One True Pants: Anniversary and Wake

bowed headWe’ve done it. The process has taken every bit of tensile strength OTP could muster. But the day has come. It’s official. OneTruePants are dead. Long live OneTruePants.

At midnight tonight it will have been 365 days that the same pair of hemp pants have adorned my blessed lower half. (Heroic music begins as OTP montage rolls.) We’ve had some great times together, and nothing less than the glory of the afterlife will be able to fill the drafty emptiness OTP will leave behind (in all our hearts). But the pants are truly spent.

Through summer heat, winter chill, dirty diapers, spit-up, diarrhea, dog bite, roofing, demolition, wine, chocolate, chili and BBQ, dancing, laughing, crying, two weddings and a funeral, my one true pants have been my rod and my comforter (wait, that sounds familiar). [Read more...]

A Christian Novelist and his Reefer?

reefer madness movie posterWould a writer who espouses the Christian worldview and embraces the teachings of Jesus the Christ as recorded in his “Sermon on the Mount” endeavor to write, not just one, but an entire series of fictional stories pertaining to the plant scientifically known as cannabis? In the eternal words of Reverend Lovejoy (from the Simpsons), “short answer, yes with an if. Long answer, no with a but.”

Since hatching the concept of Reeferpunk as the bread and butter of my writing career a year ago, I’ve received my share of rolled eyes and furrowed brows. Mind you, most people I know have become so immune to my brand of insanity that even an announcement of moving to Australia to farm kangaroos wouldn’t warrant a quizzical look. But writing a series of alternate history novels dealing with marijuana? After working as a campus pastor for the last thirteen years?

Usually the next question is in regards to the name or whereabouts of my dealer. [Read more...]

Hempcrete: The Building Block for a Hempier Future

hempcreteSustainable building is an albatross for a world stranded in the sea of global warming.  So many of our resources are tied up in the construction, maintenance and operation of dwellings.  And all too often these dwellings have been seen as our combative ways to keep the outside world at bay.  Nature, a pox on thee!

The good news is that there are more and more people out there bringing the inside world into closer harmony with the outside world.  Ooam.  Ooam.  No, I don’t mean by focusing your chi or by feng shui or anything hocus pocus.  I simply mean it is time to start making homes out of our surroundings instead of trying to separate our homes from our surroundings.  It is so much more considerate and less huffy. [Read more...]

Roaming the Rocky Mountains with a Loincloth and iPod

loincloth2

[dropcap2]W[/dropcap2]ell… not exactly, but I will be quite a ways from any sort of civilized mode of communication beyond smoke signals and a sharp poke in the eye.  Not to fear, I feel it time to finally bring up the little matter of the wonder plant, hemp, when I return.

For now I leave you to ponder the ultimate sustainability in clothing… the loincloth.  But wait.  It gets even better.  A loincloth made from hemp.  You heard it here first.[divider]

If you ain’t gonna’ go naked, hemp’s the next best thing!