I love seeing children visit the farm. It is a magical place for them. Watching Caleb run to the bench, climb up to pet the donkeys, seeing Kate nibble his rubber farm boots, listening to Abby and Caleb chatter as they swing in the hammock chair, dodging them as they run in the yard from place to place in joy... it makes me laugh. Grown ups come to visit and magic happens for them, too. Some have always lived in cities and never seen the full array of stars at night. Going to sleep in darkness without streetlights and waking to sunrise light is a new way of viewing the world. Sitting on the sunset deck at night hearing the not really quiet silence of katydids and screech owls and train whistles down on the river settles souls and calms interior churning. Taking a morning walk in dew laden grass with spider webs glistening and turkeys surprised at breakfast sets a frame around the day. This magical God filled place appears to just happen, to be there for the taking like an apple hanging on a tree. Tisn’t so, though.
Before sitting on the deck there is work to be done. Hay to bale, bush hogging fields to keep weeds out of the pastures, feeding the cows and the chickens and the horses and the donkeys and the cats and the dogs and the ducks, stalls to clean and sawdust to shovel, eggs to gather, fences to mend and grass to cut, hornet nests to be sprayed, spraying the cows and horses for flies, tractor to be serviced and weed eating to be done, new blades to be put on the mower, roads to be scraped level, everywhere you look there is work waiting to be done. Like a ducks feet paddling quickly underwater while floating serenely on top of the water, a farm requires great effort to support the pastoral life. It doesn’t just happen.
Untended fields grow up in locust trees and weeds quickly. Clean pastures feed cows, horses, deer and turkeys. Unmended fences let cows and horses roam. Tractors that do not have the oil changed and the filters replaced break down. Lawn mowers with dull blades cut grass unevenly and we have a lot of grass. Animals need daily care or they suffer. Winter is coming and hay will be needed to feed animals. If you don’t love the work and can’t afford to pay hired help, don’t move to a farm. We love the work that supports the farm, helps the magic happen for children and grown-ups because there are too few places like this anymore. Being able to live surrounded by God’s creation is a gift and a stewardship responsibility. We take care of the farm and we share it because we have been given much.
And so it is with the life of the spirit. Those who seem to be keepers of the flame, those who appear to have been given the gift of faith and the inner knowledge of God’s presence, are hard workers who devote their time and energy to cultivate their gifts, grow a spirit filled crop of godliness. They feed and mend and service and tend the life they have been given as an offering to their Creator. It isn’t magic or a gift just some of us can have. It is a gift we all have been given but few of us are willing to do the work. Our American activist style leads us to do good works (Be ye doers of the word....)but often we do not do the work of the spirit needed to support
the busyness. One without the other leaves us limping along unable to stand up straight.
Michael used this prayer by Harry Emerson Fosdick in worship yesterday and it is a prayer I pray for myself as I live and work in the sanctuary of Sabbath Rest Farm. “Eternal God, high above all, your children gather in your sanctuary to worship you. You fill heaven and the earth so that none can hide where you cannot not see. Through all the universe You flow like blood through our bodies. Yet there is one spot where we feel the pulse, where putting the finger, we know the heart is beating. Let your sanctuary be that for us this day. O God who fills all things, here let us feel the beating of the Eternal Heart. Amen.” Wherever your sanctuaries are, I pray you take the time and do the work to feel the beating of the Eternal Heart.
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