors.

Hearts are big at Koinonia. We are not a large group — sometimes we have more interns at the farm than members. Always we have far more visitors. We pray and we serve. We do what we can with the people we have and most of the time there is a peace in that. That peace has been shaken in recent weeks. As we reflect on what Clarence said-  “Every little human being in this world is part of God’s set”- we can’t help but wonder if we could be doing more to show people with words and deeds the truth of Clarence’s words … and Jesus’ words. I don’t know for certain what more we can do for the children and their parents were there more communal members at the farm. What I do know is we sure could use a few more people with big hearts to join us, to grow deep roots, to pray, to serve, and to live out their lives loving neighbors with us.

There is much to be done.

Bren Dubay
May 2018

“All truth, by whomever it is spoken, comes from the Holy Spirit.” — Thomas Aquinas

With no trees decked with ornaments and lights, no sunrise services or eggs hidden for children to scurry to find, Pentecost may be one of the most subdued days in the church’s year. Despite arriving on a violent wind and sending forth tongues of fire giving the disciples a voice that could not be contained, the Spirit is seemingly the quietest member of the Trinity. In scripture, the Father speaks often, and, of course, so does Jesus the Son, but we are hard-pressed to find famous quotes from the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is surprisingly low key … or is that so?

Jesus calls the Spirit the “Paraclete” — “the one who comes to our aid.”  Another meaning is “called to be with us.” When the Paraclete descended on the disciples, “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them” and the church was born [Acts 2:1-6]. And the Spirit continues to come to our aid so both individuals and the body of Christ the church may be born again and again and again. The spiritual life is something to be lived and practiced day in and day out. The spiritual life is work. It is good we have a Paraclete.

The presence of the Spirit is tangible at Koinonia Farm. I struggle to put into words what I mean — I fear that words will make it far less than it is. Many people sense something out of the ordinary when they come here. I know I did. Perhaps it’s because for more than 75 years, the people making this way of life their own have raised the voices of their souls in a constant cry for the Spirit. An invitation has been extended without ceasing. The Holy Spirit is always working, always with us, but yet, in another sense, has to be invited. To be filled with the Spirit, we must make space within us for the Spirit. I am grateful for all those who came before us who made room and extended the invitation. I urge those of us here now to continue calling on the Spirit.

The same Paraclete that is present with us was on Jesus. He broke the good news to the poor, proclaimed freedom for the oppressed, gave sight to the blind, helped those grievously insulted find dignity and ushered in the Lord’s new era. Hearts open, minds open when we open to the Holy Spirit. Truth and good comes if we live a life that says, “Come, Holy Spirit, come.”