Free Plain Talk Conversations

Our friends over at Cumberland Books have done a great job of collecting many different books and articles on agrarianism. A couple years ago, Rick Saenz decided to visit many of the Christian agrarian bloggers he had come to know through reading their blogs. He recorded conversations with them and then made those conversations available in his Plain Talk series. And now these recorded conversations are being made available as free downloads. I have been enjoying listening to these men and women who have walked the agrarian road before me on my 45 minute commute back and forth each day. Check them out!

And while you are there, be sure to check out their many fine books on Agrarian Thought and on Agrarian Practice. Be prepared to spend some time visiting the Cumberland Books website. It is a great resource!

Falling Behind

I tell you, things are getting so bad at my desk that I've set up two folding tray tables just to hold the extra piles!

Pray for me!

The Race Is On!

Well, I finally got all the pieces together to build my very own Whizbang Garden Cart! Whether my son (who will be turning 12 tomorrow) and I will be able to get it all together in time to enter it in the 2007 Whizbang Garden Cart Contest is questionable. But we'll give it our best shot!

I cut the plywood tonight on my brother's Delta contractors table saw. I would have had pictures of the process, but my partner was upstairs decorating his birthday cake. Seems he wanted a drawing of an A-10 Warthog on it, so it was up to him to draw it.

Hopefully, in the less than 2 weeks I have left before we go west for Christmas, we'll make additional progress. We shall see!

Honoring One's Parents

Three days ago, we were faced with the reality that my mother will not be able to return to the retirement home where she has spent the last ten years of her life. Three months earlier, Mom had fallen and broken her arm in two places. Her rehabilitation has been painfully slow as her 87 years is taking its toll. My siblings and I have visited, cajoled, and bribed her best we could, but we finally had to face the reality of the situation - Mom would never be going back.

So this weekend, my wife and I will be making an unexpected trip to Mom's retirement home six hours North of us in Cooperstown, NY, to clean out her room. She will be staying where she is for now, in a rehabilitation facility about 40 minutes from Cooperstown, transferring to the nursing home section. We are not going to try and make any decisions until after New Years.

Meanwhile we seek the Lord's guidance as to how do we honor her. Do we leave her in the place where she has become settled? Do we try and move her down to a facility near us so we would be able to visit regularly and monitor her care adequately? Do we have her come live with us on a trial basis to see if we are physically able to care for her needs? We look to the Lord for wisdom and grace, unsure as to what effect this may have on our search for land.

Review: Inherit the Land

Several weeks ago, I received a preview copy of Inherit the Land, one of the newest videos from the studios from Franklin Springs. I had hoped to preview it with some friends of ours and then share our responses, but we’ve had to reschedule our preview twice so far, so I figured I better just go ahead and share from my perspective.

Inherit the Land: Adventures on the Agrarian Journey, introduces us to seven families who share the blessings they have found in a lifestyle “on the land.”

Our first family is the Wilson family living on 16 acres in eastern Virginia. Scott wanted to start a family business where every family member could have meaningful responsibilities; where they could all be working together. He found that farming was just what he was looking for - where even a three year old can be involved as the family egg-gatherer, and his more shy children can learn self confidence as they learn to excel in areas of the farm that are all theirs. Scott especially enjoys the way farming lends itself to developing mentoring relationships with his children. They see the Lord’s blessing as they are working together, laughing together, developing family unity and working together toward a common goal.

The next family lives on a fruit and grape farm near the Pacific Ocean. The Gerhadt’s father and father-in-law had both grown up on farms, and as the Gerhardts now raise their sons, they found themselves wanting to reconnect to farm life and the feeling of family gatherings they both remembered with their grandparents. They love to see their boys learning to take dominion and learning useful life skills that will remain with them throughout their years – ones they will be able to pass on to their sons. They declare that raising sons on a farm is a great thing!

We are then taken to Illinois where we meet three generations of farmers. The Houks farm over 3,000 acres -mainly corn. Although their farm is quite the contrast to what often comes to mind when one thinks of the agrarian movement, they share the same love for the land, seeing God’s goodness and bounty in bringing in the harvest, learning to trust in the Lord to grow that crop, and the joy of working and being involved with one's family.

Next time I will share with the other three families we meet and then conclude with our thoughts after watching Inherit the Land.

Is This Farm God's Will for Us?

A subject that comes up, as we look for land, is knowing if a certain place we are looking at is “God’s will for us.” We sometimes pray that God would clearly show us if a certain property is or isn’t His will for us. The last place we looked at was “clearly not God’s will.” But what do we mean when we say that? How do we determine what God’s will is for us in these areas that are non-biblical? Granted, a farm is not God’s will for us if buying it means cheating, lying, or otherwise breaking His commands to get it. Naboth’s vineyard was never God’s will for King Ahab, no matter how good he felt about owning it.

We’ve come from an evangelical church background where determining God’s will in these non-biblical areas of job, housing, moving, etc becomes an exercise in discerning one’s own feelings about a thing. If I feel it is God’s will, than it is (barring any scripture that contridicts my feelings.) Often the scriptural support is found in Psalm 37:4, “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” So in this case saying that a particular farm is not God’s will for us means that we did not desire it. It did not meet our standards of what we wanted in a farm.

But is this right? Does God ever desire hard things for us? Sure I want a large farm with fertile soil, beautiful woods, a pond with plenty of life and a rambling farm house recently renovated with central air, a downstairs in-law suite and plenty of room for entertaining. Who wouldn’t? But does that mean that it is only God’s will for me to have the best? Some of my Christian brothers would say, “Yes!” But I wonder. I only have to look at Jesus to see an example of one who truly did delight in the Lord, yet God’s will for Him was hard. “Father, if it be Thy will, let this cup pass from Me.” But it wasn’t the Father’s will, and so He endured the cross for the joy set before Him.

We are moving in more reformed circles now, and I recently heard that the reformed understanding of knowing God’s will is that the Lord only speaks to us through His word as it is illuminated by His Holy Spirit. In other words, it is not correct for me to expect the Lord to tell me if a given property is “His will” for us or not. So what do we ask?

Perhaps a better way to approach a given property is to ask a whole different set of questions: “Can we honor the Lord on this property?” “Can we be a light for Him here?” “Can we be used of the Lord to renovate this property to become the fertile land that He desires to His glory?” “Can we be a light for Him in this neighborhood?” It is certainly easier to look for a place that appeals to our sense of comfort and ease, but we must remember our Lord’s example, “Not My will, but Yours be done.”

Inherit the Land: Adventures on the Agrarian Journey

I've recently heard that our friends at Franklin Springs Family Media is nearing completion of their new DVD: Inherit the Land: Adventures on the Agrarian Journey. In Inherit the Land, they tell the story of several families as they pursue an agrarian lifestyle. "We’ve traveled across the US and captured stories of families experiencing the joy of working in God’s creation. From a simple garden in a suburban backyard, to a full-fledged multi-generational farm, these stories will not only encourage those who are contemplating an agrarian path, but all families who have a heart turned toward home."

This is one DVD I've been looking forward to seeing ever since I first heard about the project. I was planning to wait until after it was released so I could get a copy and share my thoughts on it, but since they are now having a "Pre-Order" sale, I thought I'd let you all know about it now.

You can visit their website where you can not only find out about their special pre-order sale, but you can also view the movie trailer and get a few sneak previews! Having just watched the trailer myself, I can't wait to watch this movie with my family!