The Farm is hard... writing is hard

Let me tell you something folks, the farm is hard.  Writing about it is also hard.  As much as I want to be a sustainable, urban farmer, I even more want to be a writer that people want to read.  I want to learn from my own words and watch the world grow along with me.  I want to expunge all the words that build up, the things I learn each day, things I find fascinating.  Not because I think I'm going to teach you anything, because what in the world can I teach any of you?  How to have a rabbit warren?  A chicken flock?  How about a ten month crop season?  I can’t.  I am so excited to tell you all I have learned something; that I have grown.  Narcissism is a funny characteristic.  Unfortunately it is a thing that I find myself dabbling in.  It is easy to learn something new and then act like it is something I have known all along, something that I can benevolently share to all of you suburbanites who don’t have farms.  What a ruse.  Let me tell you folks, most every blog has come on the tail of a first time discovery, there is no expertise, we are learning and so excited to tell you what is happening.

                Today I looked out on an endless sea of ink wanting to make my words matter.  It is so easy to think that the things you say are important, that the art you produce is unique, that the music you play is special, in the end; it seems to have an air of meaninglessness.  Just like the seeds that never germinate or the fruit that falls on the ground and is never eaten so many good things are left to never sprout, never be consumed, left to fall by the wayside, left to give nutrients to the next season’s crop.

                Sure we have done new things on the farm, we have hatched ducklings, we have pickled our fall harvest, we have planted crops to overwinter, but we don’t have it all together.  Far from it!  We lost three ducklings to predators, we still, STILL, can’t keep our chickens contained and lost our fall crop to their beaks, our yard is a mess, and there is no reason to feign some expertise. 

                Most of our lives we spend time selling everyone else that we are the experts in our field.  The truth is we are just learning, and when we start thinking we are experts and stop learning then all of our creativity starts to grind into oblivion.  It is easy to lie about the things in which we think we are experts but in contrast it is easy for us to be candid about the things we find meaningless.  In the obscure Bob Dylan song, “On the Road Again” he says, “Don’t ask me nothing about nothing and I just might tell you the truth.”  I think this is where we find honesty in most people, when they talk about nothing.  Otherwise we are all in the midst of selling our expertise.  It isn’t wrong; it is just in our nature.  Humility is not a skill that comes naturally to most, but dear God does it make the world bigger and better than living out of our own understanding.  Our lives get bigger when we grow from the lives of others, this is farming.  We can’t fake expertise.

Plants grow and are harvested.  Animals grow and are eaten.  Seasons change.  But the churning of learning and growing does not die in the individual; it is passed through humanity, for growth in community, understanding in nature, and communion with God.  Posterity grows when we have the humility to learn and teach the humility for others to receive.