The Blessings of the Farm

I have learned many things from the farm.  It has been a place that has required a lot of sweat and work.  From the beginning it was my intent to tend it with care.  I  want to leave it without some heavy footprint to tell those who come after me that I was here.  I have done things like planting grass to stop good soil from washing downhill to the branch.  I have planted and pruned pecan trees, picked up dead fallen limbs, and harvested whatever crop it gave the land.  I have grown hay and provided a small herd of cows a home.  It often seems that there is no end to the things the farm ask of me.   

I somewhat expected this, but not to the extend that I experience it.  What has been surprising is the way the farm has given back to me.  If I have blessed it with attentive care, it has blessed me a thousand times more.  I have been blessed by the silence which fills this place.  In that silence I have learned to hear the soft but sure voice of God.  I have been blessed by the wisdom I have heard.  I have been blessed by many farmers who have been helpers and mentors. I have been blessed by the way the farm has filled my life with an awareness of creation.  I am not the person who left the pulpit and came to the farm and hopefully the man I have become is one that pleases the God who entrusted this land to my care.   

One of the most transforming lessons the farm has taught is that it does not belong to me.  My name is on the deed in the courthouse, but I have come to think of the farm as belonging not to me, but to its own self.  It has seen many like me come and go and there will many who walk and work this place behind me.  The land is the constant.  It is never really owned by any of us.  The owner is, of course, the Creator God who has enabled me to share a span of time with the land that has given me a home and roots on this earth. What a wonderful blessing it has been and continues to be.  

Behind and Ahead

On this day in 1932 my mother was born as the last of nine children on a farm in deep South Georgia.  She grew up like most children of that day and region.  Necessities were mostly provided, but not much else.  Her childhood stories were not about dolls and fancy dresses, but picking cotton by hand alongside of older brothers and sister.  She gave me and my sisters many gifts.  She gave us an education she did not have, a work ethic that kept us away from any feelings of entitlement, and a deep and abiding faith in God.  She lived a long life and became one of those saints who made a difference in the places where God put her as she lived out those years.  

She died back during the days of covid, but I remember her today as one who became one of the foundational pillars of my life.  Any and everything I have accomplished in life is built upon the love and the sacrifice she offered in my behalf.  Whenever we foolishly began to think that what we have done with our own life is all about me, we need to climb down off the pedestal where we have put ourselves and look more closely at those who have made the way possible for us.  Hopefully, all of us have parents who stand first on that list, but there are surely others who have invested in us when we were mostly empty and trying to figure out what to do with the life given to us.  

There is a long list of neighbors, and teachers, and peers who have helped us to reach this point of our journey.  There are so many behind us who can no longer hear any words of appreciation, but we can express our thanks to them by being an enabling person to those who are walking along a little behind us.  In many places and in many ways the Word of God calls us to pass on our faith and the values that come with it to the generation behind us.  May we be as faithful as those who have come before us.

Remembering Wendell Berry

A member, perhaps, even more so,

of the membership past and present,

and stretching out into the beyond,

you still remain.  Though not here, 

but there, we will long call your name

as one who knew us as you knew

Jayber, Burley, Hannah, and Old Jack.

 

Long will we remember the farmer

who trailed along behind mules and 

the writer who shunned the keyboard

for the simple sheet of paper and pen.

You wrote as if you knew our hearts, 

as if you knew we were where we were,

but somehow still strangers far from home.

 

You always cared about us, Wendell Berry,

in ways we did not know we needed care.

Though Baptist we saw the heart of Francis

and in your love for the old ways, Thoreau.

When you entered into the world of memory,

we grieved, hugged books from the shelves,

and wished once more to hear your voice.

 

Thank you, for all you said and tried to do,

for all you wanted to do that was for our good.

Be blessed in the eternal holy membership

which is a part of the one lived in here.

Though your chair on the porch is empty

we know you  are in the other room, 

and we wait with hearts filled with memories. 

 

Wendell Berry (August 5, 1934-August 31, 2026) 

An Evening Prayer

This morning in a devotional time, I pulled an Episcopal resource, "The Book of Common Prayer" off the shelf.   As I turned the pages, I found an evening prayer that at one time not too long ago I prayed at night when my head settled on the pillow.  The changing seasons of life took me away from that discipline and as I moved forward into what was ahead, I left the prayer behind.  It was a surprise to find it again this morning.  It brought back some good memories and an awareness that I wanted to return once again to making this prayer a part of my evening discipline.  

The prayer from "The Book of Common Prayer" reads, "Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep.  Lord Christ, give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous, and all for Your love's sake." Amen."  The prayer took root in my heart during a season of being a caregiver when sleep was often hard to find.  More than I had been was I aware of people like nurses who worked in the night, of people who were weeping beside loved one, and of those who were watching for the morning to finally come to take the darkness away.   

It was also a prayer that served me so very well in praying for others.  I knew those, and still do, who need rest and blessing, comfort and mercy.  As Jesus prayed, "lead us not into temptation" so is it a good thing to pray that those who live only with its joys to be shielded from the darkness that is ever lurking.  This prayer of days past is going to become a part of the days that are present.  It is a prayer easy to memorize and pray in those moments when we put ourselves in God's hands one more night.

He is Still Here

According the Genesis the devil and the evil which he seeks to do in the world God has created has been around since the beginning.  In the Garden called Eden, he tempted Adam and Eve.  In the wilderness near the Jordan River, he tempted Jesus.  When Jesus taught His disciples to pray, He taught them to pray, "deliver us from evil, or "deliver us from the evil one." (Matthew 6:13).  When the Apostle Paul wrote the church at Ephesus, he included an admonition and warning.  "Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil...For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against...the spiritual forces of evil..." (Ephesians 6:10-12).  

Even though we pray that prayer about being protected from evil each Sunday when we gather for worship, no one really seems to take the devil seriously.  The devil C.S. Lewis reveals in "The Screwtape Letters" takes great delight in our quest to make his presence and power irrelevant.  The angels in the Kingdom of God might have had some concern about the God is dead movement decades ago, but the demons of the evil one take delight in our living as if he does not exist.  Given our culture one wonders if anyone, even the church, really regards the evil one as a serious and dangerous threat.  

Actually, the world is full of the chaos of evil.  We live in an age of constant warfare.  A spirit of division permeates our society.  People seem more interested in retribution and anger rather than reconciliation and forgiveness.  Ordinary folks like us who want to do the things that please Christ still find ourselves doing the things we do not want to do.  The ugly and mostly ignored word, sin, is still as present in our world as the evil one himself.  It is not just the world which needs the Savior Jesus Christ, but each one of us for Satan still "seeks to work us woe."  

Hearing the Voice

One of my favorite Biblical stories is found in the third chapter of I Samuel.  It is the story of a boy on his way to becoming a priest who would anoint Saul as the first King of Israel.  In the darkness of night the Lord called out to the young Samuel who was "ministering to the Lord under Eli."  (I Samuel 3:1).  Three times the Lord called his name and each time he went to Eli's bed thinking that it was his voice that was sounding throughout the Temple and into his heart.  Finally, Eli, the priest, told the boy, "Go, lie down; and if He calls you, you shall say, 'Speak, Lord, for Your servant is listening.'"  (I Samuel 3:9).  

In our day there are at least a few obstacles to hearing the Lord speak.  The first is becoming convinced that the Lord does speak.  Too many times the sound of His voice is unheard because our hearts are not open to hearing. We no longer have ears to hear what cannot be heard with the ears of birth.  A second obstacle is overcoming our fear of being in the silence.  Our lives are flooded with noise and visual distractions.  It is a hard thing for many of us to put ourselves in a position where the Holy Spirit can filter out the chaos so that we can begin to hear the whispering voice of God.  A third obstacle has to do with discernment.  There are many voices which can be heard when we do enter into the silence and it often takes time to know which voice belongs to God.  

If we are serious about learning to live in a world where God speaks to be heard, it requires that we go forth with a faith that declares His voice can be heard and a spirit that is willing to wait patiently and with expectancy.  There is no need for us to become spiritually tongue tied when we talk about hearing the voice of God.  While that voice is not likely to be heard like the sounds of those voices around us as we practice the disciplines of stillness and listening, there will come that time when His voice is not heard from the outside but from the inner place where His Spirit abides.

Just a Child

After Samson pulled the pillars on the pagan temple built by the Philistines to honor their god, Dagon, the era of the judges ended in Israel.  In that vacuum came a time of  political chaos as tribes vied for powers over others.  As we turn the pages and move away from the book of Judges, we see a time when priests like Eli and later Samuel would hold sway over the forward movement of the nation.  As the story of Samuel unfolds, we see Israel moving away from battling tribal chieftains to a time when Israel wanted a King so they could be like other nations.  

At the very beginning we read the story of the barren woman, Hannah, striking a deal with God. "O Lord of hosts,...if you will give to Your servant a male child, then I will set him before You..." (I Samuel 1:11).  The Scripture says the Lord remembered her prayer and she conceived and gave birth to a son whom she named Samuel.  True to her vow, when the boy was old enough to be weaned, he was as she said, "lent to the Lord, as long as he lives, he is given to the Lord,"  (I Samuel 1:28) and left at the temple of Shiloh to serve under the guidance of Eli.  

Thus, a boy was put in a place where God would prepare him to become a priest and shape a nation.  It is a story which brings to mind a word which the Lord spoke to the prophet, Jeremiah.  "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet..." (Jeremiah 1:5).  I remember many from my college days who were boys as was I when the Lord called:  Tom, Wayne, Gary, Rex, Jack, Jim, and Harold.  Like the boy Samuel, they were each brought to a place which God used to prepare them for what was ahead.  We can never know what God is doing in the heart of some young boy or girl who sits in the place of worship with us.