Olivia has been very curious the past couple of weeks about farm-life. She is very curious about what her Uncle Doug and Aunt Sandy do on the farm. She wants to know what kind of animals are there and what you do on a farm. We have had many conversations about my childhood on the farm and what it was like growing up on a farm. We've looked at pictures of combines, tractors, and cows, and I can see her trying to fit this into her scope of experience here in the city.
I always loved the season of autumn on the farm. As the trees transformed right before our eyes, I was also aware that the fields that lined our countryside were transformed as well. Empty fields that were once just soil are now full of corn or soybeans or maybe wheat or other crops, and soon they will be emptied again and be made ready to receive new seeds. This is the season of harvest and abundance, and although I don't live on a farm anymore, the farm where I spent my childhood still remains in me. I have many childhood memories of riding with my dad in the combine, watching the corn move from a stalk in the fields, to grain bens, to auger, and into the trucks where it was ready to be taken to a grain elevator or stored in a drying ben. I remember my dad trying to finish up the harvest before the snowstorm hit, and sometimes the snow fell before he could finish. Some harvests went smoothly and others not so smooth- combines break down, it rains too much and the fields are too muddy for a combine to be in. Accidents happen and repairs take up precious field time. Late nights, early mornings, and long days all blur together when you are trying to beat the clock of mother nature hoping to bring in a rich harvest.
I was privileged to have the experience, both physically and spiritually, of growing up on a farm. Farmers are truly the saints no one talks about or celebrates. They are the holy people that are never going to be recognized by a group of religious people who set the standards and requirements of sainthood. There is never a day set aside to recognize the men and women who literally feed the world. Farmers have a trust in God that is beyond the scope of our comprehension. These days keeping the family farm in business requires the mind and heart of a saint that many of us can't begin to absorb. Every year the farmer takes what looks like impossible odds for raising a crop, and makes it possible and even seem easy. Farmers wrote the book on "letting go and letting God". From planting to harvesting, weather, markets, high fuel prices, expensive machinery, costly repairs , government requirements, bank loans, and high debt would make anyone choose any other occupation that wasn't farming. But farmers farm because they love it. In fact I think many would say farming chose them. It is more than just land. More than a job, it is a way of life that not only feeds the world, but feeds their hearts. They love the world through the food they deliver to the rest of the world. We shop in grocery stores because of the grain farmer, the dairy farmer, and the cattle rancher. Most farmers wouldn't see it as a ministry, but that is exactly what it is. And very quietly, without much fanfare, they participate in the festival of the harvest as they prepare their combines, get their trucks ready to haul grain, and even begin to plan for the next spring.
All we have to do is listen to the gospel to know that what was true when Jesus was alive is still true today, even with all the modern technology available to farmers. Every spring a farmer demonstrates the gospel law of sowing and reaping. I can still hear my dad ripping open bags of seedcorn and pouring them into the planter boxes. I can still see my dad's tractor and planter moving through the fields planting every last seed with the expectation that what he planted would grow into a plant that could be harvested in the fall. The seed looks like just a seed, but within that seed lives the entire plant. That seed already contains the roots, stalk, the leaves, the husks, the cob, and the silk of a corn plant. You wouldn't plant a soybean if you really wanted corn. You would plant a seed of corn to get a plant with cobs of corn to be harvested. The same is true for us. There is a farmer in every one of us. Our minds and our hearts are the fertile soil where God thinks through us and creates through us. The seeds are our thoughts that eventually create something, and are harvested to feed the world. When I was decided to be a teacher, the thought of becoming an elementary teacher was the seed planted in the soil of my heart and mind. That thought-seed contained everything that would grow me into becoming a teacher. The college courses I would take, the money I needed to attend college, the love and desire to teach, the diploma that would hang on my wall, the books, materials, and teachers I would need to learn from, and finally the first teaching position and then the money I would receive for my work as a teacher. That one seed contained both the desire to become a teacher and the manifestation of a diploma to teach and the classroom where I would teach and plant seeds of knowledge. Like the farmer, I had setbacks, complications, unexpected twists and turns on the journey to harvest, but the harvest was full, and I was able to share that harvest with colleagues, students, and so many other people. Because the money I made from that thought-seed blessed me and those I shared it with- charities, birthday presents, or buying someone else's lunch. It becomes very clear that one little seed can change an entire world.
Everything that the Great Farmer creates through us begins with a thought that manifests itself into a physical form. I vividly remember digging a well for irrigation on our family farm. I can still see it. I remember watching from my bedroom window the team of men that dug deep into soil to find water that would eventually irrigate the crops when rain wouldn't come. An irrigation well to water crops in times of drought is nothing short of miraculous. Like the farmer, sometimes we have to take the risk of digging deep to find the miracle we need. Well-water was the assurance that there would always be a harvest. Well-water meant that there was no more worry of how the crop would make it through a drought. Well-water increases the value of the land, increases the amount of crop you will harvest, and therefore increases food and other products that the world needs. The deeper you are able to go into the well of your heart and mind, the greater the harvest. Well-water removed many limitations that a farmer might otherwise have to deal with. When the farmer inside us is willing to dig a little deeper into our belief, our faith, and our imagination, the impossible becomes possible. And the water we pour over our seeds, and the rain we pray for, is our belief in the harvest. It is our faith in a God who will see us through every season. It is our expectation that what has been planted in our hearts and minds will grow, produce, and will be multiplied in order to feed a hungry world.
Growing up on a farm that planted soybeans meant that when I was old enough, I would "walk beans". Every bean field needed to have its weeds removed so the beans would produce even more seed. Weeds take up water, soil, and energy that the bean plants need in order to thrive. It was necessary for a farmer to hire a crew of bean walkers, give them their sharpened knives and walk through every row of beans, removing every last weed. I have memories of mud, blisters, sunburns, and being the only girl in a crew of boys walking beans. I have memories of going out in the heavy dew of the morning and coming out soaked, but I had a clean row of beans to show for it, not to mention a paycheck. In the fields of our heart and minds, it is necessary that the weeds of our thinking and feeling be removed, if our thoughts, given by God, are going to manifest the miraculous. Weeds that need pulling are doubt, lack, negativity, complaint, judgment, fear, and self-pity. They are the milk-weeds, the sunflowers, and the volunteer corn that cause an otherwise beautiful, flourishing crop to look dirty and unproductive. If you have a thought-seed(desire and need) to lose weight, but you have weeds taking up space in that field of thinking....doubt that you'll be able to follow through, lack of love for your body as it is, fear that you'll fail, negativity about the foods you can't eat, and fear at looking at your emotional issues of why you eat... you will not reap a harvest of weight loss. You might lose a couple of pounds, but you won't see the number on the scale that you really desire because you let the weeds grow and take up space and energy in your heart where the seed was planted. Every farmer knows the damage weeds can do to a crop. It is not good enough to just cut off the top of the weed. You must pull the weed out by its roots so it can never take up space again. Discovering the root cause of our wrong-thinking is as essential as pulling a weed out by the roots so we can taste the harvest.
One of the things my dad loved to do, when time permitted, was to get in the pickup and go for a drive around the countryside to look at the crops. My brother and I, and sometimes our dog, would sit in the back of the pickup, and with the wind blowing through our hair we would drive and look at the fields. At the time, I didn't really quite understand why we did this. I just knew it was fun and usually we would end up in town and we might get an ice cream cone or a rootbeer float. Farmers know that it is important to step back, slow down, and take in all the growth, the pristine bean fields, and envision the promise of the harvest to come. Farmers know that it is necessary to see what has already been accomplished and done. Every stage of growth is to be celebrated. Every row planted, that whizzes by while driving on the road next to the field, holds the promise of an abundant future, the potential for more growth, and greater and larger possibilities.
With so much being "out of a farmer's control", I believe that farmers understand God at a level that surpasses many of us. A farmer's dependency upon God is what has made them saintly. It is God that sees them through hail, drought, flood, and tornadoes. It is God that brings money into their hands where there was no more money to be had. It is God that provides the land, the man-power, the technology, the equipment, and just the right people at just the right time to make it all happen. It is God who planted a thought-seed of a combine that could be run by computer and GPS to ease up on the physical labor a farmer used to have to endure. It is God that protects the crops and protects the farmer from accident and physical harm. It is God who feeds the world through the family farm. It is God who provides the energy, strength, and physical endurance a farmer needs to work long hours.
Farmers are ordained land-priests who preside over the Table of Plenty that this country and the rest of the world depends upon for sustenance. They may not wear stoles, collars, or chasubles as an outward sign of their ministry, but the holy robes they wear are the flannel shirt, the John Deere cap, and their blue jeans. Their altars are the very fields that they come to season after season with seed, plow, planter, and combine. Their chalices are the storage bens, trains, and trucks filled with grain that will move through the rest of the world. From their temple- fields they teach and proclaim that the harvest is great, but the workers are few. There is much to be gained in properly prepared soil, the planting of the right type of seed, and harvesting your crop at just the right time, but not everyone is willing to actually move from knowing to doing. Not everyone is prepared to really hear what God is saying and then change their lives so that they bear more fruit. Not everyone is willing to risk following their heart so that they might reap the harvest of what it is calling you to do. Not everyone is willing to let go of their need to cling to fear in order to feel the harvest of giving and receiving love.
In this season of harvest, remember to thank a farmer. They are sign and symbol of the under-celebrated and forgotten sacrament of sowing and reaping. They are the sages of seeds, planting, harvesting, and giving. They love a life that we take for granted. They love God humbly, silently, deeply, and in their own profound way. They are the present-day gospel writers, men and women who have devoted their lives to the land. They are the saints of fertile soil and the holy harvesters of abundance whose spirits unknowingly teach us how to prepare the soil, how to plant a seed, how to care for it, and grow a field of miracles and answered prayers. They weather every storm, political, financial, and physical, walk on water,( whether it falls from the clouds or not) raise to life what seemed dead, feed the hungry, move grain-mountains, find what has been lost, and part the seas of a rainy season in order to find dry land. Every neighbor in need is their family...their brother and sister. They carry their cross without complaint, and rise up from every kind of death and grave situation. They are the builders of a kingdom that is always in front of us, but not always recognized as the heaven it is. They pray in their tractors, their pickups, their machine sheds, and their fields. Farmers love like saints and live like servants. They are faithful to the Creator of Seed and Soil, both in poverty and wealth.
In this season of harvest and thanksgiving, I have to thank my deceased father for the privilege of watching a saint at work. I have to thank my brother for carrying on his legacy of sowing and reaping. I have to thank my grandfathers for their holy laboring and the legacy of planting and harvesting that they left me and my children. My life isn't being lived out on a farm like the one I grew up on, but I am able to "farm" in my own unique way because of their love for farming. I learned how to plant seeds of love, hope, and faith. I learned how to care for the soil of my heart. I learned how to grow miracles of every kind and share what I've harvested with my children, my family, and the rest of the world, both in small and large ways. I learned a reverence for the earth of our hearts and minds, and am careful to be aware of what I choose to plant and grow there. I learned how to work hard, believe big, and have fun while doing it. I learned who God is, and the sheer power of what God can do because I spent my childhood on a farm. Thank you, Dad! Thank you, Doug! Your laboring does not go unnoticed. May your harvesting always wear the strong crown of abundance and overflow with prosperity of every kind.
