Fruitful Living

 Fruitful Living

Sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Curt Karns
at Utqiagvik Presbyterian Church
1265 Agvik St, Utqiagvik, AK 99723
April 28, 2024



Fruitful Living 













Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

07 14 11 Why This Blog?

Image
There is a method to my writing, although I don’t follow it with great discipline. My writing tries to combine the passion and experience of living in a bioshelter home with the principles of permaculture and the theology of the Christian faith tradition. My Christian reflections are certainly biblical, but have also been heavily influenced by German theologian Jürgen Moltmann’s writing, especially in his book God in Creation ( God in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God. Harper and Row, 1985). Reading his book was life-giving to me. Unfortunately, Moltma nn’s writings are largely impenetrable to the average reader, filled with philosophical and theological jargon that is difficult for the lay-person to unpack. Although I read and understood much in his writing, allowing the new thought to take form in my life—that is an integrating sense of living and understanding—has proven to be hard work. It would be easy to read his book and walk awa...
Read more

Offering One's Self

Image
I am scheduled to spend the next week in the village of Kaktovik, located on the Beaufort Sea in the far, northeast corner of Alaska.   The first time I visited Kaktovik was in 1978, when I was serving as Lay Pastor of a multi-cultural church in Fairbanks.   They asked me to spend five weeks in Kaktovik, leading Vacation Bible School, leading worship services, and learning from the saints who live there.   I have had occasion to visit Kaktovik off and on ever since. Over the years I have found that my Christian outlook has been deeply affected by the teaching I have received from the Native American folks in Alaska’s churches.   The teaching sometimes comes through word and sometimes through actions, but always through relationships.   Over the years I continue to work with people from the villages, and I continue to be privileged to listen, to meditate, and to learn.   In fact, much of my understanding of why we live the way we do in the bi...
Read more

06 02 11 Rediscovering Enjoyment

Image
We hadn’t lived in our bioshelter home very long before Cindee began teaching me about permaculture. In brief, permaculture is about a way of life where the land feeds the people, the people tend the garden in a way where gardening feeds the land without chemical fertilizers (more on this later—but some plants actually build up and feed t he soil, even while producing food), and where the waste from each process of life on the land becomes the resource for feeding something else. In short, it becomes a more-or-less self-sustaining system t hat cares for itself with relatively little labor on the part of the people. From my perspec tive the problem of permaculture is that it takes time to develop the plants and the land. This is especially true for us, because we had more than pure permaculture in mind. We are both allergic to cottonwoods, and our whole 1.9 acres is a cottonwood grove. Why not replace the cottonwoods with berries and fruit trees? We need some paths to go...
Read more