My Mission Is a Better Community

My Mission Is a Better Community

My Mission Is a Better Community. That is what Grow, Maintain, Sustain, Explain (my actual mission) really means. It means learning and changing, evolving, and in general — where possible — making life better for others.

I originally posted this as a larger blog that included my thoughts on failure, but I decided to split that out. You can see it here.

When I started Mezzacello I KNEW I knew NOTHING. What I was surprised by was that even in my ignorance I was better off than most of the kids I had met. Especially the kids in the inner city who had neither access to gardens, curiosity, or courage to try.

I live in a community that is in a densely populated urban part of town. In Olde Towne East in downtown Columbus, Ohio gardens were anomalous and scattered and a FARM was a ridiculous fancy. But I had faith.

I knew the secret weapon here was going to be curiosity and wonder.

Jim Bruner

I knew the secret weapon here was going to be curiosity and wonder. Learning is a skill, and by learning more, we learn faster, usually. I was committed to learning was faster by adapting and failing faster.

Bioreactors and the Community Reaction

Well, back to community and mission. I decided three years ago I was going to fail forward into composting as a bioscience project. I studied, I experimented, collected materials, built formidable machines, and systems, and ended up covered in pre-digested bioreactor material — twice, thanks again to the Ohio Farm Bureau Foundation and the PAST Foundation.

Learning and Growing

In the case of the bioreactor, my failure the first time was in fluid dynamics and the second time in pipe fittings. My neighbors and friends were confounded in what I was trying to do here. Why would you design something that was so prone to fail?

Which brings me to my last point of this blog post; you can’t build a community without people, ideas, good deeds, and work. A community is a garden, it must be tended and you must suffer the occasional loss and disappointment.

Train yourself to think of these experiences. Record them, reflect on them, share them. These are not failures, they are marks on a wall signifying growth.

Growth chart

Growth is the true heart of any garden, community, friendship, and indeed, humanity itself. No one says, I do not think I should grow anymore. What they say is, I want to be in control of that growth, with no surprises, and that is NOT how this game works.


Mezzacello and the Harvesting of Gratitude

Mezzacello and the Harvesting of Gratitude

When you have more than you need, but it still doesn’t seem enough; recenter yourself.

Today is 11/24/2021. It’s the day before Thanksgiving here in the US, and I am filled with ennui. It’s not that it’s a dark day, or bad things have happened. Quite the opposite, actually. Today is the day to realize the need to reflect on Mezzacello and the harvesting of gratitude. Harvesting gratitude? What does that mean?

2021 was the most amazing summer. The year was spent working with kids and experimenting. There were many great successes – and failures – in my gardens and in the people I worked with. I won a spot in my city’s Top 50 most influential futurists. The farm’s systems are more sophisticated and effective than ever. Things are great, but still I feel like I am not enough. I was lacking dignity and grace.

Grace, Dignity and Purpose

My problem is – put very simply: I do not know how to be enough for myself.

I spend way too much time comparing and resolving to be “better tomorrow than today” that I take precious little time to reflect on the change I am and what else I have done. I am terrified of being caught sleeping on the job, or resting on my laurels. And like all artists, when I look at my work, I am only able to see WHAT ELSE I should have done and not what I actually did.

Jim

The Meta Modern Plague

This in a nutshell is the meta modern plague. Meta Modernism is a new concept; it was coined by a barkeep at Harvest Pizza one night spent having cocktails with my friends. Meta Modernism in short is this:

We have to compete not just with our hopes and fears but also with our reputation — and our legacy. So one must resolve to spend “today “as an attempt to make a tomorrow’s meaning thankful, gracious and kind. Kindness is what the world needs more of. It is such an easy feast.

Show Up for People

A dear friend of mine sent me a lovely note out of the blue a few months back and a small gift. I was caught off guard because I was feeling so much stress about getting Mezzacello closed and ready to sleep through the winter. I wanted to give tours, but I was paralyzed by feelings of stubborn – and stupid inadequacy. Here is a picture of the book my friend sent;

The Boy, The Mole, The Fox, and the Horse

This was a literal breath of fresh air for me. I was exhausted, conflicted and struggling. This summer I was diagnosed with a condition that overwhelmed me and filled me with relief. It was an explanation why everything seems so jumbled and important and ridiculous all at once. My friends already knew, but as usual, I was late to the party. That’s where kindness comes in.

Running #UrbanAgTech summer camp was a transformational opportunity this summer to be sure, but this tiny little gesture of kindness and grace made everything fit together. I could see the whole and the puzzle was complete.

Be Thankful and be the Gratitude in Someone Else’s Day

So this post is about more than Autumn or the hard winter, or the Thanksgiving Holiday or even your own self. Just as the trees shed their leaves, this season is about unloading the nonsense that you don’t need anymore. The one benefit to being a tree is that the DNA of the tree knows when to transform; but humans, we need a reason.

If change is the one constant in this universe, then be the change. More importantly, be grateful for the opportunity to face any obstacle; Name it and change it. If you see others that can’t make that leap of faith, then offer your hand. There is no shame in kindness, and there is no weakness in vulnerability.

We are so afraid or stuck in our notion of what OTHERS think, or that we are not ENOUGH for others, that we forget to ask ourselves, are we enough for US right now? I feel like I am. I will tamp down the #NotEnough raging fire; and I will feed the lamp that lights my way forward instead. Gratitude is light. It is a form of vulnerability, and it births only love, grace and wisdom. Be wise enough to want to change for yourself. Thank you to you all.