Making Compost on Zoom
10th of January
Part of the life of Hazelnut Community is a monthly creative service called Nomad. It is our aim to blog about each one as a template for a time of Christian worship connecting with nature. Over time, we hope our website becomes full of ideas and resources that you can use. Please do email us with any questions or feedback.
Summary
With yet another national lockdown, we were disappointed to not be meeting in person, but once again adapted things to have a fun, interactive session on Zoom, in which we could still get our hands mucky.
We were delighted to have people from all over, not just Bristol, which is certainly a bonus when meeting online.
The primary activity was to make or at least start making indoor compost. Yes, you read that right. While compost is usually an outdoor endeavor, tucked away in the back corner of the garden (if you are lucky enough to have one), we wanted to experiment with making some indoors and using no specialist or bought materials. We obviously can’t make tons of it, and the purpose of the exercise was not so much to provide us lots of useful compost (although we hope to use the little tubs and boxes we all make for potting some plants in a few months, or for mulching the community garden raised beds). The main purpose of this exercise was to pause and wonder at the miraculous and utterly crucial processes and microorganisms that are responsible for breaking down organic matter to turn it into useful soil, upon which our lives are totally dependant.
We decided to do this, not only to marvel at amazing soil, but also as a way of reflecting on the year that has passed and to think ahead with hope to the future. Our aim was to compare the cycles of change, death and decay through to new life and growth in both the natural patterns of the world and also our lives.
Before the event
Ahead of the Sunday we shared this image on social media in order to spark people’s interest and let them know what they would need. In short, people only needed a decent sized sealable tub, some ‘green’ ingredients (like veg scraps, green grass or leaves, etc.) and some ‘brown’ materials (mostly paper and cardboard raided from the recycling, but also things like brown leaves). This meant everyone could join in, and those who hadn’t gathered them in advance, could conceivably do so quickly during the session.
During the Session
The session lasted just over an hour. During most of this, the people joining were actively making their compost, while listening, watching, or interacting at the same time. The activity was designed to be all-age friendly, though in the end we only had two children and lots of adults!
Introduction
The first ten minutes, we spent introducing ourselves and sharing where we were from. With so many visitors and new faces to our Nomads, this not only helps everyone feel welcome, but lets us get to know a little bit about who’s joining us and how they found out about Hazelnut Community.
I (Luke) then introduced the theme and activity briefly, showing again the slide of what we needed. Immediately after, we watched a short and brilliant video from The Royal Society on the miracle of soil, which gave a chance for those who didn’t have what they needed to go and gather it.
Activity: Recycling 2020
The first activity gave us a chance to reflect upon the year that had just passed. If not doing it around new years, this could still be good to reflect on things in our lives that have had a big impact, good or bad.
Each person raided their recycling bin for some cardboard or paper with enough room to write or draw on. I invited everyone to put down significant things from 2020 that came to mind. This was quite open, and could have been good, bad, ugly, or out there!
We listened to a great song by Gungor as we did this, which encapsulated some of what we were going to go on to think about.
When the video ended, I asked if anyone wanted to share, making clear there was no pressure as some of it may have been very personal. Wonderfully, numerous people wanted to share. This included pictures people had drawn, specific incidents, broad issues (like Covid!), and surprises and hind-sight reflections that had occurred during the time of reflection.
Tear it up
By this point, we were about 25 minutes into the session. This is where we started making the compost.
Shredding up the ingredients speeds up decomposition by maximizing surface area for all the microbes that would take up home in our tubs. It also gave an easy and tactile activity for everyone to be doing throughout.
We began by tearing up the paper or cardboard we have written or drawn on, to symbolize the way in which the events of our past, whatever they were, can contribute to the soil in which our future grows. Even the difficult or terrible things are able to be recycled/composted into fertile soil.
I briefly spoke about the significance of ‘brown’ carbon ingredients in the compost, particularly the way in which it helps balance the moisture level of our compost and introduce air so that we get good, quick aerobic decomposition rather than smelly and slow anaerobic rotting. (There are loads of brilliant videos on composting online if you want to learn more about the scientific process!)
Reflection Part 1: Genesis, Dust, and Death
While people were tearing up their brown materials and adding them to the container, I shared a brief reflection on the Genesis 2 creation account, which talks of humanity being formed from the dust. This doesn’t need to be understood ‘scientifically’ to still have a lot of truth about humanity and their relationship with the rest of creation.
The reflection considered our ‘creaturely’ nature. We are creations, like the other animals or the plants, made by God, in a world with rhythms and patterns that God had designed to sustain us and let us flourish.
I then considered how Genesis 3 paints a picture of humanity’s endemic dissatisfaction, particularly thinking about the less joyful words in Genesis 3:17b-19. The curse is the consequence of humanities desire to ‘be like God’, to do without him, taking our own fate into our hands and entering into a lifestyle of self-centered domination, rather than the gentle God-focused trust that let humanity live in harmony with the rest of God’s creation. The picture of opposition, turmoil, and strain is so visible in the way humanity has interacted with the world over the millennia, and shockingly apparent in the climate crisis of our times. And yet despite our striving for domination and control, our attempts to be God, not a part of creation, we are still only dust, and nothing we can do will prevent us returning to dust when we too die and decompose.
Green Ingredients
Leaving the reflection on a bit of a cliffhanger (I let them know things would become more hopeful!) we moved into the second stage of the composting activity.
After comparing our tubs of shredded brown material (we were aiming for about half full, we began shredding and adding our green materials. For most people, this was the uncooked contents of the kitchen food caddy.
Reflection 2: Romans, Jesus and New Life
We were around 35 minutes into the session by this point.
I asked someone to read Romans 5:1-5 (on Zoom it’s great to get some other voices speaking!) I then reflected upon the moves that this chapter makes from death to life, because of Jesus, focusing on these verses. The wider chapter makes some amazing comparisons between Adam and Jesus, but I particularly looked at the way in which problems and trials can be transformed into endurance, then strength of character, then confident hope. The cycle of our compost mirrors a reality that can happen in our own lives.
I noted how the move in Genesis to take our lives entirely into our own hands, to be like God and seek independence from him and the rest of creation is reversed here. The peace comes because of what God did in Christ. The hope of salvation is not in ourselves and our efforts, but in God’s great love.
Compare boxes and add the magic ingredient
After the reflection, we compared our boxes, now half full of brown ingredients, and then topped up near to the brim with green materials. We mixed them up with our hands and added the special ingredient that would turn this mess of recycling and food scraps into gorgeous compost. It’s a remarkable ingredient with more living organisms in it than there are human beings on the planet and is totally free: a cup of garden soil.
The soil is the starter, containing all the living organisms needed to start breaking down the materials in our tubs (I had already compared this to Jesus in the reflection). It’s a bit like the yeast in bread, and this is really what the composting experiment is all about. Providing a place for these microorganisms to multiple and thrive somewhere that we could appreciate and see what they are doing.
Prayers
With about 15 minutes left, we moved into a time of contemplation and prayer, led by two other members of our regular group. They read various reflective prayers shaped around composting themes while we played a video of worms vermicomposting scraps in time-lapse (strangely mesmerizing and with lots of options to choose from on youtube!)
This allowed anyone who hadn’t finished their compost to keep going.
We concluded our prayers by saying aloud (on mute except for me to avoid a cacophony) the Lord’s prayer and the Hazelnut prayer written by one of our members which we use every week together:
How to care for your compost
To finish, I offered a few tips on how to care for the compost we had made.
⁃ Give it a turn or shake at least once a day (I keep it in my hall and turn it every now and again when I walk past)
⁃ Open the lid every few days to let in fresh air
⁃ Once a week, give it a more thorough turn and mix with a fork, breaking up any dense lumps.
⁃ Keep it sealed the rest of the time and you will have no problem with flies or smell. Even when open, mine smells nice and earthy rather than foul and rotting
⁃ If it’s smelly and wet, there’s not enough oxygen and it’s turning anaerobic. Add some more brown materials (egg boxes are great).
⁃ If it’s dry and fibrous, add a little bit of water or some fresh kitchen scraps (though try not to add new material long after the first week, or it will take much longer).
⁃ I keep mine on a radiator, the bacteria quite likes it hot. In a big compost heap, things heat up considerably. In a small box, there is not the mass, so sitting on a radiator brings it up to a more desirable temperature. If the box isn’t completely airtight, this could dry out your compost. If it is airtight, you might have to turn more regularly so the bottom (near the heat) doesn’t dry out.
I haven’t found anyone else who has done compost in this way, but after three and a bit weeks (I started one early) there’s plenty of breakdown of my compost. I reckon after two months it would be suitable for mulching, and maybe a month or so after that be suitable for adding to a potting mix.
What worked
People seemed to appreciate having something physical to do, unusual for Zoom things. Keeping it to an hour was also appreciated due to the ‘Zoom fatigue’ many people are experiencing. People seemed able to follow along and I can’t wait to see how the various compost containers work out!
What did we learn
In hindsight, I think having more people speaking might mix things up and be less pressure on the leader. Leading the activity and reflection felt like a lot of my voice, slightly nerve-wracking with the silence of zoom in return (people muted to help clarity). I think a few more chances for others to speak would have been good. Each time there was an opportunity, people contributed some really meaningful and thought provoking things.
I also learned that many parents (I’m not one) have been struggling to keep their children in front of screens for school all week, so the thought of doing it again for Sunday was a challenge (hence the large majority of adults!) Thankfully the activity truly was all age, in that even with few children, adults enjoyed the making process and engaged well with the content.
Luke Aylen
