I'm going through and finishing off some half-finished blog entries from the past couple years. This was written in 2010.
This essay belongs to both blogs, The Rainbow Covering and Reports from the Farm. My life belongs to both worlds, the natural world of the farm, and the spiritual world of my Christian journey. But wait--the farm is God's creation; that's spiritual...and my Christian journey is so deeply fed and supported by the practical day-in, day-out work of the farm. The "two" worlds are inseparable.
Today, for the umpteenth time, someone suggested "the solution" to "my problem".
"The problem", as usual, being that I am a) very land-poor at the moment and b) even more time-poor...a) in spite of and b) because of the fact that I am farming as well as working a full-time job off-farm, which is obviously too much for one person.
"The solution" usually begins with the person asking, "Look, I know it's none of my business, but how much equity do you have in this place? You're never going to win this [insert current regulatory/local politics struggle]; why don't you just sell the whole thing and buy a place in [insert name of more rural county that doesn't have such restrictive zoning regulations], and then you can live a nice, sane, peaceful life for a change?"
I really do try to keep an open mind. When folks make this suggestion, I don't necessarily try to rationalize my decision to stay and keep struggling to them (after all, it's my decision and my life; if they don't "get it" now they probably never will). But I do try to honestly, once again, put all the issues, assets, and liabilities on the table and give them a good looking-over.
Today it was one of my Old German Baptist acquaintances that suggested this, and for some reason that gave me some new insights.
He had offered to drop by and share his construction wisdom on the proposed remodeling project at 501 North St., the farm's "little brown house". We spent the better part of an hour going over the plans and fleshing out some of the details, but I could tell he was thinking grave thoughts about the whole thing.
"Why not just keep the big house, and sell this? Or better yet, sell the whole thing and move to Franklin County." My first response was to tell him what really special soil we have here...I often quip "I'd move to ____, but I just can't figure out how to take my soil and groundwater with me." Then I told him about my rock-solid understanding that God put me here to serve him in a way like Noah--building the farm as an ark for a multitude of species, safe from the pesticide-poisoned world out there.
The mention of Franklin county brought an odd sense of dissonance as I pondered his words. Mostly folks recommend I sell out and move to Leavenworth County, just north of the farm. Then I realized: he was suggesting his community, not mine. Many of the Old German Baptists live in Franklin County, south of Douglas county.
And that lead me to reflect on an increasingly real consideration for sticking it out and staying here: Here is where my people are.
Here is where my people are. And that is my greatest treasure.
