A Comment on “The Entrepreneurial Spirit”

UU Minister Amy Zucker Morgenstern wrote this lovely post today about low-key entrepreneurs in Mexico:  The entrepreneurial spirit « Sermons in Stones.

I wanted to reply to her post, but she and her comments section are on sabbatical, so this short post is my comment!

In her post she wrote about prohibitive regulation in California keeping micro-businesses from being feasible.   Here I want to share the good news from Michigan:  Gov. Granholm just signed legislation ensuring that “cottage food operations” with gross annual sales of less than $15,000 will be exempt from many of the state’s regulatory barriers.

Bridging the Great Divide

The Michigan Wolverines have two great rivals, one in-state, and one out-of-state:  the Michigan State Trojans, and the Ohio State Buckeyes.  We are definitely a Go-Blue household.  My partner has been a fan since she was a kid, and graduating from UM only increased her lifelong devotion.  Any trip back to Ann Arbor includes shopping for Michigan gear, and when we return to Alaska, she wears that gear two or three times a week.  An “M Go Blue” sign hangs above our patio door, and on the deck a Michigan whirligig twirls in the breeze.

There’s a store in Michigan called The Great Divide.  When we lived there, it had storefronts in multiple cities, but I think the recession has reduced it to the store in Flint and an online presence.  The Great Divide had a simple organizing principle: maize and blue Michigan gear on one side of the store, and green and white Michigan State gear on the other side of the store.

Our recent trip to Tennessee felt like more than a mere step or two over the line into Green and White territory.  It felt like a full-on immersion into the Scarlet and Gray of Columbus, Ohio.

We were deep in the territory of Team Jesus, and everywhere we looked, people were sporting team paraphernalia.  Fish on bumpers, crosses on T-shirts, Laughing Jesus paintings in the gift shops.  Gatlinburg seemed to be a place where Christianity is the default setting, where there is no visible Divide.  I felt like I needed to hide the fact that I am a fan of Team UU.

In a few weeks I’ll be traveling to Minneapolis for the UUA’s annual General Assembly.  I imagine there will be plenty of opportunity to buy Team UU gear.  Jewelry.  T-shirts.  Bumper stickers. Maybe we’ll throw a few tailgate parties.  It will feel good.

But no matter how good it feels to be with people who share my values, I don’t want to be the kind of person who only associates with people who are like me.  It is so tempting to sort ourselves into safe groups of like-minded people, but I want to resist that temptation.

I’m not sure what I’ll buy at the UU gear store.  I’ll probably give in and buy a pendant, or at least a bumper sticker.  No matter what I buy, I hope it will invite questions and spark conversations.  And I hope that those conversations will be one small piece of bridging the divide.

Treasures in Unlikely Places

Flint is the New Jersey of Michigan.  Well, without all the rich people, pharmaceutical companies and beachfront.  Other than that, just like Jersey.

Most people experience my home state through the lens of the Newark Airport or the Jersey Turnpike.  Its starring role in HBO’s Sopranos didn’t do much to change those gritty perceptions.  Unless you’ve lived there, you’re likely to think that “the Garden State” is a misnomer.  Jersey natives, however, know that sunny June days are for strawberries, hot July days are for blueberries in the Pine Barrens, even hotter days in August are for peaches, and finally, the cooler days of September are for the apple orchards in NJ’s northwest corner.  All summer long, of course, it’s time for ripe, juicy Jersey tomatoes.

Mention Flint, and the response of most Michiganders is something like, “Can anything good come out of Flint?”  If Michigan is one of the epicenters of the current recession, then Flint is an epicenter of an epicenter.  Flint began to rust while the rest of the state was still flourishing.

So when we were visiting family in Michigan last week, and I mentioned that I wanted to visit the Flint Farmers’ Market, they were surprised, to say the least.  My partner’s sister agreed to come with me, so I printed directions and we ventured out.

Getting there was easy–highway 475 to exit 8A.  There were great signs directing us, though following them meant crossing three lanes quickly.  We could tell even before we parked that coming had been a great decision.

The Flint Farmers’ Market is big.  Not quite Pike Place, but definitely leaning in that direction.  Open year round, it has indoor space for permanent vendors, and outside space for seasonal ones.

There’s a butcher shop, and several vendors selling poultry.

The cheese shop made me want to hand them a twenty-dollar bill and ask for a smidgen of everything.

Of course, I bought the farm-fresh, free-range eggs–but not the cute bantams shown here.  The five of us ate the full dozen for dinner that night.

We both liked these raised beds–particularly the trapezoids, which could be arranged in any pattern.  And yes, I had to look up the name of the shape.

The wine store that anchors one end of the indoor market was a big hit with my traveling companion, who took this photo to remember to track it down closer to home.

Everyone we met at the market was exceptionally friendly.  The vendors were more than happy to answer our questions.  My partner’s sister is a graphic designer for a small, family-owned grocery chain, and she made several connections, both for her freelance work and on behalf of her employers.

If you live in Michigan, the Flint Farmers’ Market is a great day trip.  We spent a few hours, but easily could have spent three times as long there.   They’re open Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.  If you’re elsewhere, I hope you’ll find time to visit a farmers’ market near you.  How many other opportunities come your way to have fun–and do something good at the same time?

Melatonin Dreams

Yesterday began at 7:15 a.m. in Bridgeport, Michigan.  It dawdled for a while in the sun on the back deck, soaking in the rays and the last few hours with family.  Then a straight shot down to Detroit Metro, a small hop from there to O’Hare, and the long haul from Chicago to Anchorage.  After an hour-long, story-sharing ride with a good friend, our travels brought us back to Girdwood, to the place we call home.  We were asleep by 12:30 a.m. (4:30 a.m. in MI), aided by melatonin in my case.

I am not usually a lucid dreamer.  But this morning when I became aware that I was dreaming, I chose to awaken.

I had been asked to speak at the University of Michigan commencement, scheduled to begin in 30 minutes.  I can still see the clock, which read 1:30 p.m.  I had just a few paragraphs written, and was typing furiously.

When I worked as a minister, many Saturday nights I had “sermon nightmares.” Often I had left my sermon text or notes in my office, and I was now sitting in the chancel–or worse, standing in the pulpit.  Most of the dream was usually an anxious effort to retrieve the text or notes by slipping out during a hymn, or choosing instead to wing it.

This morning’s dream was different, in one important way:  I remember pieces the speech I was writing, and I like what I remember.  After the requisite introductions, welcomes and thank-you’s, there were two things I had to say.

We live in a time, I wrote, when:

• Vocation isn’t a straight line.  My partner graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in anthropology. Now she is Alaska’s first and only paraplegic aircraft mechanic.  My undergraduate degree is in psychology, and I have a Master of Divinity degree, but my driving passions are sustainable food and agriculture.
• Every person matters.  You may be an unemployed former Presbyterian minister whose daily tasks include feeding an airplane mechanic and walking the dog, and still the University of Michigan will ask you to speak at graduation.

I believe these two things.  I believe that whatever I find myself doing in five years, whether it be in the pulpit, the kitchen, or the barn, every swooping detour of my life will have been important.  And I believe each one of us influences this organic, interdependent world in which we live; a few weeks back something I posted here prompted a fellow blogger to take the leap and buy a new range, which will have innumerable repercussions in her life–to say nothing of the surprising actions it might prompt in her readers.  We may not be asked to speak at graduation, but we matter.

Whew.  What an intense way to start the day.  Now that I’ve written it out of my system, I can take a deep breath, look around, and begin to acclimate back to life here in Girdwood.

The Bearded Egg

It’s a well-known fact among my partner’s family that I don’t need recreational drugs.  My quirky brain takes care of that all by itself, thank you.  Add jet lag, sleep deprivation, and good company, and my mind visits some pretty strange places.

Late at night during one visit home to Michigan all these factors gave birth to the theory of the Bearded Egg.

We were sitting at the kitchen table, playing an interminable game of hand-and-foot.

Somehow, the conversation turned to religion.  My partner’s sister was stunned to discover that I no longer believed in God.

I tried to explain that I don’t believe in a single, unified intelligence that controls everything.  I described this intelligence as a giant egg.

I talked about the patriarchal God that springs to mind for many of us when we hear the word “God”:  the bearded old man in the sky.

And by the end of a conversation filled with a great deal of laughter, she understood that the God I don’t believe in is a Bearded Egg.  To this day, “the Bearded Egg” has become our family’s version of what others have called the Flying Spaghetti Monster.