Over the past couple years I’ve spent a great deal of time with my hands in the dirt. I’ve worked mostly as a market gardener of sorts, growing and seeding vegetables in the greenhouse, and planting them out for farmers markets and sharers. All the while I’ve been steadily learning and observing both plants and animals - how they grow, what they need, and how I can work with them to raise them in ways that I can be proud of, and that reflect the person I want to be. This journey has been exciting and brought me great joy. It is something I feel called to, a passion that God has instilled in me, and because of that something that I want to share with all of you. As I have grown into this role, sowing seeds and now beginning to raise animals, it is easy to look just at my work, and forget how this work and other decisions along the way have and continue to shape me. As today we reflect on the fruits of the spirit, I’d like to share about how this work has challenged me to not just grow vegetables, but fruits as well; specifically how along this journey, as I spend more time in the soil, as my life becomes more messy and challenging and hands just don’t quite get clean, how in my journey I have been drawn into a place where the fruits of the spirit seem much more real, and well within reach.
* * *
I awoke to the gentle buzzing of my alarm pulling me into the darkness and quiet of the night. The numbers flashed in front of my eyes, their familiarity long a part of my memory. It was 3 a.m. Even after weeks of this routine my body still asked for me to stay still, but I knew if I listented I would just as suddenly fall back asleep and the consequences would be severe.
I stumbled up, grabbed a pair of pants and a sweater and drifted through the dark house to the door. Grabbing my toque and gloves I slipped into my boots and stepped out the door into the brisk spring night, the temperature sitting well below zero. I made my way up the hill to the shop as I always did, steady in my steps, just now waking from the chilly nights air. Through the shop I weaved, avoiding the stack of empty pails and the wheelbarrow to the side door that led to the greenhouse. I opened the door as was my routine, a quick listen to the fans, and visual confirmation of the temperature before I went out back to the boiler to stoke the fire. As soon as my feet rested on the hard earth of the greenhouse though, I knew that something was wrong. Although it was warmer than outside, I knew that it was colder than normal. The thermomemter read just below 7 degrees, 3 degrees cooler than it should have been. I checked the rads to ensure they were heating and found them ice cold. Something was wrong.
* * *
What followed was a couple hours spent troubleshooting, checking and re-checking possible leaks and pressure issues, and an eventual solution to the problem. Everything would be okay; the plants were going to survive the night. By that time though it was close to morning. I returned to the house for good, ready to finally get some rest. I lay for the few precious hours that remained before morning, but couldn’t fall asleep. Something about the stress and fear of losing all of my plants had left me – someone who falls asleep almost instantly, wide-awake.
It was a running joke at the time between friends and family that all the plants that I looked after in the greenhouse were my children. We laughed about it, but the parallels were real. I fed and watered them, I kept them warm and sheltered, and I got up for them at night, even though they didn’t cry. So as I lay awake that night, adrenaline still pumping and my senses at high alert, I considered this, what it meant to be bound to something else – how much energy and time it required, the attention and care it demanded, but how moved I was by this commitment.
This is perhaps the greatest lesson that I have learnt along this journey. That making commitments to plants, to people, to work – however challenging and difficult these commitments may be, force me out of my own desires, into a place where acting out the fruits of the spirit in Galations is that much easier. At the surface this sounds and sometimes feels like a burden. How can extra time, energy, and stress actually bring me closer to God, closer to following Jesus and enacting the fruits of the spriti? A fair question. This thinking aside, in reality it is incredibly freeing.
For me it feels like the answer to a central call of the gospel, to love others freely and selflessly. I think this is why we as followers of Jesus are continously invited through scripture into commitment. Being accountable, or being enslaved to one another as Paul would go so far as to say, puts us in a position to succeed, in loving one another and in turn bearing the fruits of the spirit. This is why I think we as Mennonites still bother to focus on community, and why the Church inststs on celebrating milestones like marriage and baptism, even while most of society dismisses them. To love freely is to love outside of ourselves, to make a commitment thought sacrifice, the very act of which brings us closer to root word of sacrifice, sacred.
The focus of my work over the last year and a half, has been as part of a worker’s co-op, the Metanoia Farmers. We operate using a Community Shared Agriculture model in which we sell to sharers (or subscribers), a share in the vegetable bounty for the season, in the form of a weekly box of veggies. There are a couple of interesting things about the co-op and the CSA model that have pushed me into commitment.
As a group we generally work together, occaisionally splitting up specific jobs, but always making decisions together through consensus. In theory this sounds nice, but in reality it is hard and messy. It is something I especially struggle with. Being in a co-op takes all sorts of extra time and energy, meetings upon meetings, long discussions about seemingly simple things, not undeserving of time, but drawn out to ensure everyone has a voice and is heard. What about all the work that we could be doing? About the time wasted? But as a whole we make good decisions and do really good work, more than we as individuals could achieve. But at times because of this I have to sacrifice my own wants for the well being of others and the group. Being in close relationship with people is messy and hard, but it is good.
In another way we also invite our sharers into this chaos. The very nature of the CSA model is an invitation into a commitment. Traditionally farmers assume all of the risk, in working with creation, paying out money for infrastructure, seed, fertilizer, etc. all before the growing season begins. If weather is good, temperature and moisture come at the right time, then the investment hopefully pays off. But, if it isn’t, the farmer alone loses, and often big. The CSA model distributes this risk to the consumer, those interested in sharing in this relationship, with the land and creation, and sharing in bounty and loss just as the farmer does. It truly is a beautiful thing. When celery for whatever reason doesn’t germinate, or the peppers just don’t grow as expected, or when blight takes over the tomatoes – everyone takes a small loss. Just the same, when carrots come up early and often, and a bumper crop of onions is on the brink – all can rejoice together in the bounty.
Even the smallest commitment made out of love is an invitation into this dance. Commiting to volunteer once a week at the local drop in centre, driving the neighbours kids to soccer practice, or planting tomatoes and peppers along the side of the house, pushes our energy, the love that we hold inside, beyond ourselves and into the world for others to share in. Whether small or big, my experience is that these commitments have always pushed me towards joy, peace, patiience, kindness, genorisity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There will be days, when being bound by these commitments is discourageing and challenging, and just doesn’t seem worth it. But it is these same commitments – to people, to places and land, to things like plants and animals that offer up hope at the end of the day. To be bound to one another in love pulls us away from desires that can cloud our better judgement, challenges that we alone can’t always overcome by ourselves. It brings us to a place where we can experience the fruit of creation together, enslaved and totally set free by this very same commitment.
* * *
I awoke to the gentle buzzing of my alarm pulling me into the darkness and quiet of the night. The numbers flashed in front of my eyes, their familiarity long a part of my memory. It was 3 a.m. Even after weeks of this routine my body still asked for me to stay still, but I knew if I listented I would just as suddenly fall back asleep and the consequences would be severe.
I stumbled up, grabbed a pair of pants and a sweater and drifted through the dark house to the door. Grabbing my toque and gloves I slipped into my boots and stepped out the door into the brisk spring night, the temperature sitting well below zero. I made my way up the hill to the shop as I always did, steady in my steps, just now waking from the chilly nights air. Through the shop I weaved, avoiding the stack of empty pails and the wheelbarrow to the side door that led to the greenhouse. I opened the door as was my routine, a quick listen to the fans, and visual confirmation of the temperature before I went out back to the boiler to stoke the fire. As soon as my feet rested on the hard earth of the greenhouse though, I knew that something was wrong. Although it was warmer than outside, I knew that it was colder than normal. The thermomemter read just below 7 degrees, 3 degrees cooler than it should have been. I checked the rads to ensure they were heating and found them ice cold. Something was wrong.
* * *
What followed was a couple hours spent troubleshooting, checking and re-checking possible leaks and pressure issues, and an eventual solution to the problem. Everything would be okay; the plants were going to survive the night. By that time though it was close to morning. I returned to the house for good, ready to finally get some rest. I lay for the few precious hours that remained before morning, but couldn’t fall asleep. Something about the stress and fear of losing all of my plants had left me – someone who falls asleep almost instantly, wide-awake.
It was a running joke at the time between friends and family that all the plants that I looked after in the greenhouse were my children. We laughed about it, but the parallels were real. I fed and watered them, I kept them warm and sheltered, and I got up for them at night, even though they didn’t cry. So as I lay awake that night, adrenaline still pumping and my senses at high alert, I considered this, what it meant to be bound to something else – how much energy and time it required, the attention and care it demanded, but how moved I was by this commitment.
This is perhaps the greatest lesson that I have learnt along this journey. That making commitments to plants, to people, to work – however challenging and difficult these commitments may be, force me out of my own desires, into a place where acting out the fruits of the spirit in Galations is that much easier. At the surface this sounds and sometimes feels like a burden. How can extra time, energy, and stress actually bring me closer to God, closer to following Jesus and enacting the fruits of the spriti? A fair question. This thinking aside, in reality it is incredibly freeing.
For me it feels like the answer to a central call of the gospel, to love others freely and selflessly. I think this is why we as followers of Jesus are continously invited through scripture into commitment. Being accountable, or being enslaved to one another as Paul would go so far as to say, puts us in a position to succeed, in loving one another and in turn bearing the fruits of the spirit. This is why I think we as Mennonites still bother to focus on community, and why the Church inststs on celebrating milestones like marriage and baptism, even while most of society dismisses them. To love freely is to love outside of ourselves, to make a commitment thought sacrifice, the very act of which brings us closer to root word of sacrifice, sacred.
The focus of my work over the last year and a half, has been as part of a worker’s co-op, the Metanoia Farmers. We operate using a Community Shared Agriculture model in which we sell to sharers (or subscribers), a share in the vegetable bounty for the season, in the form of a weekly box of veggies. There are a couple of interesting things about the co-op and the CSA model that have pushed me into commitment.
As a group we generally work together, occaisionally splitting up specific jobs, but always making decisions together through consensus. In theory this sounds nice, but in reality it is hard and messy. It is something I especially struggle with. Being in a co-op takes all sorts of extra time and energy, meetings upon meetings, long discussions about seemingly simple things, not undeserving of time, but drawn out to ensure everyone has a voice and is heard. What about all the work that we could be doing? About the time wasted? But as a whole we make good decisions and do really good work, more than we as individuals could achieve. But at times because of this I have to sacrifice my own wants for the well being of others and the group. Being in close relationship with people is messy and hard, but it is good.
In another way we also invite our sharers into this chaos. The very nature of the CSA model is an invitation into a commitment. Traditionally farmers assume all of the risk, in working with creation, paying out money for infrastructure, seed, fertilizer, etc. all before the growing season begins. If weather is good, temperature and moisture come at the right time, then the investment hopefully pays off. But, if it isn’t, the farmer alone loses, and often big. The CSA model distributes this risk to the consumer, those interested in sharing in this relationship, with the land and creation, and sharing in bounty and loss just as the farmer does. It truly is a beautiful thing. When celery for whatever reason doesn’t germinate, or the peppers just don’t grow as expected, or when blight takes over the tomatoes – everyone takes a small loss. Just the same, when carrots come up early and often, and a bumper crop of onions is on the brink – all can rejoice together in the bounty.
Even the smallest commitment made out of love is an invitation into this dance. Commiting to volunteer once a week at the local drop in centre, driving the neighbours kids to soccer practice, or planting tomatoes and peppers along the side of the house, pushes our energy, the love that we hold inside, beyond ourselves and into the world for others to share in. Whether small or big, my experience is that these commitments have always pushed me towards joy, peace, patiience, kindness, genorisity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There will be days, when being bound by these commitments is discourageing and challenging, and just doesn’t seem worth it. But it is these same commitments – to people, to places and land, to things like plants and animals that offer up hope at the end of the day. To be bound to one another in love pulls us away from desires that can cloud our better judgement, challenges that we alone can’t always overcome by ourselves. It brings us to a place where we can experience the fruit of creation together, enslaved and totally set free by this very same commitment.
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