Dear Rocky Mountain Mission Center:
Below is a letter from DeziRae Astle who has served the Mission Center with love and passion for the past 10 years. I am sending it out on her behalf. Last week I sent out a letter explaining the decision DeziRae and I came to, regarding her employment. Pastors will receive more information about the state of the Mission Center on May 3. Please keep DeziRae, her family, the Mission Center and church leadership in your prayers during this time of transition.
Friends,
It is with a deep sadness and also deep hope that I write to you for the last time. As you may have heard by now I have served my last day of employment with Community of Christ. In talking with some of you I know that a question many of you have is, what will I do now?
Over the summer months I will be farming full time in my backyard, the empty lot next to my house and two community plots at McMeen (the elementary school where Peacemakers continues and where I hope to work next Fall). I have a space at the Cherry Creek Farmers Market on Saturday mornings from 8 am – 1 pm, come visit! I have applied for a permit to have a produce stand, sun up to sun down, in my yard. I will approach several restaurants in late June hoping to acquire one or two as weekly clients. I am also considering the possibility of installing backyard gardens for others and have a more distant hope of opening a food truck that brings local, organic produce to neighborhoods that don’t have access to any.
If you have ever talked with me at length you have heard me talk about my dream for a sustainable farming community. As I have done more and more research on our food distribution system it’s become clear that small scale farming needs to be happening in the cities where the largest populations of people are. Here is some of what I’ve learned: Most of our food travels thousands of miles causing unnecessary stress and strain on our environment. There are areas in cities called food deserts where a single grocery store cannot be found for miles and miles. Approximately 10 corporations control the vast majority of what the world eats and most of us have lost touch with what we are eating. The earth’s population has just pushed past 7 billion, millions are dying of hunger related causes every year and the earth too is beginning to struggle for life. Its obvious something must change and I’m starting in my own backyard.
My passion for gardening and sustainability grew out of my ministry in the areas of hunger, poverty and environmental justice. I’ve spent the last 10 years in mission center ministry with children, youth and adults of all ages educating, acting, praying and inspiring change for a world without hunger, poverty and unnecessary destruction of the earth. It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost 20 years since the very first time I hosted a Bread for the World Offering of Letters at Greenwood. This act of letter writing in worship was challenging to some and inspiring to many. Some left uncomfortable with idea of unjust social issues being directly addressed in worship and others left feeling like they had truly done something to care for the poor and hungry as Christ would have. In the years since, Greenwood has held a yearly Offering of Letters and Bread for the World received the Community of Christ’s International Peace Award in 2014. It was through the Offering of Letters, the Hunger Challenge and Street Retreat that I discovered backyard farming and sustainable living as simple solutions for huge problems. And so in a way, the answer is I will continue to do what I have been doing: feed sheep.
People have also asked me, what will the church do now? We have lost hundreds of employees and a monetary resource we thought would last us much, much longer than it did. These are not things the early church had or needed to be the church. And so I suggest now is the time, if there ever was a time, to find a new-old way of being the church. Just as a resurgence of backyard farming is needed in the world so is a resurgence of authentic Christian community that centers around bread broken and shared, spiritual practices and social justice lived out in unique mission. If you think these things are difficult then ask yourself these simple questions: How is my belly doing? How is my soul doing? How is the soul and belly of my neighbor?
Like gardeners we must tend to our souls with spiritual practices that dig deep into our vulnerabilities, connect our communities, transform our hearts and inspire us to mission. We cannot remain fearful of spiritual and communal transformation. We have to go through this, we have to let go of what we have been to become what we are meant to be. It’s scary! Change always is. But we must trust that God is out there leading the way. To focus on saving or growing the church neglects the mission of Christ. We trick ourselves into thinking that we are in charge, that this program or that ministry will be the thing to “bring us back to the good old days”. The days will be good again my friends when we abolish poverty and end unnecessary suffering. The days will be good again when we pursue peace on earth. These sound like huge tasks and yet Christ still calls us to “feed my sheep” and to “do even greater things than this”. We will find a new-old way of being the church in the world, we will feed sheep, we will do even greater things… or we will not. The choice is ours and the questions are easy: How is my belly? How is my soul? How is the soul and belly of my neighbor? Trust God and take the next faithful step forward.
I have been so honored, so blessed and so transformed by this work. Serving alongside each of you has been one of the greatest privileges in my life. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for being on this journey with me and for trusting me to lead in the mission center. My relationships and interactions with so many of you is what inspired me and gave me hope for the future, the kind of future God would dream for us. I will continue to write letters as I grow my gardens, in the hopes that with each completed letter and every harvest that our world will come a little closer to being free of hunger, poverty and environmental degradation. This is my prayer… with every word, with every seed… may it be so. Amen.
With all my love, DeziRae
“There are people in the world so hungry that God cannot come to them except in the form of bread.” – Mahatma Gandhi
“Seeking the face of God in everything, everyone, all the time, to see God’s hand in every happening. This is what it means to be contemplative in the heart of the world. Seeing and adoring the presence of Jesus, especially in the lowly appearance of bread, and in the distressing disguise of the poor.” – Mother Teresa
“When your willingness to live in sacred community as Christ’s new creation exceeds your natural fear of spiritual and relational transformation, you will become who you are called to be. The rise of Zion the beautiful, the peaceful reign of Christ, awaits your whole-hearted response to the call to make and steadfastly hold to God’s covenant of peace in Jesus Christ.”
– Stephen Veazey, Community of Christ