Compost 06/10/08

Growing soil has it ups and downs, takes human time and energy, but has its reward, is dirty and healthy. It takes time to collect the waste that goes into the compost. This rising compost pile behind my garage contains wood chips from the dump, leftover soil, garden waste, grass, kitchen waste, lots of coffee grounds and other stuff. All of it had to be collected and dumped on the pile. However, recycling waste to healthy soil is meaningful. Cooking the waste, breaking it down to compost comes naturally and takes no effort. With the right ingredients and with time, 75% of waste with carbon and 25% with a nitrogen base will cook by itself. Feeding some of it to worms will make this homemade soil more full of healthy organisms and make it enriched soil for growing. Growing soil from waste reflects one of the major paradoxes of life that something that seems wasteful can be made with time and energy to something meaningful and worthwhile. The least shall be the best. But like growing soil, life takes time and some heat to make it enriched. And like the garden with use of worms, we need the guidance of the least amidst us, like worms to compost, to make life enriched and healthy. The last shall be first and the lowly shall be the mighty. The paradox of the compost pile reflects the paradox of life.

I have observed as a community organizer, teacher and with myself that sometimes when we gain some new power or information we often forget how we got there and often the powerless when they get power do not know how to handle it. Power often corrupts. It is like we become a compost pile with too much nitrogen. Yes we are hot, but without the carbon we suffocate and burn out.

On TV they talk about reducing our carbon footprint as a good thing. I am sure that is true in the way they mean it. But in the garden of life, like the compost pile, we need a good balance of carbon and nitrogen, the heat. And in life, like in the garden, unless we take what we’ve got, as lowly or great as it seems, and reach out to those who are weak or in great need, the lowliest amidst us, like the worms in the garden or farm, we cannot live and be healthy with the tensions of life, the paradox of life.

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