Growing up Southern Baptist in West Virginia in the 1990s and early 2000s, Anna Rollins heard one message clearly: Your body is a liability. Like many evangelical Christian women raised at a time when secular America became consumed with diet culture and evangelicalism sought to control young women through purity culture, Rollins tried to transcend her body altogether, restricting her eating and exercising obsessively.
This year I’m wondering if gratitude is more about my eyes. Is gratitude about seeing the things around us in a more generous lens?
As we approach Thanksgiving, I am mindful that the “first thanksgiving” meal in 1621 was a hunted harvest feast. Reports are that colonists hunted wild turkey for the celebration, and Wampanoag hunters brought five deer. Hunting was essential to survival.
Mennonite Central Committee meat canners started the 2025-26 canning season in October with strong motivation.
While Joyfield Farm isn’t unique, we are countercultural. Are you part of this counterculture, too? It’s simple. Be willing to need someone.
Did you know that the pumpkins we decorate our porches with are a significant contribution to climate change? Landfills are the third greatest producer of methane, and the majority of pumpkins end up in the landfill, rotting into methane and leachate.
The benefits of sunflowers in our lives are many. They attract bees, butterflies, and birds; they enhance soil; they provide food for us and wildlife. Did I mention they are beautiful?!
The Bible contains over 3,100 unique, named characters. And we get intriguing stories about unnamed characters, too.
