Ruminations

The Farmer Waits

2011-06-14T07:41:00.002-04:00

When I read the Christian Bible, I am often struck by a turn of phrase that stirs an image that rings true in my experience. "Skip like a calf" from Psalm 29 does this for me, reminding me of calves turned into lush spring pasture from a muddy barn lot: yes, they actually skip and twirl to express their delight.

The phrase from James 5:7, "the farmer waits," has been on my mind. The writer of James is highlighting and promoting patience.

Patience is one response to anxiety. It is a choice. A commendable choice.

The circumstances of this past Spring have tested the patience of those of us who do the good work necessary to keep Hawkins Family Farm going. At the top of the list are the circumstances brought by the weather, with its high winds, persistent rains, and extreme variations in temperature. This week we are planting and replanting for the season, a delay in some cases of over a month. For the harvest this year, the farmer waits.

The circumstances also include a season of major farm repairs and other expenses, including the doubling of feed costs, coupled with slower-than-hoped-for sales. For a breakthrough toward a positive cash flow, the farmer waits.

Waiting has its place, as does working. We waited for good weather and the weather of these past days has been glorious--for work and for rest. We waited to plant and sow and now the well-manured and well-watered gardens are nurturing quick seed germination and speedy growth. We waited for customers and the meat and vegetables and pizzas we have sold thus far are being received with high praise for quality.

And so we come to today, another day for the farmer to work and to wait. We'll work hard today, likely planting more peppers and sweet potatoes and cucumbers. We'll feed baby calves and laying hens and chickens and larger cattle. We'll fix stuff that is in need of repair, a never-ending need. We'll prepare to pick up chickens from the butcher tomorrow to be ready to fill orders. We'll get ready to welcome HOPE CSA clergy groups, beginning on Thursday. We'll get veggie shares ready. We'll tackle thistles and other weeds that constantly threaten to get out of hand. We'll look for ways to better market our products. At least, that's what I think will happen today.

We'll wait and see how it goes.

Spring Planting: A Brief Catalogue of Minor Injuries

2011-05-17T22:27:00.001-04:00

by Zach Hawkins, Hawkins Family Farm Garden Manager and 4th generation Hawkins Farmer

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Blister, inside left thumb

They came from someone who knew someone who was just going to throw them away. Twenty blueberry plants means twenty holes in the garden bed by the asparagus and the raspberries, each one fifteen inches deep and fifteen inches across. David and I dug with garden spades, overturning clods suffuse with earthworms. I should have worn gloves, my hands still soft with winter. I didn't even notice the skin pulling loose with the work. Not as the bright plastic tags--green, yellow, and pink--offered new names to turn over on the tongue: Berkeley, Sierra, Bluegold, Bluejay, Bluetta. Not as the masses of roots pulled free from the flimsy nursery pots. Not as I moved the cool earth back into place and the tender twigs held white blossoms to the sky.

Incised wound, left index finger (knuckle)

Nathan Fingerle at RiverRidge Farm carries his harvesting knife in a sheath on his belt and his greenhouse smells like August in the middle of May: tomatoes and basil and heat. He uses the serrated blade to slit the stems of basil, ten to a bundle. I'm used to using scissors but Nathan got me wondering so when I went to harvest the weekly vegetables shares I grabbed a paring knife on my way to the high tunnel. Dad planted the lettuce in January and now it is growing thick and tender and shades and shades of green. The knife was sharp and the harvesting was fast. A bit too sharp; a bit too fast.

First-degree sunburn, neck, arms, and kneecaps

It was a day for the record books--eighty-eight degrees on the eleventh of May--and we went out to plant onions after lunch. David and I put down the black plastic and covered the edges with soil. Kira made the holes and Sarah tucked in the onion sets. I'd cut the sleeves off the shirt the previous summer to confound my perennial farmer's tan, and the jeans blew out at the knees years ago. How the winter stays in the skin, so pale and pallid. Not today. Give me some air. Give me some sun. We are planting for the warm days ahead of us.

From the Town Mouse: A Humorous Take on Farm Life

2011-05-09T15:24:00.014-04:00

by David Moan, Hawkins Family Farm livestock manager and Jeff's son-in-law

---

Having spent half of my life living in Pittsburg, PA, I was never presented with the opportunity for farm experience like I am now receiving as the Hawkins Family Farm livestock manager and resident “Tall Guy”.

My family did have a garden every year. We grew peppers, tomatoes, strawberries, and weeds in garden beds constructed into the hillside using railroad ties, leveling equipment and plenty of child labor (the last of these I am finding to be a common theme in agriculture). Other than the garden, my farm exposure was limited to the annual trip to the pumpkin patch which until recently, I am sad to say, led me to believe all farms were haunted by children in cheap costumes. I know now that is not always the case—some of their costumes are very expensive.

I tell you this to give insight to how I view the farm. I see everything through juvenile eyes. Not literally, of course, I won’t have that surgery for months, but metaphorically approaching everything with a fresh, inquisitive mindset that bring about an array of questions to ponder in the solitude of my work.

This is my first revelation: spring brings about new life. Plants begin to grow, babies are born, and FOX premiers a new line up of shows to be canceled. As livestock manager, I constantly deal with new life, bringing fresh food and water to baby chicks twice daily so they may grow into marketable chickens. But I cannot help but wonder: why? Now the short answer is that Jeff tells me to, but I mean why do we all let bite-sized chickens become king-sized chickens? What prevented our ancestor Lucy from eating baby chicks long enough that she realized that grown up chickens provide more food for she and Ricky?

I think the answer lies in what the Romans called "Factotus Adoribilis", or, the cuteness quotient.

The Universe, whether from Diety, scientific process, or alien overlord, once again saved us from ourselves. It would be hard to look at a chick listening to the little peeps and think, "Lunch." But when peeps become bawks and feather replace fuzziness, adorable transforms to appetizing. And its not limited to chickens. Piglets are so cute we would rather watch them

root around then roast them, that is until they are grown and full of bacon.

This does bring about the question of cats and dogs.

It is obvious that a baby kitten's appearance overrides our Neanderthal instinct to swallow it in one gulp (same thing for puppies, but with more chewing). But when they become cats and dogs, why don't most of us light up the grill? I say most, as not to offend any canine or feline devourers out there. Hi, Eric!

The answer comes from what Temple Grandin describes as the arrested development of domesticated animals, and therefore the retention of infantile characteristics. So when a dog shows excitement by wagging it's tail and licking your face, he is essentially saying "Friend, not food". A kitten's cute purring roughly translates into "Thank you for not eating me."

Although this is merely speculation, I was able to find the below chart from Hawkins Family Farm laboratories to support my theory:

*Note that at a certain point, cuteness becomes so great that it is unavoidable to want to "eat them up."

To conclude, I have been looking at pictures of myself growing up, and I am very thankful this does not apply to humans. Usually.

Sincerely,

the Town Mouse

Do you know your farmer?

2011-04-30T14:25:00.000-04:00

Beyond good food, we local farmers offer other services. Coming to the farm to get your food has significant benefits. Help with "agricultural reality," for example. The need is great:

Chick watching

2011-04-26T22:05:00.003-04:00

No, this post is not the rumination of a dirty old man leering at young women. It's a post by a 56-year old farmer who, as he now tires more readily, is content to sit on a bucket and spend fifteen minutes watching the day- or week-old baby chicks in the brooder, rather than rush off to the next thing that needs to be done. And about how important it is do it.

Truth be told, observation is a strong candidate for the most important thing an "ecological" farmer does in a day.

The reason for this is because the most powerful tool used by such a farmer is, well, ecology--the "logic" of the "eco" (derived from the Greek "oikos" meaning "household.") Nature's wisdom and ways hold the key to farming well. To ask and observe how nature's households work--to wonder at the logic of the household--is to begin to learn how to collaborate with nature and to receive nature's life, health, and vitality.

So, most days, after I feed and water them, I sit on a bucket for a while and watch the baby chicks as they eat, drink, sleep, run, huddle, stretch, play, scratch, and flap. I listen for the quality of their cheeping and peeping. I see how they interact with each other and their environment. And I ask what it may mean about their well being, and what it may mean for me as I try to provide for them.

Farming well, like living well, is not about following formulas. It's about following cues, the ones that nature provides. It's about living as a full participant in a dynamic system, receiving what is being given.

Have you taken fifteen minutes today, just to watch? What did you observe?

I Climbed a Tree

2009-05-20T07:49:00.002-04:00

One of the things I love about my work is that it is widely varied. This week, for example, I find myself leading three educational groups for clergy, planting crops, preaching on Sunday morning, harvesting asparagus, officiating a funeral service, feeding pigs, reading theology, preparing the brooder for 500 new baby chicks, writing for a newsletter, seeking out a source for local pepperoni, tearing down part of an old house to salvage its brick, and...well, you get the idea. But the task that has captured the bulk of my time and attention is building a brick oven. (Beginning in June, Hawkins Family Farm will be offering locally-sourced, wood-fired pizzas each Friday as a revenue source for the HOPE CSA ministry).

As we laid out the oven, we noticed overhanging tree branches that may threaten the finished product. So yesterday evening, I climbed about 30 feet into a tree to cut off branches. As a kid, I really liked climbing trees. As a 54 year old, I still enjoyed it, though I was unprepared for the demands on my body required as I shinnied, twisted, stretched, pulled, scrunched, reached, splayed, wedged, and balanced.

Oh, to be ten again!

On Little Cat Feet

2009-05-06T08:10:00.002-04:00

Carl Sandburg speaks of fog as coming in "on little cat feet," by which he seems to mean suddenly, quietly. One of our black cats, which Sarah named "Buddy," is like that. Sarah chose the name because this cat accompanies us behind the barn to do feeding chores. Each morning and evening I walk out alone and begin my work. Then all at once I feel a presence, and when I look up, I see Buddy, who has arrived on little cat feet, watching, waiting. (Buddy is hoping for a broken egg to eat.)

Other than this, we know little of quiet cats. Spring is the season for kittens being raised in various locations, which we usually discover by listening for noisy kitty cries. Sarah found Josie's kitties on an upper shelf in the truck shed, and has the goal of trying to get them to be human-friendly, but, as you can see from the photo, at least this kitten is not yet convinced.

The First Shorts of the Season

2009-05-04T21:49:00.003-04:00

I've been eager to get early crops in the ground, but the wet weather and cold soil delayed things. So I was delighted to spend today under the May sun in the gardens, wearing old Carharrt shorts and a cut-off tee shirt. Daughter Sarah and I planted four blueberry bushes and five apple trees, and then I spent the greater part of the afternoon working the ground. The soil was slightly damp, but still tilled up nicely, in preparation for a major planting day tomorrow. I am tired tonight, and a little tender from the effect of bright rays on pale, hairless skin (I am always amazed at the way the winter-long rub of long pants removes about half the hair from my legs, which then takes all summer to grow back), but my fatigue feels good nevertheless. I work hard and enjoy what I do. And it is especially rewarding that I have found a way to share this with clergy as a teaching tool toward a more "organic" way of thinking.

So it surprised me today when my mind kept returning to the idea that perhaps I ought to find different employment.

Well, actually, I started to wonder if I ought not try to spend the next five years at a job where I made a real paycheck. Today I received the second grant request denial of the season. I am, of course, disappointed. And coupled with the huge drop in charitable contributions to HOPE CSA, I'm fairly worried about how things will progress through the year. So I started thinking...

I am grateful for options. But I really like what I do...

UK is OK

2009-04-05T16:25:00.002-04:00

Single cream. Double cream. Clotted cream. For a lover of white fat such as I, Enghand is a great place to be!

I Started Reading the Bible Again

2009-03-04T07:39:00.002-05:00

...not that I had stopped, really. For many years I have used the Moravian Church's Daily Texts in order to read a couple of selected Scripture verses, along with a couple of related hymn stanzas, each morning. But reading a couple of verses is not like reading a couple of chapters. So I decided, as a discipline of Lent, to begin reading through the Bible as well, using a scheme that takes me through the entire Bible in two years. I am enjoying it immensely, especially as feel myself being re-formed by the familiar cadences and lyrical phrasing and beckoning themes I encounter. Thanks be to God.

Christian Courage

2009-03-04T07:27:00.002-05:00

At this time of year I can regularly be found at the local bar and grill, the Main View Inn, where there sits in a permanent place on a shelf a one-litre glass mug with my name engraved on it. I was there last night. My son was seated next to me with his mug full. My mug remained on the shelf, because I made the decision to give up alcohol for Lent, aiming for a sacrifice that would get my attention. I really wanted a beer last night, but steadfastly refused, despite the ravages of temptation. Who says Christians don't have true courage?

Home-Comers

2008-12-31T08:14:00.002-05:00

This morning I read a quick summary by Ellen F. Davis of an idea from book that I have had on my shelf--left unread--for many years, Small is Beautiful. Dr. Davis writes: "A generation ago, economist E.F. Schumacher described the mind-set and economic practice dominant in our time as "the forward stampede"; those committed to it are bent on ignoring the limits inherent in human existence, their watchwords being "more, further, quicker, richer." In their view, the crises we face are to be handled, not by reconsidering the course of our technological "progress," but rather by completing it. Schumacher contrasted the people of the forward stampede with those he called "home-comers." The latter recognize that the beauty and dignity of human life depends upon living within certain limits that are necessary and therefore becoming."

I am tempted to move Schumacher's book off the shelf and onto the "to read" pile. It seems to me that home-coming is living local, under a local economics that is, indeed, healthy and beautiful. Our current global economic failure suggests that we at least take this idea more seriously.

Light. In the Dark.

2008-12-26T07:38:00.003-05:00

On Christmas Day, finally we woke up to bright sunshine!

I went out to the barn to find a dead calf.

On Christmas Eve, we sang glories!

But my father was not in the pew with us.

The light shines in the darkness, after all.

Economy and (oh my!) Frugality

2008-12-13T07:22:00.002-05:00

Ethicist Albert Borgmann wrote a book titled "Real American Ethics." His contention seems to be that "real" ethics are those based on values rooted in "the household." What makes for the good life in a household? Answering this question may be a way to understand something helpful about moral choices.

A central aspect of a household is its "economy," its ordering. (The Greek roots of the word literally mean "the ordering of the household." Borgmann suggests that it involves "the art of householding.") On what basis do we order our households? What values inform this ordering?

The national/global economy is, in a manner of speaking, the ordering of a very large household. It is ordered on the basis of, well, money. To make the economy function well, we members of this large household are told to spend a lot of money, to buy a lot of stuff. We are not heeding this advice of late, and the economy is, as some put dramatically, "grinding to a halt."

I have not heard much talk about it, but it seems to me that the high consumption value that informs the ordering of this household ought to be called into question. In the current economy, an ancient household value, frugality, is unacceptable. I think there is something wrong with this.

I recently heard on NPR's Planet Money podcast that every aspect of the current national/global economy is "in the toilet." Everything is broken. Everything. If the current national/global economy were a car, every system would be in need of repair: the tires are bald and dry-rotted, the engine has seized, even the windshield is cracked. The response: "It will take a long time to fix these things." A more reasonable response would be to get a new car, or, perhaps even a new means of conveyance rather than repair the old. A new economy that allowed for frugality, perhaps?

I heard a story of a local bank that deals heavily with the frugal Amish. Because of some strange law, lending money for a building without electricity precludes the bank from selling the mortgage or using some "fancy" modern financial instrument, so these loans are kept in-house, the money lent and borrowed and paid back in the local community. This bank, in the current global economic crisis, has had its best year ever.

Belief and Doubt

2008-12-12T07:12:00.002-05:00

Belief and doubt both tug and pull at our hearts, which allow faith a living dynamic rather than a static position. I often speak with St. Peter, "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!" Miguel de Unamuno says it in this hopeful way: "Those who believe in God without passion in their hearts, without anguish in mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, without and element of despair even in their consolation, believe only in God the idea, not God himself."

Gratitude

2008-12-09T08:18:00.002-05:00

Thomas Merton: "To be grateful is to recognize the love of God in everything he has given us--and he has given us everything.... Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise the goodness of God. For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay, but by experience."

Kathy Speaks Out

2008-09-01T21:08:00.002-04:00

Between Heaven and Earth

2008-08-23T06:31:00.005-04:00

Click on the picture for a larger view:

Here's the picture in my mind: on a beautiful autumn evening, between one and two hundred people are gathered out in the gardens of Hawkins Family Farm. They are seated between heaven and earth at tables dressed in white tablecloths. On their china plates they find food that was grown or raised not far from where they sit, exquisite dishes prepared by a local chef: slow-cooked beef brisket, blueberry pork, herb-rubbed chicken, rainbow carrots, sauteed greens, crusty pain du levain bread, fresh peach cobbler, and more. They sip a variety of local beers, a different one paired with each course, including dessert. They linger for hours, until sunset, when table candle are lighted, enjoying the slow food experience of a five-course meal.

Wouldn't you like to be one of those seated at the table?

Well, you can! Picture yourself as you gather at Hawkins Family Farm about 4pm on Saturday, September 27, 2008, being handed an artisan-crafted beer as you wait for others to arrive. Picture yourself as you take a brief tour of the farm, concluding at the tables set near the gardens, where you begin eating the freshly-made appetizer and sipping a different beer brewed locally by Mad Anthony Brewing Company (www.madbrew.com). Picture yourself enjoying pleasant conversation and the rich tastes of carefully prepared food by local chef Jennifer Disler. Picture yourself sitting near the lush green pasture, posing a question to a local food producer who is talking about the food he has raised for this meal. And then, almost four hours later, at 7:33pm, when the sun sets, picture yourself suddenly amazed at the light show of the fireflies across the fields. Finally, shortly after 8pm, you and the other happy eaters head for your cars, smiling with satisfaction for an evening well spent...

For more information, see www.hopecsa.org

Say Something

2008-07-06T20:36:00.002-04:00

Recently Kathy and I visited our daughter Sarah at her new home in Minnesota. It was good to be with her after many weeks of being apart. During our stay she looked me in the eyes and, with utmost seriousness, said, "How ARE you, Daddy?" She's concerned about me, particularly since I've written nothing since my June 4 blog describing my "dull weariness," from which she's been taking her cues about me (since I don't spend much time talking to her--or anyone--on the phone).

So I need to say something by way of update. I am pleased to report that dull weariness is giving way to renewed energy for the living of each day. Yes, I miss my father and continue to grieve his loss. But I'm not so mopey now. Time does offer a measure of healing, bit by bit. Thanks be to God.

A Dull Weariness

2008-06-04T07:49:00.002-04:00

It has been many weeks since I've written anything. Posting to this blog requires from me a combination of a) something that strikes my fancy; and b) the discipline to sit down and think it through by writing about it. Over the past weeks I have seemed to lack both requirements. I observe interesting things and yawn rather than wonder. I stare at the laptop and imagine the effort required to lift the lid.

I have been navigating the Spring with a dull weariness, which I assign to my peculiar way of grieving the loss of my father. The human emotional system cannot handle the huge fact of complete loss all at once, which is why the earliest days are characterized mostly by numbness. Then, numbness slowly and erratically gives way to the great pain that the loss has created. It takes a lot of energy to suppress pain, to stay numb. It takes a lot of energy to deal with the honest pain that surfaces. The hope is to spend the energy in proper proportion, like moving one foot forward and then the other, so that each is one day played out. For two months my mind has had no interest in picturing my Dad's final minutes and last breath; lately, as I fall asleep at night, the picture enters my mind and I am not sure I want to see it. To grieve well I need to receive it rather than refuse it admittance, for by receiving it I put the pain step ahead of the numbness step in order to move forward.

It will be a couple of years, at least, of such stepping. It reminds me of the arduous steps required to climb that final very steep couple hundred yards of Outlaw Mountain in South Dakota's Black Hills. Ten steps and I'm out of breath and must pause. But then I catch my breath and keep going. And every time I've made the attempt, I've made it to the top.

The Whole World is Different

2008-04-13T16:46:00.004-04:00

It's been two weeks since my Dad died.

I move forward in grief and in promise, which is not a bad way to move, considering the circumstances. Things take time and I am content to be patient. Friend of denial that I can be, it is slowly dawning on me that things are different now. It's not just that some things are different--such as the acute difference I experience when I go out to the farm workshop and he is not there as I might expect him to be on a Spring day. It's more than that. In the same way that the extinction of a species doesn't merely change the current ecosystem but creates an entirely new ecosystem, the absence of my Dad has created a whole new world. It seems to me that the whole world is different. It sounds dramatic, I know. And yet, this notion is not so far from the idea of John Donne, who claimed that all of Europe was "the less" when a "clod be washed away by the sea."

Indeed, it's not the same.

Make a donation (click here)

2008-04-06T07:20:00.004-04:00

Today we begin an ambitious effort to reach 50,000 people in one week in order to raise $200,000 for "The Firehouse," a unique venue for independent rock bands started and operated by the youth of North Manchester, Indiana. (see www.thefirehouse.net) The Firehouse opened in the summer of 2000, after 3 youth pursued the idea of turning our small town's abandoned fire station into a welcoming, wholesome space for our kids who complained of "nothing to do." It was supposed to last only a year; it was still going strong on July 25, 2007, when heavy rains caused the roof to cave in.

Following the cave-in, an energetic committee of youth and adults met and decided to re-build. The new facility will be much like the old facility, with two prominent exceptions: the building will be "up to code" (necessary both for legal and safety reasons), and it will feature two stages: the original stage for music, and a new "black box theatre stage" for drama. We hope to re-open on the one-year anniversary of the roof collapse.

The rebuild will be expensive, even though we will use countless volunteer hours to do a great deal of work. So here's the plan: using the "viral" characteristic of modern quick communications, we hope that YOU will transmit this message to at least 10 people, asking for a donation and asking them to do the same. Your 10 contacting their 10 contacting 10 more is already 1000 people. If each give just $10, that's $10,000, which is 1/20 of the goal. It can work. We hope to have raised all the money by April 12. Use whatever means you have available: email, text messages, blogs, facebook, myspace, even good-ol' face-to-face word-of-mouth! Just get it done. You can use the PayPal link on the website.

And then come on July 25 to North Manchester's unique all-ages entirely free-of-charge youth-led music-and-drama venue for a great grand re-opening show!

A Formidable Presence

2008-04-05T16:00:00.003-04:00

We buried my father today, under a cloudless sky, amidst birdsong.

One week ago we took him to the emergency room, after three or four days of sleepless nights due to "stomach pains." It turns out that his pains were related to his arteries closing, resulting in a severe heart attack Saturday morning. His body went into shock; his blood pressure dropped and wouldn't come up; his kidneys nearly shut down. He lived through the night, unexpectedly, and then through another night. Our hopes alternated wildly between dashed and buoyed as we kept vigil. He remained alert until shortly before his death on Tuesday, April 1, joining in our prayers and resting in the hymns we sang. He joked with the nurses who tended him with great care, despite the distress he encountered in his final days. His final hours were peaceful, until he simply stopped breathing at 4:02am, after we sang one of his favorite hymns, "Beautiful Savior," laid on hands, and asked the Lord to "bless him, keep him, and give him peace."

His three last days with us allowed us to come to the place he was--more or less. He did not want to die, but he was ready. We did not want him to die, but we were ready to let him go. His faith carried us: his favorite verse from Proverbs 3 ("Trust the Lord") led us toward permission both to shake our fists in anger and raise our arms in gratitude, which seems to me a healthy way to face the tragedy of death and the concurrent promises of God. It's what Dad would have expected of us.

As we have come to terms with the loss of Dad, we've come to realize how much we lived by his expectations, which were not communicated intrusively or imposed with a heavy hand. His quiet example was enough. His way of strong but gentle conviction was, as one friend said, "very effective." His was a formidable presence in our lives that made a difference in our living, whether or not we were conscious of it.

I'm more conscious of it now. I'm guessing that these next days will bring about the strange paradox whereby I experience his formidable presence more evident in his absence. I know I will ask myself as I work, especially out here on the farm where we worked together, "I wonder what Dad will think of this?" It is a question I am content to ask with a smile, albeit a heavy heart that I must wait for an answer.

In Good Weather and Bad

2008-03-15T07:03:00.002-04:00

Early last winter I set up electric fence around the corn field in order to let the cattle graze there on leaves and husks. I set it up so that the charge ends at the place where daily I feed the laying hens. If the fence "clicks" there, then the fence is likely OK; if not, there must be a break that demands immediate repair. Yesterday there was no "click," so I had to walk the entire circumference of the field to find and fix the break. It was an unexpectedly delightful task. I took off my coat and walked comfortably in the sunshine, managing the little bit of mud and snow without much burden. This was in stark contrast to previous walks, usually in a raging wind, with snow stinging the face, and snow drifts making each step an effort. What a difference the weather makes. Maybe that's why we talk about it so much.

Slogging Through

2008-02-27T07:29:00.003-05:00

For the past couple of weeks, each morning finds me putting on tall rubber boots before I do my barn chores. Among other things, barn chores involve slogging through cow manure in order to spread fresh straw for bedding. The boots get covered and difficult to clean.

Yesterday morning I trudged through six inches of fresh wet snow to get to the barn--and to the dog pen, the henhouse, and various other places on the farm. The heavy snow had weighted down the nylon-and-steel electric fence so that it touched the ground in places, making it necessary for me to walk the fence line to correct the problem. In the summertime, walking the fence line can be a pleasant stroll. Yesterday, it was a chore, slogging through deep snow, braving the 30 mph winds.

It was burdensome work on a day when I would rather have been warmly indoors, but, I told myself, well worth it if it serves to keep the cattle in the field where they belong. And I learned that there was another benefit as well. When the got back to the house after my morning chores were completed, I saw that the snow had completely cleaned my manure-laden boots. Now I know for sure that getting outside one's comfort zone to do the necessary thing, going the extra mile, can be good for the ... sole.

The Holy Trinity of Christmas

2007-12-25T11:35:00.000-05:00

At a conference at the Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center that took place a few weeks ago, I referred to one of my favorite quotes, from William R. Inge, “all of nature is a conjugation of the verb to eat, in the active and in the passive.” This is most certainly true: we eat and are eaten. One of the participants, an ecologist, told me that he appreciated this challenge to his thinking that all of nature was basically about reproduction. His comment pushed me to wonder, as I often do, what might be a “third thing” in the relationship, based on my observation and conviction that nature is rooted in a trinitarian manner of being. I decided that the basic trinity of ecology also included the demands of security. So there it is, the holy trinity of nature: food, sex, and safety.

The Christmas Story, an appropriate topic for a Christmas Day post, revolves around these things. Or haven’t you noticed? The Christmas Story is the Church’s tale of Incarnation, the Word becoming flesh, the “super-“ becoming natural, when heaven joins nature to sing. If nature is about food, sex, and safety, it only makes sense that these elements are foundational to the Story.

It begins with the mystery of reproduction that results in a most earthy birth that, like all births, yearns for the survival of the species. In his annual Christmas message, Bishop Jim Stuck notices that the place of Jesus’ birth, Bethlehem, means “place of food” (literally, “house of bread”). If a primary drive of nature is to eat, it is the best of news to find the place of food. Bishop Stuck also notes that Bethlehem can mean “place of fighting.” When one eats another gets eaten, this is most certainly true. Eating is a contest between predator and prey. Even the grass gets trampled.

It is tempting to thoroughly spiritualize the Christmas Story. I think it is more helpfully instructive to naturalize it as good news about the most basic things in our nature.

Jim and Janet Report

2007-12-18T07:11:00.000-05:00

On Sunday evening I had a conversation with Jim Shull and he reported this to me: "A high school girl in my biology class did not know where hamburger came from. When she found out that it was 'cow chunks,' she blanched, she literally turned white sitting in the midst of her peers." How far the current generation is being removed from "humanity's most basic artifact."

At a Monday evening book study, Janet Shull poignantly refined a comment I had made the week earlier when she reported something on this order, "I've been thinking about what you said about problems, provision, and promise. It's been helpful for me to reframe what I perceive as problems instead as modes of God's provision." This reframing is precisely what faith finds when it looks at the Cross, of course: the horrible problem of execution is reframed as precisely the provision of God for saving the world.

Thanks, Jim and Janet. I'll be pondering the meaning of both of these reports as I go through my day today.

Clergy Sustaining Agriculture?

2007-12-16T08:10:00.000-05:00

The name of our ministry is HOPE CSA, which may be understood as an acronym for “Hands-On Pastoral Education using Clergy Sustaining Agriculture.” The name is a mouthful to speak and not immediately helpful when it comes to understanding specifically what this ministry is about. I’ve wondered if a name change is in order to better serve our understanding (though I’m aware that amazon.com and eBay are not names that tell you anything about the specific purpose of their work, either, apparently without harmful customer confusion).

I think that the confusion problem with our name has to do primarily with the word “agriculture.” In a matter of a few decades the general population of America has become nearly totally removed from a meaningful concept of the word; it connects with most people’s lives and minds about as much as “coal oil lamp” or “pitcher pump,” a vague nostalgia that may involve black-and-white cows and red barns. Or perhaps it rests in the mind as does “electric power grid,” apathetically acknowledged as critical to daily existence, but without a clue as to what it really is or how it really works or why it might matter to get a clue. Our fast, mindless, and irreverent way of eating seems to support this conclusion. Therefore, to name something as “clergy sustaining agriculture” makes about as much sense to modern ears as ‘clergy sustaining electricity.” So what?

This morning I was encouraged by my reading to keep trying to make the word work. An article by Ellen F. Davis, “Reading the Bible with Agrarian Eyes,” reminded me of a Wes Jackson quote, “It is in agriculture…that human culture and the creation totally interpenetrate.” Davis notes that agriculture is humanity’s most basic artifact, that it remains “far and away our largest industry,” that that it “has always (until recently) been imbued with religious significance.” Agriculture IS the intersection of our lives in Creation as created beings, our lives in society as cultured beings, and our lives in the Kingdom as redeemed and called beings. It is the right word: our ministry is about sustaining pastoral leaders as they live and move and have their being precisely in this intersection.

How to get the word out—out of its exile—is the challenge that we continue to meet.

To Tinker or Re-design?

2007-12-14T08:16:00.000-05:00

I have a vague memory of an important concept that I read decades ago in Wes Jackson's "Altars of Unhewn Stone." Jackson noted that intractible problems can only be solved by "going up a level" rather than by tinkering at the same level as the problem. That is, sometimes continually trying to repair the broken shaft on the farm implement will not solve the problem but only lead to the same ineffective repair, over and over again; instead, the problem will only be solved with a new and better design.

This morning I read competing articles on the subject of free trade. One lauded America's free trade agreements as triumph because they were responsible for "enriching the average American household by $9000 per year," in order to chide against what he perceived as protectionism. The other lamented America's free trade agreement as disaster because they were largely responsible for the ballooning of the U.S. trade deficit from $100 billion to nearly $1 trillion per year, in order to chide against what he perceived as irresponsible de-regulation. Choices will be made by people with power as they continue to tinker with the economic machine to strike a fragile balance. But it appears that the problems won't be finally solved on this level.

I think we need to "go up a level" and ask how the current economic machine may be designed so as to bring about these very problems. Like the poorly designed shaft on the farm implement that leads only to continual repair, our current economic machine seems to be ill-equipped to foster the higher values of humanity, in particular the better qualities of community life. Sure, you can cite statistics that argue a higher "quality of life" for some, but the stats are always in terms of "more dollars" and unquestionably assume that more dollars mean better life, period.

I'm intrigued by a design that supports local economic activity toward a broader understanding of quality of life. There will always be laws and subsidies. The question is whom do these laws and subsidies favor. In Wabash county, for example, do our laws and subsidies and tax incentives favor large industry that ultimately sends profits away to a distant corporate headquarters, or tiny, attractive family farms that produce food for local consumption? How might we design our county's economy to favor such valued qualities of life as neighborliness, the integrity of a person's word, and civic-mindedness, in addition to reasonable profits? These are questions worth wrestling with.

In recent readings I've seen references to Cobb's and Daly's book, "For the Common Good" which addresses these questions. One of these days I suppose I'll need to support the global economy by way of the publishing industry, and buy the book.

Consuming Desires

2007-11-26T09:05:00.000-05:00

Recently I've heard a lot related to "Black Friday" and "Cyber Monday," two days assumed to be a bellwether of consumer spending for the holiday season. The atmosphere feels to me like the last minute of overtime in a college basketball game, where the stirred crowd is intensely focused on nothing but the numbers on the board.

So it was a timely to receive the gift of a book from John Peterson, whose special talent it is to find good books for under a dollar. Recently withdrawn from the Allen County Public Library is "Consuming Desires: Consumption, Culture, and the Pursuit of Happiness" edited by Roger Rosenblatt. In the second essay, Juliet Schor begins by asking, "What's wrong with consumer society?" and by offering the answer of today's discipline of economics, "Not a thing. Far from a problem, consumption is posited as a solution, ensuring well-being by eliminating pain and creating pleasure, or, in technical terms, giving 'utility'." This is fine as far as it goes, Schor contends, but it doesn't go far enough to consider the rising costs. Central to her argument is that mere consumption of goods and services has, since the 1980s, become a new conumerism of "competitve consumption," that is, a pattern of consumption that establishes and maintains social position, and that evidence is mounting that most of us who are in the lower 80% of wealth now aspire to the conspicuous consumption levels of the top 20%--and many go into debt to do so. Our reference group used to be our neighbors--the Joneses. Now it includes Bill Gates or some Hollywood or sports celebrity--"I want what they have." One study showed that the level of income needed to satisfy these aspirations is currently more than twice the national median household income. It costs us more than we can possibly pay. And, studies show, it costs us happiness as well. Spending on status-stuff means not being able to spend on non-status stuff that would likely make us happier. Simultaneously, religious and moral constraints no longer have much force to hold these apirations in check.

I come away from this reading wondering about the restlessness or emptiness that our growing consuming desires are meant to fill. How terrible is the perpetually unsatisfied life, never content and therefore never grateful. Isn't it ironic that a time dedicated to thanksgiving for what we have is also a time dedicated to the thankless, all-consuming pursuit of an unsatisfying aspiration?

Hawkins in Real Life

2007-11-26T08:44:00.000-05:00

Daughter Sarah and her boyfriend Jesse came home briefly from Minnesota for the Thanksgiving holiday. After months of being away, Sarah was especially eager to have "home" be all the good things that the heart remembers and misses in its absence, and more. Added to the pleasant gathering of the family for good food, lively conversation, and hearty laughter, Sarah commented to her mother that "we should play family games, like they did when the extended family got together in the movie 'Dan in Real Life.'" Kathy picked up on Sarah's idea and made sure that our Kubb set (the Scandanavian lawn game) was handy. Their plans didn't work out, however; Thursday's weather didn't cooperate. On Thanksgiving eve, we played cards instead.

On Friday, the weather was better. As a group, we went outdoors wearing old clothes and gloves. We traveled back to "the woods" in order to load firewood on an old trailer, bring it to the house, and stack it in the basement as the source of our winter heat. As we worked together, we talked, joked, laughed, engaged serious dialog about important world events, stretched our muscles, breathed fresh air, and, when finished, felt a sense of real accomplishment. In my view (perhaps, I realize, not shared by all involved), the effect was not much different than if we had played an outdoor family game. And today I am warm as I sit indoors and write about this warm memory--double warmth for the effort. It reminds me of something I read years ago, when an Amishman was asked what he did for entertainment. "I farm," he said. There is something to be said for it when your work and your fun come in the same package.

Artisans

2007-11-18T13:03:00.000-05:00

Our eldest Zach and his wife Kira hosted friends from Minneapolis this past weekend. This morning, as we ate a homemade yogurt, homemade granola, and homemade bread breakfast together, we heard how Pete would be returning to Minneapolis tomorrow to be featured in an art exhibition (see http://www.mnartists.org/event.do?rid=166721). His moving ten-minute video called "Nine Monologues" can be viewed at his website (http://www.beckernelson.org/9mono.html) The juxtaposition of an artisan-made breakfast (that also included conversation about Zach's homemade mozzarella cheese)and Pete's artisan film-making made me wonder what it would take to promote our small North Manchester community as home to a variety of artisans, especially those in their twenties. I'm guessing that it would take only a handful of young artisans to tip the balance and transform our small town. What would it look like to foster a thriving community of folks whose uniquely-designed, small-batch, hand-crafted, creations were promoted (and I include in this artisan farmers as well)? I'll be thinking more about this in the days to come.

Sabbath Education

2007-11-18T12:23:00.000-05:00

Groups of clergy have been meeting on the farm this past week, with another group here tomorrow. It is our practice to spend half the day outdoors before we eat a festive noon meal, have an hour of quiet individual prayer time, and join in a couple of hours of discussion. Guiding our discussion this month is the chapter titled "Sabbath Education" from Norman Wirzba's Living the Sabbath: Discovering the Rhythms of Rest and Delight (Brazos Press, Fall, 2006).

Wirzba's correct understanding of Sabbath is that our human practice must be rooted in God's practice on the seventh day of Creation, that is, to take delight and find "rest" in Creation. "Rest" here is not to be understood as "not engaged in labor" but rather "the opposite of restlessness," the rest that enjoys a sense of "okayness" or contentment. In an age where restlessness is not only endured but promoted, no wonder we have trouble "keeping Sabbath."

The chapter on Sabbath Education explores the idea of education in the Church as the activity which shapes persons to "know, love, and share in life of God" who delights and rests in Creation, versus education as "data entry." One of the largest challenges for the Church, it seems to me, is to recognize that "knowing, loving, and sharing in" the life of the God of Creation requires actual time in Creation. Can a church that assumes that education--and most of life--takes place indoors come to terms with this outdoor requirement? I wonder.

Wellness

2007-10-17T08:29:00.000-04:00

The ELCA Board of Pensions has teamed up with Mayo Clinic to promote wellness among clergy. The concern is real and the intent noble: clergy are not popularly known as examples of fitness and good health. The strategy is to use website-based programs with financial incentives toward the goal of promoting healthier behaviors. After taking a survey, risks are identified and programs made available to reduce the risks. The pastor is asked to take responsibility for his or her own health.

As you might expect, cynics have said that the whole enterprise is simply a matter of the insurance company wanting to reduce its costs. Mockers joke about the silliness of going to a website in order to achieve health. Both have a point, though I think the effort will in fact do some good. I took the survey, which forced me to admit that I was 25 pounds overweight, and have finally taken some simple steps to address the problem (after months of saying to myself that I was going to take these steps as soon as...)

While doing some good, however, I cannot imagine that it will do much good, for this reason: it's not about adressing a few risky behaviors, it's about the wholesale change of a mindset and its resulting lifestyle. This became clear to me when I took the survey and became frustrated that the categories available didn't fit my circumstance. When asked about how much I exercised, I could choose categories such as "racquetball" or "walking" but not "spending the day doing physical labor on the farm carrying feed buckets." One of the reasons I was compelled to leave parish ministry was because the sedentary lifestyle was literally killing me, and simply a eating reduced fat diet while taking meditative daily walks was not going to fill me with life.

A more agrarian lifestyle versus an industrial lifestyle, a day that includes physical labor associated with the life-giving processes of Creation versus a day that features energy-sucking machines, has blessed me with renewed health and life. Maybe the Lilly Endowment, with its gracious focus on clergy well-being, would consider funding a multi-million dollar project to train hundreds of pastors in sustainable agriculture and then set them up on small farms to serve tiny, struggling, rural congregations, for the greater health of clergy and congregation alike? The idea is no more crazy than going to a website to achieve "wellness"...

Local Language

2007-08-27T08:26:00.000-04:00

Last night, as I lay in bed about 11pm, our (outdoor) dogs started to bark. Since the barking continued for a while, I interpreted it as a signal that something was amiss. Perhaps a predator was stalking the barn lot. I got up to investigate.

As I did so, I thought about the degree to which I listen to the voices and language of the animals on our farm. Just now, as I write this, our guinea hen started to squawk, telling me that she has detected some change on the farm, from the arrival of a visitor to a piece of machinery that is out of place. Most of the livestock, when they see me approach them with feed, start to "talk" to me. The pigs grunt and squeal to get my attention, a crescendo of sound that says, "We're ready to eat--hurry up!" (Pigs are always ready to eat.) The hens begin a loud, layered chorus that sounds like an orchestra tuning. The cattle begin lowing the minute they see me walk toward the pasture, hopeful that I might open up new territory for grazing. I listen for these inter-species communications so I can know something about the well-being of the animals under my care. I trust these animals to tell me the truth.

There is a limit, however, to this exercise. The farmer must be discerning: as is the case with the human species, farm animals sometimes say untrue things that are best ignored. What I have in mind is the repeated message of the turkeys, easily set off by a sudden deep noise, an all-purpose reaction to nearly any stimulus. Like a politician's sound bite, mindlessly mouthed over and over again as if saying it enough will cause it to be true, the turkeys keep trying to convince this producer of local foods and promoter of local culture to see the way the world sees. "Global, global, global!" they cry.

Considering the source, I don't buy their message. Not at all.

Use it and Lose It

2007-06-30T07:30:00.000-04:00

“We live by mercy if we live,” writes the poet Wendell Berry. Though we make much of our own devices toward progress and achievement, the truth is that, by and large, our lives (and most of what fills them) are given. There are, in truth, no self-made men or women.

Being made by Another—a Giver—we recognize that our charge and our privilege is to receive what is given. And to use it up by giving ourselves, following the Giver’s example. It is a mercifully simple equation.

To receive is not to grab and hoard, but to embrace. It is an arms-wide-open manner that at once receives and gives. In a human embrace, warmth flows both ways.

To give is to willingly use oneself up for great purpose, the purpose of great Love. It resists the call from “the devil, the world, and our sinful selves” (to use Luther’s comprehensive phrase) to live, in George Bernard Shaw’s graphic words, as “a selfish little clot of ailments and grievances.”

“As my friend David Kline told me,” Berry writes, “‘It falls strangely on Amish ears, this talk of how you find yourself. We Amish, after all, don’t try to find ourselves. We try to lose ourselves….’”. Shaw grasped this when he wrote: “I want to be thoroughly used up when I die… Life is no brief candle to me; it’s a sort of splendid torch, which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”

It’s “use it and lose it” for us.

Flame on!

(Don't) Think About It

2007-05-25T07:36:00.000-04:00

Recently we were fortunate to effectively "trade" our 2001 Malibu with 107,000 miles for a 1996 Corolla with 30,000--even up. In the end the deal will cost us a few hundred dollars for sales tax and for installation of cruise control and a CD player. The Corolla is "just a car" with no frills, without power windows and without even a vanity mirror on the passenger visor.

And it is a stick shift. I'm glad for a kind of kinesthetic memory that helps me quickly re-learn the art of negotiating the friction point and feeling the rpms. Driving a stick shift requires two hands and two feet. (I'm wondering if our roads would be safer if our hands and feet were needed for driving rather than eating french fries and holding a cell phone, but that's another blog.)

Driving a stick shift also requires a mind. I've got to think more about driving now, anticipating more carefully what is to come so I can be in the proper gear so I don't bog down or wind out the engine.

Being mindful is the chief factor for safety, of course. Thinking about it. Which makes me wonder why it seems to be the great aim and high value of our current culture to make products and processes demanding less and less thought. Don't think about it, an alarm bell or warning light will let you know. Don't think about it, a safety shield will protect you. Don't think about it, a expert or authority will take care of it. Don't think about it, a bureaucracy has certified it. Don't think about it, technology will solve it. Don't think about it, you're safe!

The safest vehicle I own is perhaps the 1959 John Deere 530 two-cylinder tractor that was originally purchased by my grandfather. It has no safety or warning devices, save the removable shield that covers the PTO shaft. To be safe, I have to watch gauges and think about what they mean. I have watch out for the exposed pulleys and hot exhaust pipe, to think about my body in relation to these dangers. I KNOW that to use this piece of equipment safely I MUST think about what I am doing. It is in the mindfulness that my safety is assured.

I use this tractor to raise food, which is satisfying if not relentless and worrisome work. The direct connection of my labor and my food motivates me to be mindful of what I eat, thus making my eating safer. And more pleasing. For mindful eating leads to deep gratitude.

Think about it.

Trying Stuff

2007-05-11T07:41:00.001-04:00

As we were laboring together on a farm task a few years ago, son Zach perceptively noted, "Do you know what farming is? Carrying stuff." It is an accurate description: at least on our farm, we are forever carrying feed, water, tools, supplies, hay, straw, gathered eggs, and more.

Our version of farming also involves "trying stuff," that is, experimentation. This year I planted potatoes in a new way, using straw and flax seed, that promises to involve less digging and fewer bugs. I planted couple of rows of an Italian variety of carrot, just to see what would happen. And today I am getting "heritage breed" 25 turkey poults, like the Bourbon Red shown above, hoping both that we can keep them alive and that we have a market for them.

Heritage breed turkeys take twice as long and cost more to grow than the typical commercial Broad Breasted White that we normally raise. I've ordered 200 BBW turkey poults to come to our farm at the end of July; both groups of birds will be ready for Thanksgiving. The heritage birds do not grow as large, nor do they have the monstrously large breasts and legs of the commercial bird. But they are much more flavorful.

We've also experimented with cattle by raising a couple of "hairy cows," Scottish Highlanders. They are good-tempered, interesting to look at, and grow larger than our Jerseys. Last fall we butchered the firset one and discovered that they have good-tasting meat. They are, however, too expensive to purchase, so we won't be getting any more of them. Earl, pictured here, will be turned into frozen packages for the freezer in June, and that will be that.

As I work through the day at a wide variety of tasks, I'm constantly observing and evaluating and wondering. There is no "thoughtless" task on our farm, no mindless work. It's a large part of the appeal.

Herding cats

2007-04-29T13:53:00.000-04:00

Last week I was at a meeting at which someone referred to the attempt to manage a difficulty with the common image, "like trying to herd cats." Everyone nodded, understanding both the image and its thrust, that it would be imprudent to try to do the impossible. "We should look for an approach more likely to succeed," someone summarized, until I quietly said, "Maybe not. After all, I know how to herd cats."

It's true. On my farm, I herd cats. Well, actually it doesn't work too well to try to herd them like cattle or sheep, as I discovered very late one night. One of our mother cats had moved her new kittens to a location very close to the doghouse. In the middle of the night, the kittens started to range from the nest. The dogs took notice and erupted in excited barking, hopeful for a delivered-to-your-door midnight snack. When I went out to invesitage, I discovered the half-dozen or so kittens creeping toward the dogs. The more I tried to shoo them as a group out of harm's way, the more they would scatter, evade, defy. Thankfully, they were still so small that I could catch them, gather them up, and carry them to safety. But I could not herd them--at least not in the same way as if they had been cattle that I was trying to shoo back into a safe pasture.

Cattle are herd-able, in part, because they are prey rather than predator, which means that their predilection is to flee. As individuals and as a group, they have an identifiable "flight zone" (something like their "personal space") that the herder uses to group and move them. Cats, on the other hand, are predators, which means that their predilection is to hunt, to be aware of the signs that might lead them to food. If I want to move the cats as a group--to herd them--I use the attractor of food rather than the goad of the flight zone. I call "kitty, kitty, kitty" and they rush for a taste of the cracked raw egg I've gathered but cannot pass along to a customer. Scattered across the entire farm, they will come running at the sound of my voice and its special call.

It is only fair to admit that, to herd cats, it requires a prior feeding relationship. But it is not impossible, which is my point. Many impossibilities are merely possibilities looking for a new angle, a new way of thinking.

This morning in church I was pondering this when it comes to evangelism. One way to evangelize is to goad potential customers with slick marketing to buy the product, to group them by preying on fears. Another way is to establish a feeding relationship and to call to the table. Didn't Jesus say, somewhere in the Bible, "Feed my cats?"

Easter eggs

2007-04-01T14:41:00.000-04:00

The laying hens spent the winter behind the barn. Last fall, one of our HOPE CSA groups helped tug a pasture pen inside the portable hoop-house so that the birds could get in out of the weather, though they also were free to roam. On most cold winter days, our layers stayed close to the hoop-house. But once the days lengthened and warmed, they began to range farther and farther. It is common now to see red hens pecking around in the barn lot, calf lot, and even in flower beds near the house.

As the hens range, they find new places to lay their eggs. There are about 8 or so eggs-a-day fewer to collect because of this. As I go about my tasks, I keep my eyes open to find the new nests. On occasion I happen upon them. Yesterday, I glanced up as I opened the dog-feed bin in the barn, and saw an egg neatly deposited in the straw-lined box normally used as a cat bed. The day before that, I found two eggs neatly deposited in an old basket behind a stack of boards. A few days before that, I found a broody hen sitting on about a dozen eggs in the cattle feed bunk. (Don't worry--not knowing how long these eggs have been out, I do not collect them for human consumption, but give them to the cats and dogs to eat, much to their joy.)

I can imagine children of past generations being sent out in the Spring by parents to search for new nests of wayward eggs, an important task because the loss of production can be significant (8 eggs is about a third of our daily production, for example.) I'm wondering who thought to re-frame it from a job to a game for the kids--and to relate it to Easter? (Does anyone know if the word Easter and the word estrus are related, a "promise-of-new-life" linguistic connection between the Day of Resurrection and eggs?) As I collect the eggs, I think of two things: the importance to the household to treat children as producers; and the importance of learning by concrete rather than abstract means.

You might think of this as you purchase and secret colored plastic orbs indoors under furniture. And wonder why.

Leaning Into

2007-03-18T14:55:00.000-04:00

Twenty years ago, during the month of March, I made a daily trip to the local hospital to take the Lord’s Supper to a pastoral colleague who was being treated for “emotional exhaustion.” I remember that we came to the mutual conclusion that he, rather than most of the rest of us, was “doing Lent right.” We were scurrying around, trying to meet the increased demands of pastoral responsibilities—from added midweek services and shut-in visits to intensive Holy Week and Easter programming—and he was wrestling with demons in the wilderness. This reframing of his experience allowed him to lean into the purposeful suffering of opportunity rather than merely worry over the pain of an unsolved problem.

On December 26, 2006, I had surgery to repair a hernia. I had no problems for the first few weeks, glad for fading pain and increasing ability to do things. During the fourth week, however, I started experiencing an erratic, stabbing pain unlike what I’d felt before. I imagined the sudden onset of trouble, an infection or torn flesh of some sort. I told the surgeon of this turn of events, thinking he would advise me to “stop overdoing it and take it easier.” His counsel surprised me. “Tap the wound with your fingers,” he said, “or even smack it gently with your hand!” Huh? “You see, the nerves are waking up and need to be de-sensitized.” Instead of instructing me to find ways to avoid pain, he was advising me to lean into it. I thought of Jesus in the wilderness, leaning into the taunts by tapping Satan on the chest to emphasize each word of refusal, “Man-does-not-live-by-bread-alone…!”

Bread for the common person in Jesus’ day was not too unlike the rocks that Satan suggested Jesus use as raw material for his bread-making, according to Robert Karris. Tooth-breakingly hard barley bread served as the staple, often dipped in a thin, stinky fish sauce to soften it. Along with this there was salt, olives and some oil, and watered-down wine, no more than an ounce of fish per week, and certainly no meat, except on very special occasions. It was a lean diet for a lean people. Karris quotes one rabbinic source commenting on the result of a food shortage, “While a fat person becomes lean, the lean becomes dead.”

So it is amazing to me that an already hungry person would engage in the ritual of fasting, as Jesus did for 40 days in the wilderness, and as his followers have done ritually ever since, especially during the season of Lent. How powerful and promising must be the notion of leaning into purposeful suffering, enough to overcome the high emotional resistance that accompanies the threat of missing very important meals.

Each Wednesday during Lent it is my custom to fast for two meals, breaking my day-long abstinence from eating with supper. My strategy is to use the signals from my hungry stomach to call me to more intentional prayer. It is a very, very minor fast, but it works very well to get my attention for prayer.

And it does something else, too. Going without food terrorizes me. Yes, that’s the word. I am so captured by the comfort of eating food that it disturbs me greatly to do without. Deep down I resent the fact that I am kept from satisfying my immediate desires for food. I just want to eat, to turn some stones into bread.

This terror and resentment testifies mightily to my need, of course. In order to do Lent right, I, too, must wrestle with my demons. Thanks be to God for the gift that faith reveals as I do so, that to lean into the difficulty is to overcome it by the grace of God.

The Spell of the Sensuous

2007-03-08T08:01:00.000-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, Steve Hammer gave me a copy of David Abram's The Spell of the Sensuous. Steve told me that it would be a challenging read, in terms both of the density of the material and of the creativity of the thinking. It's one of those books that I can't wait to get to each morning, in large part because it articulates what I intuit about the dynamic relatedness of all things, the ecological relatedness of households nested within households, originating in the household we name Trinity. Indeed, for the past few years I have been trying to get a handle on the relatedness of land, language, story, music, health, salvation, creatures, Christ, culture, agriculture, and more. Abram's work describes some of these relationships in thought-provoking ways. (This is my extrapolation of Abram's ideas. Abram has not written a Christian apologetic; indeed, Abram indicts the Church for failing to honor this relatedness, and, worse, immediately demonizing any living connection as a form of evil "animism" which threatens "proper" (Christian) understanding.)

Abram, rather, has written a phenomenological apologetic. Phenomonology is the study of direct experience, including the notion that reality is influenced by our perception of it. In the Church, we've been frightened by such an idea, fearing that orthodox faith would be diluted or rendered worthless unless it was based on some kind of cold, unmovable, objective "truth" that is, well, unrelated. It seems to me that this is an unfounded, and even dangerous, fear--since the truth of the Bible is all about relationship and cannot be understood independent of relationship. If the Incarnation of Christ is about anything, it is about reality as the dynamic relatedness of God through Jesus.

Abram makes a strong case that this relatedness happens chiefly by way of our creaturely senses--that ours is a "sensuous" relatedness--and that "the careful study of perceptual experience unexpectedly began to make evident the hidden centrality of the earth in all human experience...that the human mind was thoroughly dependent upon (and thoroughly influenced by) our forgotten relation with the encompassing earth." He contends that there is something palpably alive in our relationship with the earth--that this "humans from humus" connection works a kind of "magic" in the relationship--and that this "spell of the sensuous" must be taken seriously.

Without identifying it as such, yesterday I was under the spell of the sensuous. I responded to the magic that my senses perceived in relation to the created world.

For many weeks I have been going outdoors to feed the livestock in the frigid cold of the morning, with my wool cap pulled down low to cover my face to guard against the brutal wind, hurrying to finish in order to go back to indoor warmth. Each morning, as I walked around the barn to the chicken house, coming afresh into the stiff breeze from the north, I'd lift my eyes from my boots carefully treading the frozen earth to the uncompleted fencing project, and I would feel the tug to get the job done so that the cattle would have access to pasture that would be needed soon. As I pondered the idea of doing the work at that time, I'd involuntarily shiver to think of being out in the blowing cold for any number of hours; my fingers would go numb as I anticipated handling wires with ungloved hands. As with the dozens of other outdoor projects that needed my attention, I would say to myself, "Not today."

Yesterday, however, as I rounded the corner of the barn I felt the warm, bright sun on my face, and saw clear blue sky, and did not feel the need to pull my wool hat low or tuck my gloves up under my sleeves, I was immediately under the spell of the promise of Spring. Magically, I thought about the fence project with anticipation rather than dread. And I imagined other projects, too, that I felt an eagerness to undertake. What happened to put me under this spell of the sensuous in relation to the earth? How did the simple fact of a change in weather change my inner reality?

And was that, indeed, a "still, small voice" I was hearing?-- God's voice within God's Creation repeating this warm, relational truth: "This is good!"

Cows at the Red Sea

2007-02-28T08:35:00.000-05:00

The cattle have been staying up in the barn lot, where I've been throwing hay to them, mostly due to the harsh winds across the pastures. It's the brutal winter wind rather than the cold that kills cattle. They seem to enjoy having me do the work for them. On pleasant days, when I fail to provide morning hay, they hang around the barn rather than head out to the pasture to feed, sometimes waiting all day long until they realize that I'm not going to do their feeding work for them.

Yesterday I withheld their morning hay and decided to take an extra step to help them "get the idea" early about heading out to pasture. I walked out and called them to follow, toward the farthermost southeast corner of the farm, a fairly long walk. They watched me for quite some time before they started moving in my direction. Finally plodding toward me, they made it about half the distance, and then stopped. The line of cattle became a mob at the edge of a low spot where water had gathered to form a temporary "pond." The pond had formed ice on top, which I had broken through to create a path, a "parting of the waters," as it were. They stared at the path, and at me, and at the path, and at me as a I called them forward. I couldn't get them to move.

After twenty minutes of cajoling, I gave up. I walked back to the barn. They followed. I threw some hay out for them. Back to the fleshpots of Egypt.

I'm glad the roughly similar story in Exodus took a different turn.

God/Food

2007-02-26T08:04:00.000-05:00

I first came into contact with the writings of Wendell Berry when
someoone gave me a used copy of his seminal work, "The Unsettling of
America: Culture and Agriculture," back in the 1980s. One idea in
the book stirred my thinking greatly, his observation that the way we
treat the earth is, in fact, the way we treat each other.

By extension, I've been wondering lately if this is also true, that
the way we treat our food is the way we treat our God. (It's not
unreasonable to contemplate this, since Jesus took bread and said,
"This is me.")

Our treatment of each: Without thought or with gratitude? Mysterious
or mechanical? Ashamed--counting calories and counting sins, or
satisfied--filled with goodness and grace?

I wonder.

Repent, Repair

2007-02-11T06:49:00.000-05:00

On Thursday, a new muffler was delivered for the old John Deere tractor, (which will not start in this very cold weather). The leaky radiator is out of the truck, ready for a replacement. There is plaster dust on every surface of our house as we fill and sand cracks on the walls and ceilings in order to put on new paint. I went back to the doctor on Friday for a check-up six weeks after surgery (hernia). On the farm, winter is the season of repair.

We repair because we are looking ahead to the approaching Spring, in order to diligently make preparations for its coming. The hope of promised newness is heightened during this bleak time.

In the Church, this is reflected in the liturgical calendar. Ash Wednesday is near, beginning the season of Lent, the season of bleakness, a time of repentance or repair, of heightened hope due to promise.

It is no accident that HOPE CSA--the ministry for clergy continuing education that uses our farm as its setting--begins anew at this time of year. Pastoral leaders come together during this dead time--the energy of Christmas has been spent, the Easter goal is a long way off--to claim the promise, to get ready for the time when it is kept: blessed are you who are empty, for you shall be filled.

Living Close to Chaos

2007-01-25T07:41:00.000-05:00

For the winter, our laying hens dwell in a hoophouse located behind the barn, where they roost at night. During the day they run free, ranging into the pastures to eat some of the grass that is still green under the snow. Some of them have found their way around the barn, into the barn lot. Some of them come still farther, up to the house where we live, perhaps only to anger Kathy as they scratch in her flowerbeds. Near the house dwell our two dogs, attached to chains. In the dog area are two feed bowls which attract the chickens' interest. Every once in a while a chicken is so compelled by the feed that it wanders into the dog area to get some and is promptly killed. The other chickens watch and learn (yes, this type of learning by birds has been documented by scientists according to Dr. Temple Grandin). But they do not stay completely away; some of them get very, very close to the dog area, close to the edge of chaos.

Our cattle continue to graze the pastures during the winter. Every few days I take down a temporary electric fence to allow them to graze a new area. More often than not, the cattle walk the fence in order to learn where they boundaries are. Then they settle down to eat. Even though there is plenty of fresh pasture in the middle of the new area, many of them eat at the boundary, even sticking their necks as far under the fence as they can without getting shocked. Close to chaos.

This past Sunday I heard a segment from "Speaking of Faith" on which Dr. Sherwin Nuland spoke of the physiological properties of the human body using the same language: in the body, order lives close to chaos, life plays at the edge of death. Built into Creation is the dynamic of adventure. We skate close to the edge, we stick our necks under the fence, we play near the den of the adder, we eye the fruit on the tree at the center of the Garden and come within reach. It's where life happens. To move away from the edge is to move away from life to another kind of death, a lonely, static, empty, soul-less place. Those who think they have all the answers reside in this dead zone. By contrast, those who take their answers close to chaos, to the possibility that another answer may offer fullness or correction, continually step into the adventure of new life.

Science and Religion Incarnate

2007-01-06T06:59:00.000-05:00

Plenty is being written these days about the relationship between science and religion. One of my favorite treatments of the topic is Francis Collins's "The Language of God." Collins is a respected scientist, the head of the Human Genome Project, and a devout Christian. While he makes a good case for a productive relationship between science and religion that discounts neither, the most compelling argument is to be found in his person. In Collins himself, residing in his being, is an example of the "right relationship" between the two. Right relationship incarnate, in the flesh.

One of the blessings of following Jesus is the permission offered by Jesus' method of thinking in parables. I favor the method: I tend to grasp a concept only when I have a handle to hang it on, an analogy or storied-comparison that already makes sense to me. "The Kingdom of Heaven is like..." Recently as I thought about the relationship between science and religion, I chanced upon a handle that involves the understanding of Time. "The difference between science and religion is like..." the difference between time as chronological units versus time as sacred moments, chronos and kairos. On the one hand, in our own persons it is useful to live time as chronological units as we manage clock and calendar in order to get important things done, living as scientists would have us live, respecting measurable quantities. On the other hand, in our own persons it is salutary, as Abraham Heschel reminds us, to receive eternity in each moment and to live accordingly in holiness, living as theologians would have us live, in the image of the one for whom "a day is as a thousand years," full of qualities that quantities cannot describe.

Like Francis Collins, in the flesh we live the relationship that so many are writing about. We get to keep the appointment. We get to receive the unmerited grace of the moment. It's not a battle. It's a blessing.

Food is...

2007-01-02T08:51:00.000-05:00

In my life the notion has been reinforced by both word and deed: food is love. Want to celebrate? Let's prepare a feast. Feel bad? Let me fix you something to eat. Need to know that you are welcome and esteemed? Here, have a second helping. Want some good news in an otherwise tedious day? It's time to eat.

I'm not complaining. If it were not for a focus on food, it is probably not much of an exaggeration to say that my life would have no focus at all. As an Old MacDonald-style farmer, I raise food for local people to eat. As a teacher, I use the setting of the family farm--including its labors and its meal times--as central to the pedagogical task. As a pastor, I depend on faith and ministry rooted in Word and Sacrament, including the Sacrament of the Table, the Holy Eucharist.

Food is a great blessing, of course. But, as we know from too many good stories, it is precisely in great blessing that we stumble over great curse. In the middle of the magnificent Garden of Eden was the tempting tree that allowed for the curse of humankind and all creation.

And so we arrive at the other notion that is reinforced by both word and deed: food is death. Here's a gruesome example from the natural world, described by Annie Dillard. "J. Henri Fabre, who devoted his entire life to the study of insects...describes a bee-eating wasp, the Philanthus, who has killed a honeybee. If the bee is heavy with honey, the wasp squeezes its crop 'so as to disgorge the delicious syrup, which she drinks by licking the tongue which her unfortunate victim, in her death agony, sticks out of her mouth at full length...At the moment of some such horrible banquet, I have seen the Wasp, with her prey, seized by the Mantis: the bandit was rifled by another bandit. And here is the awful detail: while the Mantis held her transfixed under the points of the double saw and was already munching her belly, the Wasp continued to lick the honey of her Bee, unable to relinquish the delicious food amid the terrors of death. Let us hasten to cast a veil over these horrors.'"

Lest these horrors seem exclusive to the world of insects, it strikes me that we humans do the same thing in our own way. We lick the honey of foods engorged with toxic chemicals, trans-fats, petroleum, injustice--ignoring that we are being consumed by obesity, clogged arteries, diabetes, rural poverty, and more. I'm no exception, unless I am delberate: I could live on mayonnaise sandwiches quite happily. And maybe an occasional Snickers bar. As I munch, what's that other munching sound I hear?

For me, the way to nurture food as love and avoid food as death is to be involved with my food as much as possible: in a host of ways, I eat better when I till the soil, plant the seed, kneel in the soil to weed and to pray, harvest the crop, prepare the meal, sit at table with others, bless the food, taste the bounty, and return thanks with a grateful heart. In the short term it is more demanding than opening a jar to slather liberally, of course. In the longer term, the other option is by far the more demanding, however, taking years away from life.

For the calculating among us, it is clear which is the better deal.

Balance

2007-01-01T08:31:00.000-05:00

My Dad, in thinking about life in order to live it well, regularly returns to the word "balance." This is, perhaps, for the same reason that I regularly return to the word "grace." As Kathleen Norris notes, "We're always talking about balance and integration, a sign that we probably don't have it."

In our family, in our way of living, we work a lot. Many of us, my Dad included, are unsettled unless we are about the business of accomplishing something. In my case, this is generally because I have set myself up ahead of time by making commitments. I sometimes describe my modus operendi as the process of "jumping in and then trying to find my way out:" I agree to do something, the deadline looms, my sense of responsibility nags, and I figure out how to get it done.

Balance is, by definition, the relative weighing of opposites, that is, sitting on both ends of the teeter-totter. If work is one end, then rest is the other. If doing is one end, ceasing is the other.

I have been confronted with the demand to cease lately, following hernia-repair surgery last Tuesday. I have had to cease carrying full buckets of feed for the animals and dozens of other farming tasks, for example. But I have not ceased at all. I've merely shifted my "doings." I spent hours completing a PowerPoint presentation for a grazing conference in February, working into the night to get it done. Now I'm ready to tackle work on bookkeeping and tax preparation. What is wrong with me? I cannnot sit still.

I am unbalanced and I know it.

Perhaps this is why I am considering as a resource for next year's HOPE CSA academic study a book by Marva Dawn, The Sense of Call: The Sabbath Way of Life for Those Who Serve God, the Church, and the World." The word "sabbath" literally means "to cease." Perhaps it was a gift that Sabbath-keeping was commanded, for, left to our own notions, we find ways to break it rather than keep it.

Do I dare make the commitment to keep Sabbath in 2007, to jump in and figure out a way to "accomplish" it?

Vision

2006-12-22T09:55:00.000-05:00

Western culture is decidedly utilitarian. We are purpose-driven in order to meet the goal. The bottom line for us, whether in ethics or business or politics or relationships or even leisure, is “what works” in order to bring about a desired consequence. This suggests, of course, that we tend to focus heavily on “what doesn’t work” in order to “fix it.” We take great pride as problem-solvers.

Western culture is also decidedly visual. Image is what counts, appearance is paramount, perception is reality, seeing is believing. When an organization struggles, we often determine that the problem is a lack of “vision.” The solution, then, is to develop a vision statement, words that specifically picture the desired consequence or goal to which the organization aspires, a destination toward which the organization must chart its course. These days, churches especially are encouraged to develop vision statements.

Author Annie Dillard speaks of “a wonderful book by Marius von Senden, called Space and Sight.” She marvels at the stories of persons who are “newly sighted” after having been blind from birth, the result of surgeons many years ago discovering how to perform safe cataract operations. She notes that many of the newly sighted “had no idea of space whatsoever.” She reports: “Before the operation a doctor would give a blind patient a cube and a sphere; the patient would tongue it or feel it with his hands, and name it correctly. After the operation, the doctor would show the same objects to the patient without letting him touch them; now he had no clue whatsoever what he was seeing. One patient called lemonade ‘square’ because it pricked on his tongue as a square shape pricked on the touch of his hands.” And again: “When a newly sighted girl saw photographs and paintings, she asked, ‘Why do they put those dark marks all over them?’ ‘Those aren’t dark marks,’ her mother explained, ‘those are shadows. That is one of the ways they eye knows that things have shape. If it were not for shadows many things would look flat.’ ‘Well, that’s how things do look,’ Joan answered. ‘Everything looks flat with dark patches.’” Annie Dillard concludes: “For the newly sighted, vision is pure sensation unencumbered by meaning.”

Seeing requires a framework of meaning if it is to be truly “visionary.” Otherwise it is simply bright spots and dark patches. Meaning determines revelation or obfuscation. Meaning involves more than vision's "destination," which is why I am unenthused about the push to develop vision statements. Destinations are selected, goals are developed—but meaning is a function of what is given, the given-ness of who we are, where we are, what we are, based on our relatedness within the nested oikoi we occupy—including the households of family, neighborhood, watershed, bioregion, Kingdom. Meaning is discovered and received, not blueprinted and engineered.

In the Bible, this kind of visionary seeing seems to be available most typically in dreams. Perhaps in the church, in contradistinction to the corporate world with its vision statements, we ought to schedule weekly naptime, from which we wake up to report our dreams to each other, those mysterious visitations by angels that tell us the way it is.

Or has this already been given to us as well, under the old idea of “Sabbath?”

As Men Bound on the Moon

2006-12-18T08:40:00.000-05:00

I'm re-reading Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek--in small doses because it is so rich--as a potential resource for next year's HOPE CSA course. This morning I read the phrase "as men bound on the moon," and I had to stop and take another look.

Initially my brain went to the passive expression of the verb, to the idea of "bound" as "bondage," so the sentence didn't make sense to me. Having been given the context of outer space and mindful of the recent space walks, I thought of the kind of "being bound" that involves a tether, a tie so that an astronaut doesn't fly away toward infinite nothingness. This is the kind of "boundedness" that is involved in the best of "religion," the root of which is "ligare," to tie. Religion and ligament are related words, involving a kind of connectedness that is life-sustaining.

It finally occurred to me that "bound" in the active sense means to "move by leaping." As men leap on the moon! On the moon: as men are bound by a weaker gravity that they may bound like a gazelle. It's both, in right relationship, that makes the moon dance possible.

And the earth dance, too, of course. It's the delicate relationship between being bound and being able to bound that keeps life moving, that allows life to move well. To be "re-ligamented," that is, tied back again to the center by good religion, while at the same time being blessed to hit the center's wall and rebound away, to leap and to dance in the mess where life teems, to bound at the edge, is the course of the life that is given in Creation, the life of grace.

Well-schooled consumers

2006-12-13T07:36:00.000-05:00

It's final examination week at Manchester College, where I've spent the past 14 weeks as an adjunct instructor of a First Year Colloquium under the subject "Difficult Dialogues." The course is ambitious in its purposes: to teach to be a college student, that is, how to to write papers, read mindfully, take exams; to teach to "think critically," that is, how to form and evaluate reasonable arguments rather than merely have opinions; to teach how to engage controversial subjects in a studied and civil manner. I had a good time doing this. I liked my students and my colleagues, the demand to think critically myself, the challenge to try to teach effectively. (Despite the fact that I made less money per hour than my daughter when she worked at Starbuck's. Teaching takes a lot of time.)

As someone who is not an old pro at this, I spend a good amount of time wondering about context. Teaching does not happen in a vacuum, but in relation to a particular time, place, and people. Continually I found myself wondering who these students were and what they may have expected (which may or may not be what they needed). I'm settling on the conclusion that students are, above all else, consumers. They have been thoroughly instructed to be attentive to their personal desires and to expect that others are responsible to fill their orders, ever making judgments as to value versus personal cost. This was displayed most clearly at those time I asked them to evaluate their own development after studying a particular topic, for example, "How has your thinking developed as you have studied the issue of national security versus civil liberty?" Often, their answers focused on the aspects of the course they may have liked or disliked (or perhaps "found meaningful"), shifting judgment from self to course with the self's "likes" as benchmark. It's a buyer's attitude. It made me wonder how much I should tend to marketing and selling, to packaging the product, to promoting the sizzle over the steak.

It's not their fault, as far as I can tell. It's what they've been taught. They arrived in my class already well-schooled.

Connected--or not

2006-11-04T06:54:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about the juxtaposition of a comment I've encountered many times recently with my general experience with directly contradicts it.

The comment, which I hear in varied form, makes the claim that "we are becoming more and more connected" due to the internet and cell phones, including the widespread use of e-mail, text messaging, Instant Messenger, myspace, and so forth. My experience is that of reduced "connectedness," especially as I try to work with committees and groups within larger organizations, congregations, and towns, reduced with the passing of informal networks that once undergirded them. In our small town, for example, there was once an "ol' boys' network" of leaders who knew most of what was going on in town, knew widely the townspeople and their resources and limits, and sometimes (even often!) used that knowledge to make forward-reaching decisions for the good of the whole community. In the church, there once was a sense of belonging to the “ministerium,” such that clergy better knew one another, including each other's families, congregations, and communities, and used the knowledge and relationships toward support for ministry. Certainly we must recognize that this type of "connectedness" came at the cost of exclusivity and its attendant problems; some were "in" and many were "out." Nevertheless, it is worth wondering whether or not that cost was worth the value.

The value, it seems to me, centers in the productivity of a "given" connectedness that makes me think of a swarm of bugs or school of fish or flock of starlings, a mysterious but real sense of knowing how to move together. Somewhere along the way we have managed to cast off the "giveness" of our own "flockness" as humans. We seem to be trying to recapture it by all sorts of programmatic and technological means: mission and vision statements, focus groups, committee meetings, team projects, mass e-mails. The truth is that we’ve allowed ourselves to be reduced to small, individual entities, and we are trying like hell to re-engineer the connections, and we are only so-so at it.

I’d venture to say that at the current time we may be more ACCESSIBLE, but are in fact less CONNECTED, which is why we are straining to congratulate ourselves at having "accomplished" it.

Warmth

2006-11-03T06:53:00.000-05:00

The radio came on at 5:30 this morning. I lay in a warm bed, listening to the news broadcast, delaying the act of throwing back the covers and the assault of cold air. It’s 27 degrees outside and it feels as if it is not much warmer inside.

We live in a hundred-fifty-year-old red brick farmhouse and sleep in a room that offers a view of our glorious Indiana sunsets. In the winter, it takes the direct hit of the cold west winds, and there is no heat register in the room. I rush to put on warm socks, slippers, sweat pants, and a flannel shirt against the cold, before I make my way to the basement. In the basement I put wood scraps in the furnace, topped with logs, so that the flame will rekindle as quickly as possible. It takes at least 20 minutes before the fire builds enough heat for the blower to send warm air to the rest of the house.

Burning wood forces me to be directly connected with the source of the prized heat of a winter’s morning. I’ve already cleaned out the ashes from previous fires and spread them lightly on the gardens. I’ve planned the winter’s fuel supply and stacked wood in the basement, and will need to do so again before the winter ends, making sure I have kindling, mid-sized branches, all-night logs. On especially cold days I must go to the basement a number of times, to adjust the air so that the fire burns hotter, to stoke the fire with more fuel.

Our furnace also burns oil. Sometimes, when we are away from home, we turn up the oil thermostat so that the house is automatically heated and the pipes do not freeze. Sometimes, when we are not away from home, we leave the oil furnace thermostat turned up because we wish to delay the burden of such direct connection to the source of our heat. It’s nice to wake up to warm air in the morning, to go about getting ready for the day with nary a thought about the warmth of our home, to enjoy the convenience, the thoughtlessness, the lack of a sense of direct responsibility for personal comfort or the global warming consequences of the act. It’s nice to pretend that we are unconnected.

But, of course, we’re not.

And neither, of course, are you.

Parable of the Pullets

2006-10-13T07:28:00.000-04:00

Once there was a farmer (me) who raised chickens in floorless pens out in the pasture. This gave the birds protection from weather and predators while allowing them access to bright sunshine, luscious clover, and tasty bugs. Each day, when the farmer would gently pull the pen forward eight feet, the energetic brown pullets would scamper to their new salad bar, clucking contentedly as they pecked at fresh greens. The birds thrived.

One morning, however, the foot of one of the birds became trapped under the pen as it was moved. The hurried farmer did not notice her predicament until he returned to do feeding chores that evening. He found an inert mass of flesh and feathers. During the day, the other birds had brutalized the trapped pullet. They pecked the feathers off her back. They opened a wound near her vent, enlarged it, pulled out most of her intestines, and ate them.

They seemed to be getting along so well. And now this. Why do flocks do such things to their own?

Understanding

2006-09-12T07:12:00.000-04:00

I'm teaching a course at Manchester College on "critical thinking." The hope is to help students engage controversial issues constructively, based on the hard work of understanding, analysis, and assessment of the arguments.

Last week I opened the class by sharing something that had happened as I rushed to get there on time. I was looking for a parking spot and finally find one near my destination, but there was a maintenance truck with trailer partially blocking the space. As I drove by the truck, I called out to the driver, who was making his way from the cab toward the trailer hitch, "Do you think I could get into that parking spot?" thinking that he would kindly pull forward a couple of feet so that I could gain access. His answer caught me by surprise. He said, "If you can make it!" I was a bit taken aback, thinking that he was being rude and unhelpful. I drove past the rig, jockeyed a bit, and parked. For some reason I remained miffed, so I said to him as I walked by toward class, "Well...I guess I made it!" in a less-than-friendly tone.

By the time I reached class, I was ashamed of myself for behaving so poorly. Just because he appeared rude didn't mean that I needed to be rude in return. Besides, I thought to myself, perhaps there was more to this than had met my eye. Perhaps I had not fully understood the circumstance.

A few days later, as I was driving by, I saw the worker walking on a sidewalk. I stopped the car, got out, and called out to him, saying, "I need to apologize to you for being so crabby last Wednesday as I tried to find a parking place." He was more than gracious is accepting my apology. And he humbled me by adding this to the tale: "I was waiting for security to show up. Someone had stolen the pin from the trailer hitch."

Indeed, I had NOT understood. The trailer had not been hitched to the truck due to the theft. He couldn't have moved the rig forward a couple of feet no matter how kind he may have wanted to be, no matter how compelling my request.

Enough

2006-06-12T09:01:00.001-04:00

I have been reading with interest the arguments surrounding the possibility of an increase in Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) in Wabash County. The matter seems to revolve around the question, “Are CAFOs bad or not-so-bad?” with the idea that if they are bad, we should prohibit them in the county, and if they are not-so-bad, we should promote them. Framing the question in this way sets us up for a future that creates winners and losers.

I am wondering if there may not be another question that would offer a more favorable solution: “Do we have enough CAFOs in the county?”

My question recognizes two competing visions for the future of Wabash County. One is the vision based on more CAFOs, which sees a future of more and more angry neighbors filled with suspicions. Regardless of law, regulations, or purported economic benefits, those living near a CAFO will always be suspicious of the CAFO as the source of harm to the neighborhood. At the same time, CAFO operators will always be suspicious of their neighbors as the source of persistent complaints. As the number of CAFOs increase—as does the number of new families moving closer to them (due to hoped-for county development)—contentiousness increases.

The second vision sees more small, beautiful farms near which people want to live. These farms do not produce commodities to be sent away, but instead produce food to be consumed locally. If you buy a good portion of your meat, vegetables, and eggs from a neighbor, it is more likely that your relationship will be, well…neighborly. Moreover, buying food locally means that the dollars spent stay in the county rather than being sent away. What if Wabash County had a hundred small attractive farms each producing food for fifty families (and even for our public schools)? Neighborliness increases! Perhaps our county is ripe for just this kind of future.

Indeed, there are all sorts of problems to tackle no matter which vision is chosen. I invite the dialogue that allows us to test good ideas and to wrestle honorably with the attendant problems toward the benefit of all who live here. Let’s begin with this: in Wabash County, perhaps we have enough CAFOs and not enough local food producers.

What do you think?

Pairs

2006-06-11T20:45:00.000-04:00

My wife Kathy is in England for two-and-a-half weeks to study Beatrix Potter. She is accommpanied by daughter Sarah as a traveling companion and study assistant. I remain here on the farm to try to meet the demands of the season. Son Zach arrived back home on the farm last Monday to help me with my work. For the time being our family of four finds itself in pairs, a pleasant grouping.

There was a time, when the kids were much younger, when we would pair up in less pleasant circumstances. Usually it happened when the parents were tired, each focused on something "important" that needed to "get done," and the kids were not getting along. The strategy was simple. "You take one kid, I'll take the other!" It worked well enough, I suppose, so that they were kept from bickering and so that we could do what we needed to do, more or less.

Maturity has its advantages. It is delightful to have kids who are now adults, especially when the parents allow themselves to speak to their kids adult-to-adult rather than parent-to-child. Some years ago I heard someone say that most parent-to-child language functions either to protect or correct--which keeps the relationship in parent-to-child mode-- and that to avoid this kind of language helps to foster a more adult-to-adult relationship. This will be good to remember as in a few days our pairings pair and the four of us spend time together at home this summer.

“The Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness”

2006-05-07T06:43:00.000-04:00

This past Tuesday I went to the Chester Township Fire Station to vote in the Indiana primary. I was greeted at the door by a poll worker who quickly informed me of the new law requiring a photo ID in order to vote. I showed her my driver’s license. “Keep it handy,” she said, “you’ll need to show it to other poll workers later on.”

I kept it handy and showed it to the other poll workers later on, but they didn’t look at it. A breach of the rules, you may cry! Probably. But certainly not a breach of their responsibility. For, you see, they knew me by face, by name, and by common history. We live in the same neighborhood and have association in a variety of ways. Without inspecting my photo identification card, Susie said “Hi, Jeff!” as she checked my name against the master list. “Good morning, Jeff!” said Connie, who showed me to the voting booth, caring little about the plastic card in my hand.

As I exited the polling place, I was struck by the fact that I would not have been able to vote had I failed to bring along my “photo ID,” even though I was known personally by the poll workers. The “new law” that was to make sure that I was correctly identified would have missed entirely that I was correctly identified.

This is a perfect example of what the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead called “the fallacy of misplaced concreteness,” that is, the confusion of our symbols with reality, the abstract made the equivalent of the concrete. Bureaucracies are expert in this. Some years ago I read of a pastured poultry producer who butchered his birds on his farm in an open-air facility. His facility was far from compliance with the state regulations. Harassed by state inspectors to come into compliance with their rules, he tested the cleanliness of his birds and discovered that they were many times cleaner than the birds butchered in a regulated facility. This information did not deter the regulators who seemed to care little for the result as they insisted on compliance with the rules. They assumed compliance meant cleanliness, even when it clearly did not in this case.

A further example would involve standards-based education. Compliance with the standard equals education in the minds of these folks. What is not clear is if compliance has anything to do with understanding or wisdom or moral choices. Maurice Holt compares standardized education with fast food restaurants: “both offer standardized fare; what’s on offer is not a great source of nourishment.”

Later in the day I shared my thoughts about the substitution of the plastic identification card for actual identification with some others, who acknowledged my insight but quickly dismissed it as unworthy of further consideration because most people do not live in small towns where they are known. I am not willing to dismiss it so readily. Rather, I’d like to ask, Why can’t we envision and work toward systems that depend upon engagement, upon knowing one another personally? Why can’t we design structures with an eye to proper human scale so that we deal in the concrete rather than in the abstract?

Why don’t we start with the churches?

...and Semper Gumby

2006-04-14T07:34:00.000-04:00

My wife Kathy and I spent the first week in April at Christus Victor Lutheran Church in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, as volunteers for Lutheran Disaster Response, to help with hurricane relief efforts. This is true: these folks know what they are doing in order to provide effective help. For all the stories of mismanagement by FEMA and others, there are the stories of real help given by "the church." Christus Victor alone has hosted nearly 4000 volunteers since last August--followers of Christ who come from all over the country to labor with servants' hearts.

The idea of the "servant's heart" weaves itself as a theme through all that happens in this effort, as do a couple of other ideas. One other idea is "nonjudgmentalism." I saw this practiced in at least two ways. First, toward victims. Say a family drives up to the food distribution center in a brand-new car. It would be easy to think, "Do they deserve this help--shouldn't they just go buy their own groceries?" without considering that the car may be their only possession, everything else washed away by the storm surge. Don't judge. Jesus' words are instructive toward a helper's freedom of heart, as are these: whoever asks, give. Second, toward fellow workers. Christians often have strong opinions from a wide range of options. Say that a peace-nik pacifist is working next to a dyed-in-the-wool career military man mucking out a house. It would be easy for each to harbor deep suspicions based on deeply held convictions. Instead, they fully engage a common task, depending on a common faith. Don't give energy to judgmentalism; give energy to the work of the Kingdom.

All of this requires a spirit of "Semper Gumby" -- always flexible. Semper Gumby is the way of love, as I see it, with its charactgeristic flexibility expressed in patience, kindness, bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things, enduring all things. For me, it was a wonderful reminder of the way we are freed to live in Jesus Christ.

Sowing clover

2006-03-28T08:59:00.000-05:00

In the dark of the moon, in flying snow, in the dead of winter,
war spreading, families dying, the world in danger,
I walk the rocky hillside, sowing clover. --Wendell Berry

I cannot sow clover, which I did yesterday, without thinking of this poem. It directs me to the honor and effectiveness of small, wholesome, congruent-with-nature's-life acts amidst the clamor of cries for big solutions. Small but relentless faithfulnesses are the Way. Consider Jesus: no campaign to overthrow the Roman government or revolutionize first-century society. Just the small but relentless faithfulness that took him to the Cross...and beyond.

To get beyond, follow the Way.

Conserve, Liberate

2006-03-09T08:35:00.000-05:00

Wendell Berry has said that our country is so polarized that you're either stupid or brave to identify yourself as a conservative or a liberal nowadays. I agree with Wendell (often, and in this case as well): I have long resisted either label, in large part because the labels have come to represent caricatures that neglect the mighty virtues each strives to represent, fostering the avoidance of the useful interplay that might nourish the health of our land.

So, when asked to choose a label, I'm tempted to say, "I'm a liber...ating conser...ver."

It is neither a blend nor a compromise. It is not a pick-and-choose from the smorgasbord of each “side’s” ideas nor the mid-point on a straight-line continuum. It is not about content; it is about the holy dynamic of form and pattern and process. Refusing both the snotty either-or and the bland mixture of both-and, I want to hold together the CENTER of each that collects and stores with the EDGE of each that flows and swirls, to conserve the solid-though-lifeless absolutes at the core and to liberate the squishy-yet-wildly-alive relativities of relationship in the mysterious liminal space between. I want to respect the Natural system that underlies it all: the dynamic form that holds things together in proper proximity as a natural, diverse “household,” and the patterns of connection--the interplay--that make for integrity within wholeness, and the processes that allow for the free flow, the cycle, the messy swirl of energy that nourish life. As the biomimicy folks say, I want to take my cues from Nature as measure, model, and mentor. Indeed, to quote Wendell again, “Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.”

Straight-line dualisms are not Nature’s way; instead, Nature seems to come in threes. In his understanding of “family and natural systems,” Edwin Friedman makes much of “triangles” in a natural system. For example, he suggests that a loud conflict between two members of the triangle often serves to displace attention that would better be given to the more significant conflict between the two other members, as the constant fight between daughter and mother takes the focus of the system’s anxiety away from the deep rift between mother and her husband, or mother and her mother.

It makes me wonder what’s the “third thing” standing with the conservative and the liberal? What’s the more significant thing the conservative-liberal polarization is working so hard to avoid? What are the things that we ought to be diligently conserving and liberating that the fight permits us to neglect?

I pray that we discover this third thing so that we might tend to it unto the health of the system. I have an idea that it has to do with Creation’s neighborhood, including the land, air, water, and creatures, including the human community. I agree with E.B. White, who said, “I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.”

Huh?

2006-03-06T08:51:00.000-05:00

It is not typical for me, but I spent a goodly amount of time watching the Academy Awards on television last night. My wife watches the show each year, and watches many movies throughout the year; occasionally she reads a little bit of "Hollywood gossip;" she notices and comments on what the celebreties are wearing for the evening. She likes this kind of stuff. From my totally uninformed vantage point, I consider her an Oscar expert.

So I asked a lot of questions as the evening progressed. Who is that? Why is the camera on them now? Why are they playing that song at this time? Is that dress really considered fashionable? What is the significance of that statement, that everyone is laughing? What happens next? What movie was she in? Why is there so much self-congratulation? How do they determine who presents the awards? How do they determine who wins? And so forth. Her answers are quick, if she answers at all. She wants to watch the show (which is a reasonable desire, of course). To her ears, I must sound like a toddler: Why? Why? Why? God bless her for being as gracious as she could be under this barrage. After three hours I had had enough and I went to bed.

It is a different culture than I am used to. I don't understand much about it. It occurred to me that it must be the same for someone trying to understand "agrarianism," the life I lead and the worldview that underlies it. From the practices engaged on our small family farm, to the deep values they represent, the culture is foreign to many, and increasingly to many more. From outside any culture we typically ask, Why are they doing that? Why does it matter?

I hope my answers are satisfying enough to keep others asking. I hope the value of agrarian culture, though foreign, is compelling enough to keep others fom tiring to quickly, from giving up and going to bed.

Create

2006-03-05T07:49:00.000-05:00

My son has a stone into which is carved the word, "create."

In Genesis, the Hebrew word for "create" means "to bring forth something out of nothing." It is God's exclusive work. So when we use the word, we properly think, first of all, of God. But the narrative of Genesis doesn't leave it there. As the story unfolds, we see this Creating God creating a Creative Man-and-Woman, calling them to creativity, to the privilege and responsibility of creating-out-of-something.

It is most pleasing to me, perhaps one of the most pleasing things I can think of, to consider the creativity of the members of my family. Last night, in St. Peter, Minnesota, my daughter Sarah produced a creative musical event that served as a fundraiser for a youth center in town, raising over $600; and this after multiple performances on stage herself over the course of the last two weeks. It takes a creative mind to see all the pieces and put them together with all the people to produce a successful event; she's got what it takes--a creativity that goes deep and wide. My son, Zach, wrote songs and, along with his band (www.jaybercrow.com), performed them at the event; he's got what it takes, too. My wife, Kathy, was recently awarded a coveted Lilly Endowment Teacher Creativity Grant, which will allow her to spend three weeks in England's Lake District studying Beatrix Potter and her gardens, in order to return to our farm and create a garden of her own. My mom, at age 77, is writing a novel; my dad, age 81, comes out to spend warm summer days on the farm where he finds old parts to turn into new, useful tools.

Punctuating the story of God's Creation at regular intervals, the narrator pauses to remind us that God was pleased by the creative process and its results. I am, too.

Listening Mode

2006-03-05T07:23:00.000-05:00

This morning, about 5am or so, as I lay in pre-dawn darkness, I thought I heard a rooster crow.

We have three roosters on our farm. It has been many months since I heard one of them as early as 5am, but as daylight extends into morning and evening, the sound has returned. As I lay and listen, I anticipate the open windows of summer and the noise--yes, it is loud enough to be called noise--of birdsong that begins about 4am.

I've noticed that I am constantly in listening mode as I enjoy daily life on this small family farm. Listening signals me to what is going on, what I may need to respond to. Is that a calf bellowing? I'd better go see why. What are the dogs barking at so late at night? Is it a varmint they'd like to chase, another dog in the distance, or an intruder? It sounds as if the wind is picking up; are things battened down to handle it? Ah, the gentle sound of the promised "million-dollar rain" (as my Grandpa called it) has started in the night; on the leaves of corn it sounds like applause. Or is it the sound of an approaching storm? Are the pasture pens in a low area, threatened by the gathering of the waters? Is that the crunch of gravel under tires, the rumble of a diesel engine--who has driven into my barnlot this early morning and for what reason--have my cattle broken through a fence? Breezes and birds, rain and rumbling, barking and bellowing--so I can know what is going on.

When we visit the city, I'm forced to turn off listening mode. The cacophony overwhelms to signal nothing. I must tune out the cars and sirens and electronic bursts and drones and treat it all as white noise, sound that insulates from significance. Perhaps this is why so many seem to wear earphones, longing for a sound that matters.

First Light

2006-03-02T07:22:00.000-05:00

A poem by Tess Gallagher extols the virtue of leaving "the warm beds of our dreams to sit beside what rises." She writes of her father's habit of greeting the new day before dawn, sitting with his coffee cup in first light, hearing the first bird call, "gazing but not expecting while the world begins." She admits, and I must join her: "I, too, am addicted to slow sweet beginnings."

Some hit the snooze button until the last possible moment, then jump up in a frenzy to meet the deadline. I can't think of a worse way to start the day. I must sit ponderously, in prayer, in thought, in gratitude. I resist checking my e-mail or heading out to do farm chores, because these things will take my mind in the direction of achieving, confronting me with so much to do, to get done. I pray Luther's Morning Prayer and read the Daily Texts because these things take my mind in the direction of receiving. I want to start the day, and live the day, and end the day, "in, with, and under" grace.

I like to read in the morning, when my mind is most open to receive. Today I read "See that none of you repays evil for evil," and "It takes a sane and deeply healed community to nurture prophetic vision. Few of us grow up in such soul-making space, so the instinct to conform overwhelms our best ideas," and "To be yourself is to court mockery," and "God sides with the weird--whatever is 'spare, strange,' 'fickle, freckled,' writes Gerard Manley Hopkins."

Darkness giving way to light.

Trying to Teach My Mind

2006-02-24T09:09:00.000-05:00

"I am trying to teach my mind
to bear the long, slow growth
of the fields, and to sing
of its passing while it waits." - Wendell Berry

It is, indeed, something to bear, a burden to carry, to confront one's impatience. Three years ago I left a "regular" job in order to establish our small family farm as the context for a ministry of continuing education for pastoral leaders. The lessons I hope to teach are the lessons I hope to learn--from the fields and the faith--of bearing the long, slow growth as the gift of God. I am ironically impatient in this. I secretly wish for quick growth and easy answers, a three-ring binder with ten simple steps. Perhaps I have been indoors too much over these past winter months where these kinds of temptations are readily at hand. Perhaps I need to go outdoors where early birds are beginning to sing, so that my own mind can sing with them, while it waits.

How Do You Know?

2006-02-15T07:46:00.000-05:00

I was at a retreat recently at the wonderful John XXIII Center in Hartford City, Indiana. The setting is conducive both for good conversation and quiet contemplation. They also feed us well. For the Tuesday noon meal we were treated to what looked to be delicious boneless center-cut pork chops. I love pork. But because I have made a moral decision against eating factory-farm meat, I wasn't sure if I would be able to put one on my plate. So I asked, "Do you know where the pork came from? Is it local?" No one knew. So I sadly passed the pork by.

Someone asked me about my conviction, along with the question, "So how do you know where the meat comes from?" I said, "You ask, but often, as in the case today, they do not know." "Then what do you do?" "If you don't know, you don't eat it. And, I might add, this is hard!"

Wendell Berry, in an interview, says "the things we buy have been produced so far away as to make impossible any stewardly interest on the part of the consumer." I like that phrase, "stewardly interest." If we do not know, we cannot be good stewards of the gifts we enjoy.

The only way to know is to do things closer to home, in a neighborly manner, as neighbors.

Cows and Charcter

2006-02-12T14:41:00.000-05:00

I was sitting in a store parking lot waiting for my wife when I decided to listen to Garrison Keillor on "A Prairie Home Companion." I tuned in to the February 11 show as he was talking about the University of Minnesota-Morris from where the show was being broadcast. I think he was describing the university during its early years, when it was also a farm. When the transcript of the show is posted at www.prairiehome.publicradio.org, I'll have to take a look and see how accurate is my recollection of what he said. It was something on the order of going back to the ways of "animal husbandry" as the way forward in order to build character. He encouraged someone to try it.

Thanks, Garrison. I am encouraged! We ARE trying it here, at least to some degree, at Hawkins Family Farm. And we are finding what you predicted: there is something about the tending of cows that promotes the tending of character. I know you were talking about school kids; we happen to be working with clergy, with this in mind: if their task is to take care of a "flock," it makes sense that they spend some time with nature's flocks in order to get a handle on what they are called to do and how they ought to do it. Most clergy, however, spend more time in their cars than in Creation. To address this, we set up a ministry of continuing education on our family farm called HOPE CSA [Hands-On Pastoral Education using Clergy Sustaining Agriculture]. At minimum, participants in our program become more skilled at the "manure management" which happens no matter what flock is being tended.

I e-mailed the folks at Prairie Home Companion to let them know. I thought they might take heart knowing this.

Forms and Patterns

2006-01-30T12:11:00.000-05:00

We spent time in the city this past weekend. It has been many years since we lived there; now we visit and are always glad to get back home to the farm.

Perhaps it is because I am growing older and more feeble, in a sense--I do not hear, see, or keep up as well as I once did. But increasingly I notice the hurry as more than simply a fast pace. It strikes me as "hurry-as-relentless-diversion." It is not just fast; it seems desperately fast to get away. It feels like the rushed need to find a bathroom because of a full bladder. The illustration fails, however, because the need for a bathroom is also toward something; the hurry-as-relentless-diversion seems almost exclusively aimed at getting away from the here-and-now. The ubiquitous presence of cell phones and ear phones seems to scream, "I am not here! I am somewhere else!"

"We live mainly by forms and patterns," says "Wallace Stegner, "If the forms are bad, we live badly." I wonder at the forms that take us away from the present. I worry over the patterns that relentless divert us from the now.

2006-01-05T01:14:00.000-05:00

Jeff Hawkins

"Natural" Church Development

2006-01-05T00:28:00.000-05:00

I recently received word from a fellow pastor congratulating us on a feature article in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette (see http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/fortwayne/business/13526624.htm). He said that his congregation was investigating a way of going about growing the church known as "natural church development," and that, having read some of the materials from HOPE CSA, he assumed there would be some overlap. There is less than one might think. Here's a cleaned-up version of how I responded, for what it is worth.

I read the Natural Church Development stuff in the mid-1990s and re-read some of it again recently. Certainly there are some areas of overlap, and many ideas worthy of serious consideration, although it appears to me that there is a rather significant difference.

If I am understanding correctly--and without more dedicated study I may be misunderstanding and would welcome correction-- it seems that the underlying paradigm is more "industrial/mechanical" than "natural/organic," more tinkering with the mechanism to compel the more efficient and effective production of quantities than the receiving and working with the given qualities inherent in the natural system toward "soteria" ("holy health"). Reducing the system to 8 "parts," each of which is more-or-less independently developed up to a certain index so that the member-producing machine runs successfully, seems different to me than considering and employing the way the members of the household (which includes not only the people in the church "family" but the neighborhood, including Creation's neighborhood, the "oiko-system") are given to each other for "life."

On my farm, it is the difference between seeing each enterprise as an independent unit toward the primary goal of measuring up to the index of profitability, etc. versus asking how the cattle fit with the chickens and how they both fit with the pastures and how all these fit with the farm family and with the neighbors and the neighborhood (including the watershed, etc.) toward the health of all. Or, to put it in more theological terms, it is kind of like the difference between reducing the Trinity to three quantifiable entities versus receiving the Trinity as an ecological "whole.")

My point is that natural church development isn't really natural, as I see it; it is not ecological in the broad sense of the term. It is based on the mechanical paradigm of the contemporary church.

This is not to say it is without value. Working with the mechanics of a congregation is part of the job and it behooves one to do it well; Schwarz offers some useful ideas and tools. But I am unconvinced that raising the indexes in the 8 areas provide for a household of holy health, as productive as it may be (in the short-term, at least).

All this has to do chiefly with one's understanding of the nature of the Church, of course. Mine is that it is primarily an "oikos" of "soteria," a household of salvation, home for life, more than it is a machine for producing disciples.

Toward a Barnyard Mind

2005-12-28T12:06:00.000-05:00

I was reading this morning an account of one frustrated with the common intellectual practice to rush to abstraction. She's an academic who discovered at mid-life the satisfaction of tending sheep. She wrote that she tries to counter her frustration by claiming "a barnyard mind," a mind grounded in the practical realities of Creation.

I find myself using the same strategy. Someone once said that there is no truth without context, and Wendell Berry says that the context of everything is "everything else," a claim for an ecological way of seeing the truth. The root of "eco-" is a Greek work, "oikos," which means "household." "Everything" and "everything else" fit into the context of the household; reality consists of entities housed together and held together in relationship, whether the entities are stars in a galaxy or plants in a pasture or a flock in a congregation or a barnyard. A barnyard mind is a mind formed and informed by the household.

I use a barnyard mind to approach the relationship of scienific thinking and theology, or science and religion. I am thinking today particularly of the currently contentious matter of Intelligent Design.

I'll start with Science and my assumption about it. Science is like fire, a great servant but a poor master.

We need Science, of course. In service of the greater ideals of humanity, science has offered tools for the enhancement of life in every area. Science has shows us how to produce more food so that more are better fed. Science has shown us how to care for bodies in order to promote heath and healing. Science has shown us how to transport ourselves across the planet and beyond. Science has shown us ways to communicate more widely. Science has shown us how to observe and interpret evidence in order to promote justice. Science has shown us a great deal about reality and we are mightily impressed by its ability to do so.

Based on this great ability, we grant Science a great authority. That is, we grant Science permission to "author" large parts of the Story of Reality. More and more we allow Science to to tell nearly the whole Story, which has the effect of changing the role of Science from servant to master.

I'll say it again: Science, like fire, is a poor master. It's very real limitations declare that it is not up to the task of authoring the whole Story. The chief limitation of Science is that it has no place for mystery, no place for any reality that may lay outside the boundaries or capacities of the puny human mind. Science ignores the truth it cannot apprehend.

This suggests that, while we need Science, we also need more than Science. We need an authority that can author the Story of Reality based on the whole truth, knowable to puny human minds or not.

The idea of Intelligent Design recognizes this fundamental need. Intelligent Design asks that a different version of the Story be told, one that attempts to account for mystery. Its mistake is that it asks Science to remain the author of the Story. By doing this, it tries unhelpfully to make that which is more-than-Science into mere Science. By doing this, it continues the trend that affirms Science as authoritative master, that to which we look and listen for the whole Story. The fatal flaw is that Science cannot tell the whole Story. The limits of Science preclude the possibility.

What Science shows needs to serve a greater master, a more capable author, one that can tell the whole Story, mystery included. Religion can do this. Religion can "hold together" (the root of the word, think "ligament") the Sciences and the Arts and the Stuff of Daily Life as critical elements in the Story of Reality, as constituents of the Great Truth. Religion can also fail at this and has done so mightily, which is why we are tempted to lack confidence in it. Nevertheless, religion has the capacity to hold together evidence and mystery, reason and faith, matter and spirit, law and gospel.

This is why we thank God that the idea of Inteligent Design is not Science but is, in fact, Religion. For as Religion it can tell the fuller story with greater authority. Served by Science, in respectful conversation with Science as partner, Religion can inform and form us for life in the creative, living household rather than confine us to life in the sterile, controlled laboratory. Religion can celebrate the life that muddles in mystery and manure, that digs deep in soil and soul, that dances in the whirling interplay of transcendence and intimacy, that enjoys the grace of givenness. Religion can make use of the barnyard mind, the one that sees "oikos" as the main thing.

I know that religion has not always done so and may not do so even yet.

But it can.

Back Home for Christmas

2005-12-25T10:52:00.000-05:00

One of the privileges of living on the small family farm is the opportunity to test new things on a small scale. Last spring I talked of the desire to test bug control in the garden using guinea fowl. During the summer friend Peggy showed up one day with eight guinea keets, only a few weeks old, as a gift. I put them in the brooder with the turkeys, with whom they lived as good neighbors through the summer and fall. As planned, the turkeys (and one guinea, which is another story) "re-located" off the farm at Thanksgiving and the guineas were, unhappily it seemed, left alone. I moved their hoop house to a new site, in the garden, and moved the laying hens in with them to keep them company and to provide winter shelter for all the birds. I kept the birds confined for a about a week so that they could establish themselves in the new location.

When I opened the hoop house to give them access to the outdoors, they went out, but stayed close for a couple of weeks. Then one day we found seven guineas high up in the huge maple tree near our bedroom window, but still near the garden (which I hoped they would consider their territory, thinking of next summer's bugs). Their helmet-like shapes and noisy dialogue offered a spectacle we were delighted to enjoy (as Kathy says, there is always something going on here so it is never boring). But they remained in the maple tree only for a day. The next day they were gone. They were nowhere to be found. Not in the maple tree. Nor in the other trees surrounding the barn lot. Nor back in the hoop house. Nor in the barn. They were gone.

Days went by and they didn't come back. I lamented aloud my mistake; I should have offered special feed to keep them near the hoop house (I read somewhere that they love white millet and can be trained by its use). We were sad to lose them. They are birds with noisy personality and their own unique beauty. They provided an element of charm to our farm. They are birds that were supposed to eat bugs. The test was over without ever really starting.

Going out to do morning feeding chores brought a measure of melancholy; the clucking of the hens and the crow of the roosters were little compensation for the chatter of the guineas.

But then there came the morning when I approached the hoop house and wondered at a sound I heard. Could it be...? Indeed, when I went inside, I found six guineas roosting as though they had never been gone. They greeted me with their familiar chatter. I quickly fed and watered the birds--making sure I offered plenty so that the benefit of their choice to return would be emphasized to them-- and rushed to the house to report the news. "The guineas are back home!"

A few days later we drove to Chicago to pick up our daughter and her boyfriend from the airport, and a few days after that we made the same trip to pick up our son. At this stage in their lives it is never certain that they will be with us for Christmas due to their increasing obligations as adults. Spending family time is precious, of course, and predictable, at least in this way: their timeback home could satisfactorily be described as a journey from food event to food event.

Which suggests this: whether flock or family, the food seems to play a big part to draw us back home and keeps us happy while here.

The Color is Blue

2005-12-16T11:00:00.000-05:00

Blue, the perfect color for this season due to its irony: the Advent color of hope ("Watch!"); the "holiday's" color of dashed hopes ("Feeling blue?"). Honest hope in a fearful post 9-11, post-tsunami, post-Katrina, presently-warring, pre-Avian flu world is a precious thing. Perhaps the following sermon by the Rev. Anne Robertson (follow link, below) will meet your fears and raise your hopes as mine were met and raised. A hopeful Advent and fulfilling Christmas be with you all.

[http://www.annerobertson.com/Katrina.htm]

Captured

2005-12-05T12:00:00.000-05:00

In the Gospel lesson appointed for the Second Sunday in Advent, we read of a person who spent a lot of time outdoors. His name was John, sometimes called John-the-Baptist or John-the-Baptizer. We’re told that he lived outdoors all the time in a place called “the wilderness,” sort of like I live outdoors (during the summer, at least) most of the time in a place called “the farm.” John wore “outdoor clothes” made of camel’s hair and leather—rugged rather than refined clothes, kind of like I wear my chore clothes that get a lot of hard use and get quite dirty. And he ate “outdoor food,” chiefly things he could find like bugs (locusts) and honey, sort of like when I go out to the garden and see what I can find, like a carrot to dig or a couple of green beans to pick, to munch on as I work.

Many people of his day did not live like John, of course, out in the wilderness. Instead, they lived in cities, or at least in houses, and spent at least some time indoors; they wore less rugged clothes; they ate more refined foods. I guess this is sort of like most people of our day, who live in cities and suburbs, wear nicer clothes (that they are not supposed to get dirty) and eat refined foods purchased from the grocery store.

According to the story from the Gospel lesson, these people were leaving the city and going out into the wilderness, in order to hear a message important for their lives. It made me think: perhaps we need to “leave the city” and “go out to the wilderness” as well, or at least go outdoors in order to hear.

I think we have trouble hearing because our attention is captured by other things. Especially at this time of year, there are at least two competing forces that are trying to capture us. I’ll name them this way. One force I will call the “Popular Culture’s Christmas.” The other force I will call the “Church’s Advent.”

Here’s one way you can tell them apart.

The Popular Culture’s Christmas wants to stir us into a frenzy, to take us into the heart of the city and surround us with noise and deceptions and temptations, its merchandise and marketing and more; it wants us to react quickly and without much thought. Hurry before it is too late!

The Church’s Advent wants to settle us within a promise, to take us out to the wilderness to hear John the Baptist; it wants to surround us with silence or the quiet melodies that lead to thoughtfulness and soul-fulness; it wants us to respond to the news of a coming Savior with the kind of trust in his grace that allows us to be completely free, even free to repent, that is, to “change our minds.” Keep alert, watch!

Which force has captured you this season?

I’d like to suggest that you give the Church’s Advent an advantage this year, by making use of the Wilderness of Nature to settle you in the promise; that daily you spend time outdoors, noticing the promises of God that even now God is keeping.

What the World Eats

2005-11-23T16:07:00.000-05:00

I have been eating a lot of turkey lately. In honor of family members returning home, one at the end of October and the other at the beginning of November, we roasted turkeys, fresh from our farm. Our turkeys grow well and are usually large, which means plenty of leftovers. Last week, on Friday, we hosted a clergy group on the farm, as well as one on Monday, and each group enjoyed a lavish turkey dinner (again, with plenty of leftovers). So when we serve the traditional Thanksgiving meal tomorrow, we will be well rehearsed. As a matter of fact, we have had so much turkey lately that we'd prefer pork chops or beef roast instead.

I'm hesitant to state this preference, however, for fear that it will sound ungrateful. This has become especially clear to me since I received the book by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio called "Hungry Planet: What the World Eats," described as a "photographic study of families from around the world, revealing what people eat during the course of one week. Each family's profile includes a detailed description of theri weekly food purchaes; photographs of the family at home, at market, and in their community; and a portrait of the entire family surrounded by a week's worth of groceries. To assemble this remarkable comparison, Menzel and D'Aluisio traveled to twenty-four countries and visited thirty families from Bhutan to Bosnia to Mexico to Mongolia."

I have been reading the book each time I sit down to eat at our kitchen table. Today I read the section describing the Namgays of Bhutan. They eat mostly what they grow for themselves, namely cheese, vegetables, especially red chilies, and red rice. And they drink butter tea. Three times a day.

And I think I've had "too much" turkey lately.

Joy, With or Without

2005-11-10T23:15:00.000-05:00

One does not, in November, typically think about wandering out to the garden to see what may be ready for harvest. But that's what I did today. I found the best looking spinach I've seen this year on our farm. I picked spinach leaves, washed them, drizzled on some Ranch dressing, cut up chunks of turkey (roasted last week as a trial run for Thanksgiving), and had a feast. It tasted particularly good. My guess is that the taste was enhanced by the knowledge that tonight's low temperature may dip into the 20s, killing the spinach that remains in the garden.

There is joy in unexpected abunance. And joy in expected limitations. It is joyful to eat spinach unexpectedly on November 10 and joyful to expect to be without it all winter but never without the anticipation of it next Spring. Joy seems to demand variety, including the wide variety of "with" versus "without." Perhaps this is why, in an age that refuses to take limits seriosuly, there seems to be so little Joy.

Full Moon Fancies

2005-10-16T22:03:00.000-05:00

It was dark when I turned off the county road and drove down our farm lane this evening, having delivered two pigs to the slaughter house. In the light of the full moon I saw movement to my right. It was my wife, Kathy, in the gardens, harvesting vegetables before the threatened frost. "This lettuce is gorgeous!" she said, "We should cover it against the frost. And the peppers, too. The plants are loaded!" A couple of weeks ago I covered plants against a threatened frost, but now I am unenthusiastic to do so. "Maybe it's time to be done with the garden," I said. "There's grace in that, too." So instead of digging out huge sheets of plastic to cover the beds, I helped harvest, by moonlight. "The broccoli is gorgeous, too," I commented as I cut a few heads, thankful that after a summer of drought we finally had some beautiful garden crops. "But I am ready to be done." There is a season for everything, and I have work to do indoors tonight.

As we carried our bounty up to the old milk house, to sort it and clean it, the full moon continued to command our attention, now framed by the barn and corn crib. "The moon is gorgeous. Kiss me," Kathy said. Her request caught me by surprise, for this is not something we often do as we work, in the barnlot, on a whim. Despite my surprise, I willingly obliged. "Kiss me again," she said. And I kissed her again.

There must be some kind of power in a full moon, to threaten frost, to promise romance, even to encourage frequent use of the word "gorgeous." It is an enchanting power, for those who care to notice. The moon is supposed to be full tomorrow night, too.

Getting It Back

2005-09-25T20:00:00.000-05:00

A couple of days ago I had two experiences that felt emotionally identical.

The first experience is shameful. I lied to a friend. It was one of those common fibs--telling her on the phone that my wife was "not home" when in fact my wife was home. It was a knee-jerk reaction to be protective of my wife, which may be seen as an honorable incentive, but it is no justification, no excuse. I felt terrible about it, in part because I am a bad liar and likely did a poor job of it and therefore had little hope of getting away with it. I brooded guiltily all night long. Early the next morning I sent an e-mail to make my confession and to ask for forgiveness. Once I sent it, I went outside to do my morning chores, wondering if I could get her trust back.

Once I got outside, I noticed that my cattle seemed to be missing. I had moved them to a new section of pasture the day before, where a single electric wire kept them from the next farm and the next county. My heart started to race: Where were they? If they were indeed out, perhaps far away from home, lost in a large cornfield, could I get them back?

It was the same pit in my stomach in both instances.

Thankfully, the cattle had broken through a fence only to find themselves in another fenced-in area on the farm, an area I had created the day before in case something like this happened. Even though they were "out," they were still "in." Just as thankfully, when I got indoors after chores, I found that the friend e-mailed back and graciously wrote "forgiven and forgotten!" Apparently our long-standing friendship and trust had created the same kind of space--even though I had busted through a boundary, I was still "in" good standing. The relief I felt in both instances astounded me.

It is good to have those things in place--the things of grace--for the (inevitable) times when the boundaries are violated.

Many Monarchs

2005-09-05T22:15:00.000-05:00

Recently a monarch butterfly flew in our bedroom window when Kathy removed the set-in screen to close the window for the night. On our night screens we expect moths rather than monarchs. The next day as I walked through the yard south of the house I was surprised and delighted to see dozens of monarchs flying around me. I've been reading of a decline in monarchs due to a decline in milkweed plants on which they lay their eggs We let the milkweeds grow on our farm. Up until now, we see an occasional monarch butterfly. But this year, dozens!

It makes me want to believe even more what I try to believe: that small acts can make a difference. Did the small act of letting milkweeds grow over the past few years result in a bevy (herd? flock?) of monarchs this year? I'd like to think so, or at least think that it contributed to the result. The cumulative effect of small, regular acts can be powerful (consider how much water will be on the floor from a small but steady leak in your toilet...)

One small act I continue--with a measure of struggle--is refusing to eat meat produced by factory farms. It is a struggle because the options are so few and because I like Pizza Hut pepperoni and Applebee's riblets, for example. But I have made a commitment, and so I get mushrooms only on my pizza and fish at Applebee's. My small act is, frankly, inconsequential for anyone but me at this point, I know. And yet, it enough of us do it, enough to make a critical mass, then things will change. There will be more non-factory-farm options for my plate, just as there are more butterflies on my farm.

A bevy of monarchs told me so.

Roosters as resource

2005-08-09T23:19:00.000-05:00

Last Spring we decided that we wanted laying hens. I found a classified ad for "laying hens" that were a few weeks old. I drove a couple of hours, intending to pick up about 3 dozen birds. It was a long way to drive, but "started" layers can be difficult to find. As we were finishing loading the birds into crates, I asked a question to confirm what I was buying, "There ARE layers, right?" The seller said, "We don't really know." I was taken aback. I should have protested: "Your ad said 'layers' but the truth is you don't really know? Hey, I didn't drive two hours to buy roosters!"

But I did drive two hours to buy roosters. I bought twice as many birds as I had intended, hoping for about 3 dozen laying hens to begin laying eggs in July.

July came and went without eggs. I noticed quite a few roosters in the pen and decided to start thinning the flock. I thought that I'd remove a rooster or two each day and use them for cat food.

When my dad found out, he said, "Let's butcher them instead. There's some good meat there!" I replied: "I don't have time to butcher the birds. At least, if the cats eat them, the meat won't go to waste." My dad replied back: "Would you mind if I butchered a few?" I didn't mind at all. So I stopped taking a couple of roosters a day.

Finally, it came time to remove all but a couple of roosters from the pen. I was shocked to take 24 roosters out, in addition to those I had already removed. I ended up with about 15 hens, expensive hens that were still not laying as of August 8. I'm feeling like I "got took."

Plus, I have a lot of roosters to dispose of. I thought I'd simply kill them and take their carcasses to the local rendering plant. When my dad found out, he said, "Let's butcher them instead." I replied, "Dad, I just don't have time!" He replied back: "Would you mind if I butchered them?" I said, "It will take you all day!"

He got up early the next day and started. Indeed, it took him all day. But he had over 20 packages of meat for the freezer.

In order to accomplish the butchering task, he cut some corners. He skinned the birds. Then he cut off the wings, legs, and thighs, and filleted off the breasts. In this way he neither plucked not gutted. "My mother would have a fit," he commented, "throwing away good food."

I was struck by his sense of guilt at not using the whole bird, which was not unlike my own guilt for considering using none. There is a great gulf between my throw-away generation and my grandma's use-it-all generation. I'm glad my dad is in between us, offering a compromise, a way that I can be less wasteful. And, maybe he'll invite me over for a chicken dinner!

Fresh food

2005-08-02T19:06:00.000-05:00

On Sunday we were driving in western Iowa following a week in the Black Hills. It was nearing lunch time, and my wife Kathy saw a sign west of Des Moines that read "LT Organic Farm and Restaurant." It is uncharacteristic for Kathy to try something new, but she said, "That's where we are going to eat." (She was driving, so my opinion mattered little.) Her newly-acquired adventuresome spirit proved worthy: our eating experience was more than wonderful, in large part because they grew the vegetables and raised the chicken and were dedicated to providing our food as fresh as possible. The farmer, formerly a cardiologist, and his wife, formerly an RN, were passionate about fresh food as an important source of health. Both the food and the conversation were very satisfying.

It's two days later. Kathy just came in the house after a tiring day of teaching first graders at our local elementary school. On her way from school to home, she stopped by the grocery store and got a Boboli pizza crust. Then she stopped at our gardens to pick a fresh green pepper and some fresh cherry tomatoes, pluck a fresh onion from the soil, and snip some fresh basil and fresh oregano from the herb bed. She brushed the Boboli with olive oil, added the garden goodies, and topped it with three kinds of cheese (shredded parmesan, mozzarella, and gorgonzola). She baked it for 15 minutes at 450 degrees. "This is amazing!" we said with our mouths full.

There is nothing quite like fresh food.

Surprised by LIfe

2005-07-06T15:28:00.000-05:00

We had three-eights of an inch of rain a couple of days ago, after a month of no rain at all. Unirrigated garden plants are trying to hang on, but fruit is slow in coming. (The weeds seem to be doing just fine, however.) It is dry and dusty and draining. Both my spirit and my flesh seem to be shriveling.

So it came as a raindrop-welcome surprise when I walked in the barn to hear the tiny squeaks of new kittens. And then to discover that the one hen that usually roams the barn lot had hatched chicks. There's life after all in this desert. I'm grateful to have stumbled upon it, to know the truth of it again.

Partners, Pumpkins, and Grace

2005-07-04T13:02:00.000-05:00

Lutheran Partners Magazine recently published an article that describes some of the thinking behind the ministry of HOPE CSA (see http://www.elca.org/lp/). As I re-read what I wrote many months ago, I was reminded of the priority of grace. "We live by mercy, if we live..." writes Wendell Berry. "We are but beggars, this is true!" said Martin Luther near the end of his life. When it comes right down to it, living well is about receiving well.

Each year I plant pumpkins. It involves labor at each stage of the process: preparing soil, planting, weeding, fighting bugs and disease, and more. Last year we planted over 100 hills and got about 50 pupkins for all our worry and effort. We planted again this year and hope for the best. It's very dry here and we do not irrigate. Pumpkins are mostly water. I wonder how they will do.

A few days ago as I took feed to the hogs I noticed some large-leaved plants growing in a crack between the barn and the gravel driveway. I think they are pumpkins plants. They are growing nicely without any attention on my part. No weeds. No bugs. No disease. My guess is that these seeds were planted when we threw leftover pumpkins to the hogs last Fall. The hogs nosed them into the cracks and tramped them into the soil.

It won't surprise me if the fruit is better than those I am planting and tending. Each time I go past these plants, I marvel, I wonder, I'm grateful. I think these have something to do with receiving well.

How Cows Want to Celebrate the 4th of July

2005-07-02T10:11:00.000-05:00

We sleep with our windows open. Last night there was a wonderful, cool breeze coming in, which was especially welcome after many hot, sticky nights. Shortly after turning out the lights we saw a bright flash and heard a series of loud booms out over our pasture. Then we heard cattle bellowing.

"I hear cows," said Kathy.

"I'd better go check," I said, unhappy at the prospect of waking up, getting dressed, and likely finding a crisis.

The light and noise had scared the cattle so that they broke through a fence. It was a temporary electric fence, located between the herd and the barn. Thankfully, their instinct was to run for the familiar rather than head out across the fields to parts unknown. I called them into the barn lot and closed the gate so that they would be protected from further noisy human celebration.

Then I went and talked to my neighbor. He told me that he was testing one of the huge assortment of fireworks that he had purchased to use on the 4th. Not realizing it, he had fired the test out over the pasture, directly above the cattle that I had moved to that location earlier in the day. Not being a farmer, he had not even considered the possibility of the effect of his test shot. We quickly and graciously came to terms about the incident and future activities. He's a good neighbor.

When I got back to bed, Kathy said, "You'd better keep the cattle close to the barn for the next few days."

Cattle and people celebrate differently, after all.

Keeping the Rooster

2005-07-02T10:00:00.000-05:00

Many months ago some friends were garage-saling and (only in Indiana) found a rooster and hen for sale. They bought the pair with the intention of re-locating them on our farm. "Your farm need a rooster crowing in the morning," they said. The rooster does indeed crow--at all times of day.

The plan was to keep the birds away from the house and barn lot (or, rather, to keep the chicken manure away from the house and barn lot.) They always travel together, an, early on, they didn't know this rule. So, with small stones and large, harsh words Kathy trained them to stay in and near the barn rather than range up to the house. She must occasionally remind them using similar tactics. Kathy is not fond of the rooster.

Lately the rooster has been as testy as Kathy. Some farm visitors have moved in too close only to be lunged at and spurred. "It's time," says Kathy, "to get rid of the rooster."

I prepared to catch the rooster and end its life, but delayed doing so. Something inside me resisted.

I finally figured out the source of my resistance. The rooster's testiness started about the same time as the hen began brooding, sitting on 13 eggs to hatch chicks. At first I thought the rooster was frustrated because his partner was no longer a constant companion. Then I realized he was being protective of his mate. I said to Kathy, "Maybe the rooster will keep the cats away from the newly-hatched chicks long enough so they can survive on their own. Maybe we should keep him for a while longer." As much as she wanted to rooster gone, she reluctantly agreed.

Good things usually come with a price. So if you come to our farm, you'll hear the Old MacDonald-style sound of a rooster crowing. Be careful, however: it may be a battle cry and you may be the target. For now, we've decided the benefit is worth the cost.

Burgers on the Grill

2005-06-20T22:41:00.000-05:00

In honor of Father's Day, yesterday we ate at an all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant. The company was wonderful. But the food expereience was, well, trying. There were too many choices. There was too much food. Too many, too much?, you ask, How is that possible? In a consumer culture we are drilled with the message that enough is never enough. We, like most others, have learned the cultural lesson well. We overate. We left the restaurant very full, but strangely unsatisfied.

This evening we ate at home. We had Hawkins Family Farm grassfed beef, specifically burgers on the grill. We ate enough. We were satisfied. There's something about good food that satisfies both body and soul.

Humus and Humility

2005-05-31T10:40:00.000-05:00

I've spent a lot of time outdoors these past few weeks, away from the desk and computer and blog. My time outdoors has included plenty of time digging in the earth, planting, weeding, praying. Working in the dirt never fails to remind me that we are from dirt--humans from humus--which suggests that our proper attitude is one of humility as opposed to hubris: down-in-the-dirtness versus noses-up-in-the-air. This is not to suggest wallowing in the mud but rather a healthy groundedness that strives to keep things in place.

It is an attitude that I tried to practice this past Memorial Day weekend, as our country pauses to remember those who have died serving our country in the military. My sister, who has lived for the past 35 years in Alaska, is visiting. She has spent her entire adult life closely associated to the military. I, on the other hand, have not, and have wrestled mightily to appreciate an institution built on violence. I am not against the military. Moreover, I am deeply grateful for and thoroughly amazed at those who would voluntarily choose to offer themselves for the good of others, even to the point of death. I struggle to find a way to be supportive of those persons who make this offering--to "support our troops"--while at the same time be intentionally unsupportive of those politicians who abuse them by sending them to fight unnecessary wars.

Yesterday my sister and her Air Force veteran boyfriend invited me to attend Memorial Day services sponsored by the American Legion. I was glad to be asked. After the ceremony I talked to another attendee, John, a 24-year veteran who served in WWII, Korea, and Viet Nam. John has had two grandsons killed in Iraq, and a third was shot in the face. John is a super-patriot who writes occasional letters to the editor that confirm it. John told me that he is against American involvement in Iraq, for he sees no purpose to it, nor any positive outcome. I was not expecting him to volunteer this information and I was moved when he shared it. He has found a way to support the troops but not the war and has the courage to say so.

Robert Nash writes, "The golden rule of moral conversation is a willingness to find the truth in what we oppose and the error in what we espouse before we presume to acknowledge the truth in what we espouse and the error in what we oppose." Yesterday John helped me to do this by doing it himself.

What Pigs Like and What They Don't

2005-05-07T00:18:00.000-05:00

We have nine pigs on our "old MacDonald" farm. They live behind the barn, in a grass lot. It won't be grass for long, of course, because pigs like to root--to plow the ground with their powerful snouts. It used to be that farmers hated what pigs liked, and would try to change the pig's behavior (if not the pig's mind) by putting a ring in its nose. Each time the pig would root, the ring would poke tender flesh and cause pain, theoretically dissuading the pig from the behavior. I am not sure it worked all that well.

A smarter way to handle the rooting of pigs is to let them root in a place that needs rooting. For example, some farmers let pigs root in the cow stable, aerating the manure pack so it turns to light, fluffy compost. Some farmers let the pigs root in the garden in order to till it, rather than using a gas-guzzling machine. These farmers like what pigs like.

Recently I read of a novice farmer asking a group of more seasoned farmers about tethering a pig. "Haven't seen a collar that will stay on a pig," said one. "Pigs hate to be restrained. I wouldn't try it," said another. I think the seasoned farmers are trying to tell the novice that pigs don't like being tethered, and that to try to do so will only result in the unhappiness of both man and beast.

It is important to have some idea of the nature of things in order to get along better rather than worse in this life. I venture to say that this is true for pigs and people alike.

It is the nature of humans, created in the image of the Creator, to be creative. By "creative" I do not mean "novel," as much as I mean something like "generative." It is the nature of humans to generate ideas, beauty, plans, sweat, things, hopes, adventures, accomplishments...to contribute, to add to, to build up, to open up, to widen, to increase, to make. People like to be creative. People do not like being stifled, tethered, restrained.

Yet in these times where the demand for "security" trumps all other claims, being restrained is the order of the day. II think it is called "minimizing risk" at all costs.

Recently I overheard some seasoned observers of life say, "I wouldn't try it."

Craft and Character

2005-05-01T21:20:00.000-05:00

My wife Kathy and I just returned from a fast, 1300-mile drive to Minnesota and Iowa to watch our kids perform. Sarah stunningly played the Countess in the Gustavus Adolphus College production of Shakespeare's "All's Well that Ends Well." Zach and his friend Pete impressively sang and played original music in concert at Luther College. No bias in these reports, of course: they were both great, really great. (We've got some video footage to prove it!)

We drove home embraced by delight as we reflected on the pursuits of our offspring. They are both talented artists who care deeply about their craft. They both give themselves over to their art and pledge to continue to do so, despite the uncertainties attached. They do so because their art defines a large part of who they are.

As parents we are tempted to encourage them to be someone else in order to gain a measure of security and stability, such as getting a job that offers a steady and substantial paycheck. We resist the temptation. After all, why would we want these great kids--of whom we are so proud-- to be someone else?

An unusual attitude

2005-04-22T10:03:00.000-05:00

Spring is the season for sprinting on the farm. We farmers pray for dry weather so that the soil works up well for planting. Neither seeds nor seeders do well dealing with hard clods or mud. When the weather is dry, we rush to get the work done. It has been a very dry April. We have been rushing relentlessly. So we pray also for rain, not only to water the seeds we have managed to get planted, but also for the respite from outdoor work. During a fenceline conversation my neighbor said, "I'm getting really tired; when's it going to rain?"

It is raining this morning. After feeding chores, I'll come inside and rest from the physical labor by working at the desk.

Over the past few weeks I have had one other opportunity to rest from the physical work. It happened on this Tuesday past. I drove an hour to Pine Manor Chick Hatchery in Goshen, Indiana, to pick up 300 just-hatched-that-day chicks. I backed the van up to the loading dock and waited for my chicks to be brought out. It took about 15 minutes. Rather than become anxious, pace back and forth, check my watch, knock on the door to see what was taking so long...I sat down in the back of the van, leaned against the side wall, and closed my eyes. When the hatchery door opened and the chicks finally arrived, the person delivering them began to apologize profusely about the delay. I said, "Hey, no problem. During this busy Spring season, I rarely get the opportunity to do what I just did. It was kinda nice!" He stared at me and didn't speak for a moment. Then he said, "That's an unusual attitude. Most people would be mad because they had to wait, they are so busy to get somewhere else." It was like a new idea to him, that a person would get to ignore the loud voices of frenzy for a brief moment. I think he liked the idea.

This "unusual attitude" is not typical for me, Yet I like the idea, too. Sometimes enough to act on it.

Half and half

2005-04-04T14:32:00.000-05:00

Last week we planted potatoes--250 lbs of them! I had hoped to get them in on Good Friday or thereabouts, mostly as a powerful symbol to myself that I was "on top of things" for a change this Spring. Even with good helpers, it took all day, in soil that had been worked a little too wet so that it was chunky and had been rained on so it had a crust on top. I attempted to use the Troy-Bilt tiller to cover the seed potatoes that had been placed in each trench, with mixed success. By the time disk arrived, I was tired and just wanted it to be over. I did my best, but still: I do not know how deeply they are covered; I do not know whether or not I plowed some of them out of the ground as I made a pass; I do not know if the soil is too cold, too damp and I do not know what the weather will do (especially as a source of correction for my many mistakes).

I am, as they say, holding my breath to see if they sprout and grow. I am not sure I believe they will, with an attitude somewhat like Thomas who said, "Unless I see I will not believe." I am watching for signs.

Yesterday I told this story to the good folks of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Harlan, Indiana, in order to help identify with Thomas, who was featured in the Gospel lesson appointed for the day. It's OK to be anxious in the absence of seeing; it is smart to keep watching for the signs that the promise of new life is being fulfilled.

I think some of them got the point. However, since they are a congregation where many are close to the soil, most of them had an opinion about my wisdom at planting potatoes so early in the season. About half said, "I've planted potatoes this early before and they have done just fine," or "I've already got some potatos in the ground, too!" The other half said, "It's too early; your potatoes will rot."

I guess we'll all keep watching to see what happens.

Flockness

2005-03-25T00:10:00.000-05:00

I was at a gathering at Zion Lutheran Church this Maundy Thursday evening, sitting at table, eating lamb. Someone asked me, "Didn't I hear that you were going to get sheep?" I had to admit that it was the first I'd heard of the idea.

I'm glad he asked, however; for perhaps it is not a bad idea. A flock of sheep would fit nicely with the flock of chickens and flock of turkeys and herd of cattle already on our farm. And it would provide further illustration of something I've been thinking about lately, what I call (for lack of a better word) "flockness." A flock of chickens behaves like a flock, not like a collection of individual birds. That's flockness. It is a given.

The equivalent for humans may be what we call "community." I hear this word used a lot these days, mostly with respect to its lack. "We need more community!" they say, usually followed by a number of proposals to create or enhance it.

It's these propoals that give me pause. For what I have observed on our farm is that flockness is not manufactured or engineered but is given. It makes me wonder if community is not also given. Perhaps less attention ought to be given to "making" or even "fostering" community and more to simply expressing the community that has been given already. Maybe we start with what we need.

It's worth thinking about further...maybe while watching some sheep.

Cruciform

2005-03-23T00:15:00.000-05:00

I've been trying to place my vegetable order this week, which takes hours to accomplish. Which varieties to repeat? Which new ones to try? What is likely to grow well in our climate and soil? What can I plant in order to extend the season for each crop? How much garden space is available? What fits into the rotation? Which company to order from? How much is the cost?

As I try to make these decisions each year, something always catches my eye and makes me wonder. It is the scientific name for a group of vegetables which are all high in fiber, vitamins and minerals, and include broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, chard, kale, mustard greens, rutabagas and turnips. The name? Cruciferous. These are known as cruciferous vegetables.

It is said that cruciferous vegetables contain antioxidants that help fight cancer. Great! But this health-enhancing property is not what I'm wondering about. What has my attention is the word that comes from the same root as "crucify."

What do these vegetables have to do with execution, and specifically that of the Lord Jesus? What relationship have they with the Friday Christians call Good, which is now only days away? (It is traditional to plant potatoes and peas on Good Friday, but not broccoli!)

My mind wanders to Good Friday--the day empty of life but filled with promise--and to the Easter Sunday which follows, the day full of life but empty of understanding. When Easter happened, few (if any) really "got it." Mostly they were confused and afraid. It took a while for the cruciform reality that provides the basis for a truly new life to sink in.

It still takes time to sink it: in order to get to Easter the route is through Good Friday; the path to new life means facing the pains and problems rather than side-stepping them. It takes time to sink in while we detour through denial and disbelief and anger and bargaining and a whole host of emotions and strategies. There are plenty of side roads to try out. Some of us have to try all the detours in order to discover that they are all dead-ends.

Until we take the narrow way in and through which leads to the blessed way out.

Placed in the ground like a body in a grave. Buried in darkness in order to sprout towards the light, like a broccoli seed planted in early Spring. Cruciferous. Cruciform. The shape life takes as it reaches toward the promises of heaven.

Same and Different Every Time

2005-03-17T19:25:00.000-05:00

A small group of pastors spent the day on Hawkins Family Farm today. We spent a good portion of the morning preparing the gardens for the upcoming season by installing bed markers so that customers can easily be directed to a certain bed for a certain crop to harvest. After completing the job, I left the group to get some tools for the next project. When I returned, one of the pastors, Steve Flynn was lying on the ground. My first thought was, "Oh no! He's had a heart attack!" Thankfully, he spoke up when I approached and said, "I just love watching the sky through a tree. It's different every time. Even with the same tree, it's different every time. And listen to the birds sing!"

The temperature is in the 40s today, the ground is damp and cold. These things did not keep Steve from watching the sky through the tree while listening to the first birdsongs of the approaching season. That's life by grace, life that is given and received, not engineered or manipulated. To enjoy each time, to appreciate each difference--and yet to rely on the constancy of the mercy that underlies each opportunity--that's life by grace. It's a great way to live.

Change of Seasons

2005-03-05T12:18:00.000-05:00

Greetings to the friends of Hawkins Family Farm! www.hawkinsfamilyfarm.com

We continue to wait for Spring--frankly, with mixed emotions. Oh, indeed, we are like most others who crave the brighter and warmer days. But we're not quite ready for all that Spring means in terms of work to be done.

For example: my idea of trying to start the first batch of poultry two weeks early may prove to be a poor one; the weather has not been good so that I can get the brooder houses set up to receive the birds which arrive on March 15. Pasture pens need to be reconditioned, and the idea I had about a new out-in-the-pasture brooder for chicks probably needs to be postponed for a year. The garden plan needs to be completed so I can order seeds and plants, with an eye toward moving the gardens to a location behind the barn for 2006. (I'd still like to use the current garden space, perhaps for grapes, blueberries, asparagus, and fruit trees.) I've got my eye on a piece of tillage equipment that can help both prepare the garden beds and go a long way toward weed control during the summer, but it happens to be located 6 hours north of here (which means a whole day away from the farm.) My source for Jersey steers is no longer in place, so I am looking for these animals elsewhere--I need to get about 25 head this Spring. The fence project started last years needs to be completed this year. I'm trying to figure out how to get the pigs out on pasture (in a manner that reliably keeps them where they belong rather than rooting through the garden), which improves the meat. I think I'll get some guinea-fowl to range through the gardens for bug control. The layers that were supposed to arrive last week were graciously delayed until this week, which means we may be getting some eggs in a month or so. Oh...sorry--too much information!--but you can see what is on my mind these days (along with recruiting pastors for the new year of HOPE CSA and preaching each Sunday.)

In order to give some balance to the work of food production, I've found myself dabbling with the joys of food preparation. (This is new terrirory for me.) For example, this morning I decided to use a recipe from a new book that has just come out, "The Grassfed Gourmet Cookbook" by Shannon Hayes. Shannon is a producer who understands the very real differences of grassfed meat, and her book is very well done. The recipe I used is called "Super-slow Roasted Beef," making use of a "garlic-herb rub." (Son Zach called yesterday to tell me he was using a recipe from the book also"Super-Slow Roasted Rosemary-Crusted Chuck Steak.")

So...the season is about to change, which means we change, too. Are you ready?

Small Town Dreaming

2005-03-05T11:52:00.000-05:00

On the first Friday of the month I meet with a group of imaginative citizens from our small town, whose task it is to keep dreaming about the well-being of our community. For the last couple of months we have been thinking about "local food."

We began by thinking about the local economy. As is the case in many small towns, our local economy is always in need of boosting. The traditional ideas about boosting involve attracting new industry to town, which is supposed to translate into more jobs, more housing, more kids enrolled in the local schools, and so forth. This time we took a different angle. "Small farms used to be at the heart of this thriving community," we recalled, "could they function in the same way today? For example, what if our four major consumers of food--the local school system, local college, and two retirement communities--spent food dollars buying from local producers instead of sending those dollars out of town?" It was a great question. The imaginations of imaginative people exploded with possibilities.

I was struck by at least two highly attractive aspects of this conversation. First, the benefits are widespread; there is something for everyone to love: opportunitites for local initiative and entrepreneurship, stronger local economy, enhanced community pride, better health of school kids and their families, more sustainable agricultural practices, and more. Second, I was amazed as we continued to add to the list of local resources available for such an effort. It is possible that we already have most of what we need to accomplish "local food."

Such is the power of asking a different question.

Table Values

2005-03-01T00:20:00.000-05:00

"Farming With Values That Last: Growers and Eaters in Communion" was the title of a conference held in the Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania this past weekend, sponsored by the Mennonites. I have long said that we Lutherans have something to learn from our Mennonite brothers and sisters--especially with regard to Creation--and this conference proved my point. Son Zach and I attended and were delighted to enjoy the company of like-minded people who understand the vital relationship of soil and soul, especially as those called to the holy work of farming.

I chose not to take a lot of notes, which is unusual for me. This time I listened and watched and took it all in (especially the marvelous four-part singing). One phrase I did write down, however, was "table values." Beyond the often narrowly-interpreted, us-versus-them idea of "family values," I think table values offer a more biblical and inclusive way to affirm the life given by the Creator. It is frighteningly simple, of course: everyone eats. Every living thing eats. And, if you take the time to consider it, every living thing gets eaten, eventually. Including us. Everyone has a place AT and a place ON the table. Eating is the great equalizer. The table excludes no one.

What does it do to us to remember this as we eat? I dare to hope that it helps us eat thoughtfully and gratefully. Thoughtfulness and gratitude, table values. Values that beckon and build up.

In an age where food is thoughtlessly and thanklessly fast, you could do a whole lot worse.

Sharing Spring

2005-02-23T16:58:00.000-05:00

It's sunny today and it's predictable: a sunny day turns minds and hearts toward the coming of Spring!

I'm starting the process of garden planning, including a year-long plan to move the three acres of gardens from the low ground in front of the house to the higher ground behind the barn. Two years of flooding have got my attention! I'm considering continuing to use some of the plots in front of the house for asparagus, berries, grapes, and fruit trees. (I continue to have big dreams!)

Next Monday about 50 pullets come to the farm. They will begin laying eggs in a matter of weeks. Mid-March brings day-old chicks (broilers) and turkey poults. No matter what the weather does, winter on the farm is nearing an end.

I am always glad for Fall when the work slows down, which allows me always to be glad for Spring, when the pace of the work quickens considerably. Part of my joy includes the loss of a couple of inches around the beltline that come from increased activity.

Sunshine! Spring! Shedding inches! Oh, boy!