Tilth

'Tilth' is the language of farmers and gardeners, referring to the materials (humus) in the soil which both make it loose and enable available fertility. Tilth. It is the way the soil feels, the manner in which the earth works, the capacity of the land itself to provide a home for the seed to sprout and grow.

Tilth isn't something which just happens. Tilth develops as the result of conscientious stewardship of the soil in the blending of last year's crop residues with what is to become this year's crop seedbed. Tilth takes time. One year, one moment of time, one effort is not enough. The development of tilth in the earth takes decades, even generations.

So, why are we surprised when soil which has been mined for every ounce of production it can offer, including the very life of the previous crop itself, doesn't produce well? Why are we offended when cuts appear in fields where water runs from one place to the next for lack of honest faithful stewarding? Why are we saddened when the methods we employ to raise a bumper crop fail for the lack of simple tending to the tilth of the land from which we hope to feed the world? Adding fertilizer only masks our pain, only meets the short-term goal. The earth requires the humus of the season's cycles to have the tilth required to build it for children yet to be born who will eat of its goodness. Tilth.

As it is with the earth, so it is with faith. As it is with the land, so it is with discipleship. As it is with the soil, so it is with the work of God's people. Tend to your faith, your discipleship, your service to the One who knows and creates you, lest in avoiding the need for tilth in your life, you end up with a barren spirit, a life incapable of receiving the goodness of God's Baptismal waters. God waits for the generations of tilth in your life to make all the difference in the journey and feeding of another. So the Kingdom grows. Tilth.

Fall Harvest On The Farm Is Complete

"Fall harvest is complete on the farm." Seven words which took what seemed to be a lifetime to accomplish in their being spoken, yet the phrase is true, "Fall harvest is complete on the farm."

It was a bountiful harvest whose beginnings in the rain-filled Spring seemed nearly impossible. Planting in this area did not begin in earnest until in early June, which by most standards is nearly two months tardy. Yet, once begun, everything was planted in one fell swoop: corn, soybeans, and double-crop soybeans, that latter of which only occurs after wheat harvest and in the middle of baling alfalfa. To say the least, the Spring planting was arduous and offered little hope for the Fall harvest: To paraphrase university agronomists, 'Once beyond May 15, with most crops you begin subtracting potential yield.' June 5 was the day we started planting.

Fortunately for most of the farmers in the area, neither God, nor the weather and fields, pay much attention to university agronomists. Periodic rains throughout the Summer, with few 100 degree plus days in a row, mixed with a long-term fertility plan already in place on the farm, and blessed with expanding knowledge and use of newer seed hybrids, proved to be a combination that no university expert could predict. Harvests of corn, soybeans, milo and other more specialized crops in the area were 'bin-busters'. God's abundance for humanity was given just one more expression in the fields and labors of Southern Illinois farmers. Thank you, God.

One aspect alone, though, made the harvest prolonged and tedious, especially of the corn in this region: a wind storm in mid-September. The remnant of a hurricane absorbed on the southern coastal regions of our nation found its way to the mid-section of our croplands, flattening thousands of acres of corn and beans in just a few short minutes of severe blowing. Affecting an area reaching as far north as mid-state Illinois and swooping well into the southern reaches of Kentucky, these winds featured both straight-line force and down-draft destructiveness. Corn fields which, minutes earlier, had stood ten or more feet tall, were nearly instantly reduced to the height of an overgrown lawn. Acres and acres of crops were laid over, some broken, some churned as though pelted with hail and razors. Hearts sank, despair set in, and the grim ordering of reels for combine corn heads began in earnest. What lie ahead did not look good.

Entering the fields this Fall proved to be every bit the challenge farmers anticipated. The reels on the corn heads helped but, working through thousands of flattened acres of material, some of it splayed in multiple directions in the same field, no reel could magically make the harvest go the way farmers hoped it would. Yet, and that is a very BIG 'yet', there was a surprise waiting in the fields that few if any of the farmers could have fully anticipated: The harvest was producing better than any other 'ideal' year before. Soybean and corn yields tipped the scales with numbers far beyond what most farmers had ever seen in their lifetimes. This, with early harvest higher grain prices, proved to be the saving of many a farm family in the region. It was a blessing that waited for those who wept just weeks before. Joy comes in the morning.

In retrospect, the lavish rains throughout the Summer had been both blessing and curse: Blessing in that the crops grew with little challenge or difficulty; Curse in that the crops grew with little challenge or difficulty. Corn plants that, in most years, routinely set large tap roots on the outer base of the plant for stability and extra moisture absorption, this year did not need to, thereby making the heavily laden plants susceptible to the kind of destabilizing effects that a hurricane wind might provide. Additionally, the bounty of full soybean pods and large ears of corn proved too much for narrowly rooted plants to hold up in the face of a blowing crisis. What produced an incredible yield also made the harvest nearly impossible. Just ask the farmers who shelled corn diagonally across the fields in order to pick up the greatest amount of grain.

Talking with my brother and Dad about this phenomenon, it humbled me as to how deep God's wisdom goes. Nearly without fail across the region, the higher the yield in the individual fields, the more likely the greater amount of wind damage. Were it not for the more challenging days in our lives, we would be like the ten foot high corn plants with great big ears of grain: unstable and vulnerable to every wind that blows. Yet, it is the difficulties, the high temperatures and the dry spells, the weeds which compete, and the late planting which impedes, that make us heartier in faith, more prepared for the storm, ready to stand in the faces of the challenges before us. Without occasional hardships, there would be few who kneel in prayer. Without occasional difficulties, stabilizing taproots would not be established in the soil of our soul. Without the competition of weeds that threaten to undo all that is done, our stewardship would become lax, our attitude one of laizze-faire.

The combine is in the shed, the wagons and trucks are put away, the bins are closed and the batch drier is cleaned-up: Fall harvest is complete on the farm . . and I thank God for the lessons learned upon the lap of a very loving, very present Parent, who opens our minds to see that not everything we pray for (in a very protected and challenge-less life) is necessarily good for us. Make me, O God, open to your every wisdom shared that I might walk in all your ways.

Your servant in Christ,

Pastor Don

Science Class

All this work on the farm lately has gotten me to thinking about the science of modern day agriculture . . . and of what science must have been like in Jesus' day. On the other hand, how would you have liked to have been in science class with Jesus? How hard must that have been? What science project could you have done that would have competed with Jesus doing, "The Hydroponic Dimensions of Dividing the Red Sea", or "The Case for Elongated Necks: Defending the Creation of the Giraffe", or maybe the ever popular, "Redefining Life in Light of Death's Defeat in Resurrection: Lazarus, An Ongoing Project"? And we are so proud of ourselves when we genetically modify a seed to make it drought resistant. Who is it that has power over the drought and the rain? You got it, the kid in the back of the class whose mother thinks He is a prodigy: Jesus. And, what kind of a 'Teacher's Pet' do you think He was . . . inviting the instructor home for dinner just to show how sight can be restored to a blind man by mixing spit and dirt together and rolling it up in your hand and pressing it into his eye sockets?

Just where do scientists believe the very art of their discipline originated? While they are arguing over Big Bang and Evolution, God is at work designing and birthing a star. While they are patting themselves on the back for the creation and launching of a telescope that can 'see' beyond our galaxy, God births skill and surgical giftedness which affords the blind to see and the deaf to hear. While scientists balance the genetic arguments of cloning, God is at work making millions of originals which each are uniquely distinctive.

What is hard core, test and proof, scientific study and research to humanity today is, to God, yesterday's considerations. Science is humanity's way of beginning to approach the 'how' of God's 'been there and done that'. Science is our avenue to understanding, not an end in itself, which might explain why one of my favorite "Far Side" comics is that of God as a scientific 'chef', with the world in a sauce pan and a beaker posed in God's hand, ready to pour into the pan an ingredient which is labeled, 'Jerks', and the caption reads, "Just to make it interesting." The trick, I think, is in being an observer to the process and not the ingredient in the beaker.

Science on the farm today begins with a humble appreciation of the One who gives the soil, the rain, the sunshine, and the seed. 'Hard Science' is rooted in the awe of knowing that anything we might conceive of doing to 'improve' the genetics, messes with the intent of the original and, as scientific theory holds, 'For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.'

I am grateful for all that science does in advancing food sources, medicines, and life itself, I just pray that we do not get so caught up in being God that we forget who God dynamically continues to be . . . and the equal and opposite reaction to our actions destroy the good which has been achieved. Thus, the best personal quality any scientist might hope to embody is that of the One who is the original Scientist: humility. Humility says, "Good" when looking over all creation at its' completion. So when will 'Good' ever be good enough for us? God only knows.

In all that is God's science for you, I remain

Your servant in Christ,

Pastor Don

Life At An Angle

The first time over a field in the Springtime, especially since we haven't moldboard plowed for ages, is usually at an angle. Working a field at an angle, whether with a disc, a heavy field cultivator, or chisel plow, opens the ground in a new way and reduces drive wheel compaction from working a field the same way every time you drive across it. Working a field at an angle is also helpful in allowing the water paths which occur throughout the year to find new ways of flowing, reducing erosion and increasing percolation of the rains which (hopefully) will follow. One side benefit that few farmers will publicly acknowledge is that working the fields at an angle is an effective way to reduce 'end of winter waistline bulges' which have grown in direct proportion to the number of months since last the farmer was in the field . . . but, that is topic for another day. Suffice it to say, working fields at an angle the first time over them in the Spring isn't always the easiest thing to do: It is not easy to 'draw a straight line' from one end of the field to the other when you are doing it at an angle (and you know that every other farmer that drives by is keeping mental tabs on how well it is done); and, if you are working at an opposite angle to the angle with which you worked the ground for the last time in the Fall, what the 'up and down' of the tractor doesn't do to you from one end to the other, the 'side to side' will. Working fields at an angle is not for the feint of heart.

Yet, that is exactly what Jesus did in His ministry: He worked the fields at an angle. He observed how faith had been compacted by religion, with heavy burdens being driven over it the same old way year after year until those who were called of God to care for the human family became so stiff-necked they couldn't even begin to imagine doing anything different, regardless of the vision or the benefit. Jesus saw the erosion of hope, the washed away mercy, and the windblown barrenness of unoffered grace, all wearing away the very soul of the people God's love was sent to save. The big waistedness of those who consumed the good the land had to offer at the expense of those whose labors fed the presumed landlords of the Temple did not miss His eyes either. Jesus saw all, then He put His hand to the task and turned God's community in a different direction: He worked the fields at an angle; He invited the people to an alternative vision; He stewarded the planting with a new determination. He regarded His work as holy . . . and the ground He walked, and the people with whom He journeyed, as sacred. His words aerated the soil of belief. His touch opened the hearts of God's children that the Spirit could percolate and nourish. His care for creation changed the landscape of the human endeavor for life abundant. His life, death, and resurrection charted the course of a new way of working the fields, from one end to the other, regardless of the ride on the way.

I am grateful for Jesus the Farmer, the Steward of human faith and community. The Church would be well served to listen, even today, for the lessons He teaches calls us to work the fields at an angle: Not just for the sake of being different, but for His sake to be dynamically transformative in doing God's will wherever we are. It is who He is and it is who His disciples are striving to become in His grace. Thanks be to God for Life at an angle.

Your servant in Christ,

Pastor Don

Hard Times in the Fields

The equipment is ready. After months of down time through the Winter, after endless hours spent going over every disc blade, every field cultivator shovel, the bill hooks on the baler, all the sprayer nozzles and hoses, the sickle sections of the windrower, servicing the tractors, turning the points on the chisel plow, checking the planter and calibrating the monitoring equipment, stock-piling the necessary seeds and insecticides, making sure the combine is ready for wheat harvest which inevitably happens either on the heels of, or in the midst of, planting, and going over the trucks, trailers and wagons necessary to make the entire operation portable, nearly every farmer in the region is poised at the back door of their homes, waiting for the fields to dry and the work to begin in earnest. The refrain for this particular song, which is being sung quite frequently this year is, "Last year this time, we were already planting corn. This year nothing has been done yet."

Add to the angst the highest petroleum prices our country has ever seen, which in turn has created much higher fertilizer and anhydrous prices, pushing up per acre tillage costs, increasing the cost of seed being delivered, and quickly eating up any additional profitability recent grain prices might have provided, and what you have is a recipe for deep despair and disaster. The humbling thing to me, though, has always been the resiliency of the farmer in the face of all that would crush others.

Perhaps our nation's most current pure minority, farmers constitute approximately one percent of our population, yet feed the world. Farmers sow in hope and reap in reality. Farmers tend to the soil and are rewarded or punished by the weather. Farmers pray over their seed in planting and the sweat of their brow is the moisture which wills the growth. Farmers sell wholesale and buy retail. Farmers work hand-in-hand with the God of all creation, yet their livelihood is controlled and manipulated by strangers negotiating the Board of Trade. Farmers are incredibly communal in the care for the greater good of the vocation and the land, yet are pitted one-against-the-other by absentee landlords who care more for profitability than with stewardship. Still, in the midst of it all, farmers continue to plan, to work, to till, to plant, to cultivate, to mow, to listen, to watch, to harvest, and . . . perhaps most of all . . . to pray.

The higher free market economics builds the wall of improbability for making a life, the more likely it is that the farmer will effectively find a way, not only to scale the wall, but to articulate God's faithfulness in achieving success. Consequently, the better the farmer does in meeting the challenge, the more likely it is that a very hungry world will be fed and the American 'way of life' will be given hope for another day. The local family farm has more on the ball in continuing to exist than Donald Trump or Bill Gates could ever muster in all of the golden cities they could hope to build.

Sound romantic or idealistic? It isn't. There is nothing romantic or idealistic about paying 5$ or more for a 60 pound bale of alfalfa hay to feed a cow who will consume it in minutes, while the farmer prays she produces enough milk to pay for it and all of the other grain and dietary supplements necessary to make dairying viable. There is nothing romantic or idealistic about forward contracting and/or paying for fuels, fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides, seed, and equipment parts, months before the first furrow is opened in any field. There is nothing romantic or idealistic about standing at the back door of the house or next to the open shed door watching flood waters cover your land and the winds of tornadoes tear apart your dreams, while whispering a silent prayer that tomorrow will be better and another chance to farm will be yours.

Farming is a vocation, a calling, a sacred trust. Those who live to farm do not farm to live, they farm for life, your life and my life. Our faces are in their eyes as they kneel down next to a newly planted row of soybeans, scratching away the soil to reach the bean and visually confirm the depth and accuracy of the planting. Our children's faces are in their dreams at the end of a long Summer's day of work under the sweltering sun moving bales from wagon to shed. Our children's children's faces are in the planning they do each day, the details negotiated in each moment, as the stamp of this world's success or failure stands imminently ready to judge their work by standards their hearts just cannot understand or accept.

There are hard times in the fields today, but I am grateful that the fields of my future are in the hands of the ones called to farm and whose life is lived in an intimate partnership with God. I am grateful to God that the soul of a farmer is not measured by the number of acres they own or till, but by their capacity to participate faithfully in the sharing of all that is good, right, and holy of God's abundance. I am grateful for the lessons we are taught by the ones who are fewest in number and greatest in service among us, for in their example our world finds continued reason to hope, to dream, to pray.

This day I stand at the back door of the house with them and pray for the sun to shine and the ground to dry. It is all in God's time, I'm sure, but there is much to learn in standing in solidarity with the ones whose steadfast love feeds the world. Thank you, my farming family, for allowing me to stand with you in the hard times, and may the good times for which we pray be made better by the unity we practice today.

Your servant in Christ,

Pastor Don

Church Sign for the Week:

OIL COMPANIES GOT YOU

BY THE GAS? KICK THEIR

CAN, SHARE THE JOURNEY.

He Started by Digging Sewer Trenches by Hand

"He learned the business of plumbing and heating/cooling the hard way, he started by digging sewer trenches by hand." Those were the words the family of Gene Gray used in fondly remembering their husband and father as we, together, prepared to celebrate, his life. Those words caught me and held my attention for a long, long time in the simple truth they conveyed: Gene never thought himself 'entitled' to anything and was willing to work for everything.

It is the mindset of, as Tom Brokaw names it, "The Greatest Generation". Nothing is ours to claim or own just because we live somewhere, have a particular color of skin, have certain birth parents, or belong to a particular religious group. We are all members of the human family, equal inheritors of God's grace and vision, and each have the responsibility to work hard enough and for the benefit of the whole, so as to leave the world in better shape than when we came into it. Certainly, being born in the United States is, in and of itself, a huge gift, even for the generation who lived through the Depression and WWII, Korea, Viet Nam, and the whole host of other wars and police actions which are now a part of our collective history. Yet, I am reminded, neither is it a guarantee. In some places, in some peoples, there are those who wait, still, for that 'benefit' to kick in, banking on their entitlement check to save them from themselves.

Not for Gene. He learned the trade on the handle of a tile spade digging sewer lines, long before all the new fangled machinery there is today ever was available to the small local contractors. Gene worked, and by his work, a little luck, a lot of humor, and even more faith, he accomplished a living which provided that his children would be able to go to school, to college, get their degrees, and find jobs that would put them in the position of never having to dig sewer ditches again, unless they chose to dig those ditches. And, while he worked, he read and he wrote. Gene could quote Thanatopsis by William Cullen Bryant and Canterbury Tales by Chaucer. He was well acquainted with the work of Edgar Allen Poe and equally versed in the books of the Bible. He was a well-skilled sheet metal worker by day and an accomplished author in his own right in his spare time. He built five homes, including 'well-cussed cabinets', and established his family in the midst of a growing community. He savored his service in the Army in Korea and his friendships with those he met in the coffee shops . . . and it all found meaning in the handle of a shovel digging sewer lines to learn a vocation.

One might argue that today's generation, X, O, or whatever it is currently being called by the experts, might be well served starting their lives from a similar place. There is something about shaking hands with those whose calloused fingers rub coarsely across your own, yet, like Gene, their hard work and diligence was so others after them wouldn't have to work as hard. Still, in the work is value. In the value, lessons. In the lessons, humility. In the humility, community. Maybe that is why Jesus calls us to be servants to others, not the ones expecting to be served. He understood the lessons of having dirt under your fingernails and sore arms from carpentry work lingering long into the night after the project was done: it reminds you of how precious the work is and how important each step is along the way that none of them need be repeated because they weren't done well in the first place. Hmmmmmm.

It is certainly something to ponder as we listen to the voices of the current age tell us how much they deserve from the government, and how much they deserve from the school systems, and how much they deserve to be in management, and how much they deserve shorter hours of work, and how much they deserve higher levels of pay, and how much they are undervalued by big business, and how much they are oppressed by . . . . well, you get the idea. Maybe, there is one more lesson 'the life being celebrated' has to teach along the way: Everything, even hard work, is a gift. The value of the gift is the heart of the Giver, all we need do is use it and we will learn its power.

Your servant in Christ,

Pastor Don

Sabbath Economics

'Sabbath Economics': " . . . the conviction that God's creation is abundant, and that there is enough for all - if we live within the limits of our needs instead of by our cravings." [Sabbath Economics: Household Practices by Matthew Colwell, p. 5; Tell the Word, September 2007]

I just started reading this book in preparation for a gathering of rural pastors of which I am a part. In many ways, it is a companion text to Ched Myers's The Biblical Vision of Sabbath Economics which, too, is an excellent read and a great study book for people seriously considering their place in the faith and world communities. As I read Colwell's opening statement and pondered its significance for my faith journey, I was struck by how incredibly raw and tearing those words are in our culture and in my living. Are we convicted that God's creation is abundant enough for everyone? Or, are we convicted that God could never possibly provide enough for everyone, therefore we have to accumulate enough of everything that we never have to face our own mortality? (Even if it is at the expense of another's mortality?)

I am reminded of the bumper sticker: "He who has the most when he dies, wins. But, he still dies."

I have not read the entire book, so this is a work in progress, yet even in the first sentences of his writing, Colwell challenges me to ponder what it is that I 'need'. 'Need', not want. Need. I have officiated so many Celebrations of Life (otherwise known as funerals) where the survivors are fighting over the things a person has accumulated, oft reflecting their own sense of not ever being able to accumulate enough, while sacrificing a legacy of generosity in the deceased's own life for burial with the coffin. While it proves genetics cannot guarantee an abundant spirit in the face of death, it is incredibly clear that, in the face of life, lessons taught on an abundant sense of connection to God and a theology of 'plenty enough' for all can make all the difference in what our children hold as dear.

I have watched people argue vehemently over jewelry owned by their mother, then, with smiles so sweet it would gag a maggot, offer their mother's lifelong Bible to the church as 'something for the library.' I have listened to siblings tell long and detailed stories of growing up on the farm and relate how blessed they all were to share childhood stories of connection to the land and, in the next breath, threaten to file a lawsuit if the land wasn't put up for auction to get the highest price available to be split up as their legacy. I have watched widows weep over estranged children who couldn't wait for her to die to get 'what they had coming', and have prayed with children whose parents used their holdings, however large or meager, to coax their children's affections and attention, often playing one against another.

How much do I need? And, for what?

I believe in a God of absolute abundance. I also believe that the world community question has never been, 'Is there enough?' More accurately, the question is, 'How is the abundance shared?' A capitalist culture does not celebrate abundance, but relishes in creating shortages by increasing demand beyond available supply. A sabbath culture celebrates abundance and relishes opportunities for everyone to have enough from the supply at hand. It is a faith thing. Where there is no faith in anything beyond one's own capacity to provide the necessary goods and services needed to exist, and exist comfortably, there is only the need to accumulate, accumulate, and accumulate some more, praying to the god of accumulation that, when all is said and done, one will have enough not to have to accumulate some more at another time . . . a time which never seems to arrive.

Yet, where there is faith in One who provides enough for all to live abundantly, then the driving need of the individual is to practice the same radical generosity on earth as it is experienced in heaven. So, I am back to the question asked in the beginning, 'What do I need?'

For today, more than all other things, I need the steadfast love of God to wash my soul in healing and strength. I need the faith God has in me to become, more and more, the faith I have in God as I share this journey with others who are God's children. I need the love of family and the support of friends. I need to live God's call in my life to the best of my ability. I need God's Holy Spirit guiding my steps, and I pray the Holy Spirit keeps the steps of my wife, children and grandchildren, as well. I need to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with every fiber of my being - and I need to continually respond to that Good News by living as though the stone of the tomb was rolled away before my very eyes. I need all this to sustain my spirit for the ministry to which I am called for, more than anything else, I want to hear His voice say to me, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."

Colwell accurately observes that, ". . . if we live within the limits of our needs instead of our cravings . . ." we will experience Sabbath economics. At least for me, if I am able to live within the limits of my needs in God, all other cravings will find their rest - and Sabbath will be the very economics by which my living is ordered and God's peace will find root. For such a Sabbath I live and such is my prayer for you.

Your servant in Christ,

Pastor Don

The Changing Face of Farming

In the Winter of the year is a good time to assess the changing face of farming. The trees and shrubs have lost their foliage and farmsteads are visible to the passerby on the roads. Increasingly, more homesteads are present in rural areas, but less have equipment sheds big enough to house anything more than a lawnmower or hobby tractor. Increasingly, old homesteads have barns which are leaning or being taken down, indicating fewer farmers are tending to animals as a part of their operations. Increasingly, all that is left of old rural homesteads is a few trees clumped together at the end of a road, far back from the highway, while new homes appear in close proximity to major thoroughfares.

Many want to live in the country, few want to be rural. Many want to have their own space, few want to be very isolated from civilization. Many want to remember the farming roots of their family, few want to engage in that kind of work. For all of the romantic notions that exist about 'having a place in the country', few want . . . or can afford to make their living in the country, so today approximately 1% of the American population strives to feed everyone else. That, my friends, is a true minority. And, the changing face of farming is reflecting the strain.

As I drive along our rural highways, I wonder: How many more 'country homes' will be allowed to be built by folks who have no stake in rural living, other than removing a few more acres from active food production? How many more farm families will be displaced by subdivisions and cash payouts for acreage which will disappear under the cold darkness of asphalt and concrete? How far will we be able to stretch the American farmer's ability to produce, while at the same time exponentially reducing the number of available acres on which to produce the very food we need? How much are people really willing to spend to live in the country?

As the face of farming changes in rural Amercia, I suspect we will find the answers to many of those questions as the price of agricultural goods goes up in correlation to declining supplies of available acreage on which to grow them. I suspect, if not in our generation, then in our children's generation, the economy of greed and atmosphere of personal gratification is going to come face-to-face with the reality of not having enough to feed all of the non-farming families. Then, whose 'inalienable rights' will be on the chopping block? Those who take the risk and expend the dollars and energy to produce the food the world needs in order to exist? Or, the those who hunger for that which they do not labor . . . and thirst for the water which they do not draw?

One percent versus more than ninety-nine percent . . . the odds are not in favor of the minority. Maybe that is why the sacredness of the rural landscape is already being sacrificed on the altar of self-righteousness. Sound bitter or sardonic? It's not . . . it is realistic. Take a look around as you drive through the new subdivisions in your area - and imagine the crops which will never grow on those lands again.

Not unlike the Native Americans before them, the American farmer is rapidly disappearing. They are holding on by the fingertips, trying to exercise their right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, tilling the soil that all may eat, while the vast majority of the American public shoots the last of the buffalo, exercises eminent domain in acquiring properties for 'progress', and expedites corporate growth with tax advantages at the expense of the very individuals who represent, congressionally and legally, little more than a bump on the rural road. I pray for the children who will inevitably inherit the folly of our 'right' to own our personal space in the world, without having to have a plan in place of how to serve or feed anyone but ourselves at the table of God's gracious abundance.

The face of farming is changing rapidly and I wonder how long we will be able to view that changing face before we are forced to look away in shame. Farmers, the ones who purchase everything retail, sell their product wholesale . . . and we who expect everything at wholesale prices are retailing our future to the highest bidders, including the very soil needed to grow the stuff of substance for life. Such scenery is not the prettiest I have seen in my travels, but it is the truth of our existence on display before our eyes. I hope we have the stomach to see the changes which are happening, and the heart to change what is happening before our stomachs are starving.

Your servant in Christ,

Pastor Don