Edible Jersey Spring 2011 : Page 21

GREEN HOUSE A NATURAL CALLING I n the winter of 2011, I find myself sitting in the comfortable living room of the Genesis Farm farmhouse, drinking tea and listening to Sister Miriam share her story. Above me, the bookshelves are lined with titles like Miracle Planet, Fatal Harvest, and Faith in a Seed. In a bas-ket next to the coffee table is a copy of The Catholic Spirit newspaper. It was in this same room, more than 20 years ago, that dozens of peo-ple gathered to plan New Jersey’s first community-supported agriculture (CSA) group. From the beginning, Genesis Farm has been a place defined by alter-native models. It is a farm, turned into an ecological learning center, led by a nun, who is determined to do all she can to stem the tide of mankind’s environmental destruction. “The whole point of what we’re trying to do here is, we’re ordinary people waking up to a planet in crisis,” Sister Miriam says. “What can we and other ordinary people do to try to understand what’s going on? And to try to change it?” At Blairstown’s Genesis Farm, religion meets the soil. Sister Miriam MacGillis looks to heaven and earth for a more sustainable future. BY JARED FLESHER Sister Miriam Therese MacGillis is a Catholic nun of the Dominican Order, which is famed for its intellectual tradition. One of her contribu-tions to this legacy is the founding of Genesis Farm, in Blairstown, a learning center in which people of all faiths are invited to contemplate the mysteries of nature and creation. The farm hosts retreats devoted to philosophical subjects like “Earth Literacy,” as well as classes in more tangible pursuits like gardening, foraging, cooking, food preservation, solar energy and straw-bale construction. The story of Genesis Farm begins in 1978, when the Dominican Sisters of Caldwell, N.J., received an unexpected gift—140 acres of farmland, located ten miles from the Delaware Water Gap, willed to them by a family with which they had no prior association. “Blairstown was like the end of the world to us, because we were very urban-oriented,” Sister Miriam says. “Our motherhouse is in Caldwell, in Essex County. We were, traditionally, teachers in grammar schools and high schools all throughout the area. It didn’t seem like a match that made any sense.” The nun’s leadership council sent out a call for proposals for what to do with this gift of good land. Sister Miriam, Sister Jeanne Goyette, and a young couple they were friends with, Elizabeth and Vincent McMahon, came up with the idea for a reflection center focused on grappling with the weighty environmental issues of our time. “The ecological crisis was extremely high on everyone’s antenna,” Sister Miriam says. The 1960s had seen the publication of the book Silent Spring and the awakening of a global environmental movement. The 1970s saw the first Earth Day; a world food crisis that led to starvation in Africa, Asia and Latin America; and the rapid expansion of industrialized agriculture in the United States and around the globe. The nuns said yes, and Genesis Farm was born. It opened its barn doors—that’s where the first classes were held—in May of 1980. Sister Miriam, now 70 years old, has been its director for three decades. One point of occasional confusion surrounding Genesis Farm con-cerns its name. “Genesis Farm” refers to the environmental learning cen-ter sponsored by the Sisters of St. Dominic in Caldwell. If you’ve come edible jersey spring 2011 R Photographs: Jared Flesher 21

Green House

Jared Flesher

A Natural Calling At Blairstown's Genesis Farm, religion meets the soil. Sister Miriam MacGillis looks to heaven and earth for a more sustainable future. In the winter of 2011, I find myself sitting in the comfortable living room of the Genesis Farm farmhouse, drinking tea and listening to Sister Miriam share her story. Above me, the bookshelves are lined with titles like Miracle Planet, Fatal Harvest, and Faith in a Seed. In a basket next to the coffee table is a copy of The Catholic Spirit newspaper. It was in this same room, more than 20 years ago, that dozens of people gathered to plan New Jersey's first community-supported agriculture (CSA) group. From the beginning, Genesis Farm has been a place defined by alternative models. It is a farm, turned into an ecological learning center, led by a nun, who is determined to do all she can to stem the tide of mankind's environmental destruction. "The whole point of what we're trying to do here is, we're ordinary people waking up to a planet in crisis," Sister Miriam says. "What can we and other ordinary people do to try to understand what's going on? And to try to change it?" Sister Miriam Therese MacGillis is a Catholic nun of the Dominican Order, which is famed for its intellectual tradition. One of her contributions to this legacy is the founding of Genesis Farm, in Blairstown, a learning center in which people of all faiths are invited to contemplate the mysteries of nature and creation. The farm hosts retreats devoted to philosophical subjects like "Earth Literacy," as well as classes in more tangible pursuits like gardening, foraging, cooking, food preservation, solar energy and straw-bale construction. The story of Genesis Farm begins in 1978, when the Dominican Sisters of Caldwell, N.J., received an unexpected gift–140 acres of farmland, located ten miles from the Delaware Water Gap, willed to them by a family with which they had no prior association. "Blairstown was like the end of the world to us, because we were very urban-oriented," Sister Miriam says. "Our motherhouse is in Caldwell, in Essex County. We were, traditionally, teachers in grammar schools and high schools all throughout the area. It didn't seem like a match that made any sense." The nun's leadership council sent out a call for proposals for what to do with this gift of good land. Sister Miriam, Sister Jeanne Goyette, and a young couple they were friends with, Elizabeth and Vincent McMahon, came up with the idea for a reflection center focused on grappling with the weighty environmental issues of our time. "The ecological crisis was extremely high on everyone's antenna," Sister Miriam says. The 1960s had seen the publication of the book Silent Spring and the awakening of a global environmental movement. The 1970s saw the first Earth Day; a world food crisis that led to starvation in Africa, Asia and Latin America; and the rapid expansion of industrialized agriculture in the United States and around the globe. The nuns said yes, and Genesis Farm was born. It opened its barn doors–that's where the first classes were held–in May of 1980. Sister Miriam, now 70 years old, has been its director for three decades. One point of occasional confusion surrounding Genesis Farm concerns its name. "Genesis Farm" refers to the environmental learning center sponsored by the Sisters of St. Dominic in Caldwell. If you've come to this place in search of fresh vegetables, it's the "Community Supported Garden at Genesis Farm" you're looking for, an independent though affiliated operation. It's just up the hill. Sister Miriam was instrumental in the creation of the Community Supported Garden, as was a Swiss farmer named Heinz Thomet. Thomet arrived in Blairstown in 1984, bringing with him the teachings of biodynamic agriculture. Biodynamic farmers view their farms as living organisms in which everything is interconnected– a philosophy that fits in very well at Genesis. Thomet established the first market garden at Genesis Farm shortly after his arrival. He and the nuns started selling vegetables to the public, and soon realized how difficult it was to compete with the low prices of the local A&P. Then, in 1986, a documentary film called It's Not Just About Vegetables gave them a different idea to consider: community-supported agriculture. CSAs function like a Wall Street investment with a variable return rate, except that the investment is in a local farm and the dividends are food. CSA members prepay for vegetables (and often other farm produce) at the beginning of the year and then receive a share of the weekly harvest all summer long. Good growing seasons means more produce for members, and one way or the other the farmer can count on early season capital and a guaranteed level of income. Sister Miriam used Genesis Farm's mailing list to help organize a meeting to discuss the possibilities of this new agricultural model. "Seventy people showed up, and that's how our CSA got started," she says. In the interest of promoting long-term stability, the nuns of Caldwell granted the Community Supported Garden a 50-year lease on 51 acres, and helped it incorporate as an independent entity. At the time, a religious order sponsoring a farm was somewhat unprecedented, but it's a model that has been successfully repeated in the United States many times since. From its first season in 1988, the Community Supported Garden has expanded to serve more than 300 families. The farm is now run by a team of three farmers–Mike Baki, Smadar English, and Judy Von Handorf–and an ever-changing crew of four apprentices. Educating new farmers has become an important part of the ethos here. "We take the apprenticeship program very seriously," English says. During an apprenticeship, beginning farmers can gain not just knowledge, she explains, but also an understanding of the significance of the work. "There's a certain kind of connection with the land," English says. "It's kind of like a bug that gets you. And if it gets you, it can propel you into farming." Participants in an Earth Literacy course at Genesis Farm are likely to encounter charts of the cosmos, discussions of geological timescales, and weighty questions about what it means to be human. But in the end, the message is a simple one: "If the Earth goes down, you go down with it." In the span of just a few thousands years, teaches Sister Miriam, humans have polluted the waters, altered the global climate and driven countless species to extinction. A big part of the problem, she says, is that all along industrialized Western civilization has believed the wrong story–the one in which we can take anything we want from the Earth without any bad consequences. At Genesis Farm, people come to learn an alternative cosmology–one based on the interconnectedness of all life–and then talk about what can be done to confront an ecological crisis that isn't going away. Sister Miriam calls the hard work ahead "the greatest spiritual quest any generation has ever been asked to take." The learning center and its charismatic leader have become known not only for this kind of eco-spiritualism, but also for inspiring grassroots action–locally and internationally. In 2001, Genesis Farm started the Foodshed Alliance, a nonprofit with a broad mission to support local farmers in northwestern New Jersey. Sister Miriam has traveled the world delivering her environmental sermon. In 2007 Grist magazine named her on its list of the world's top "green religious leaders." One of the newest courses taught at Genesis Farm is called "The Transition Movement." It is based on the idea that with cheap oil running out and current industrial practices unsustainable, communities will need to rely on themselves for survival. Transition organizers teach that food and energy production will need to become increasingly localized and decentralized. The Transition movement began in 2005 in Ireland and England and has spread to more than 350 communities around the world, including 79 in the United States. In Sussex County, Newton became New Jersey's first official Transition Initiative in December 2010. "Transition Newton" started after a group of residents attended workshops at Genesis Farm and decided to put what they learned into practice. Sister Miriam sees the Transition movement as a natural complement to the work Genesis Farm has been doing all along. It's about planning for a future in which communities can look to themselves for food, energy and economic stability. "The term they use in the Transition movement is 'community resilience,'" she says. "We'll need all the wisdom that's in the elders, and the church people, and the firemen, and the kids, and the teenagers. We need everybody now to say, 'How are we going to depend on each other and the place where we live?'" GENESIS FARM, 41A Silver Lake Road, Blairstown 908-362-6735, genesisfarm.org. See related story, page 54.

Previous Page Next Page

Publication List