Pasture, Pastoring and Systems

I recently had an incredible, although mostly ordinary opportunity to tour part of the surrounding county with a local farmer. I was struck by many things on this afternoon "field trip." But before I get to the land, a preface regarding this man will be needed:

Having grown up with one foot in the city and one in the country, he eventually drifted completely to the countryside, a natural slide based on his personality - a relatively silent, introspective man with a tremendous work ethic, and a great capacity to live simply. He happened into a farm family, who graciously took him in, and in due time released him to do his own farming - selling him some acreage and leaving the rest to God and seasons.

He has done well for himself, a literal self-made man. A news story was written about him some years ago, complete with a picture of his prime: tall and sturdy standing between rows of tobacco plants, an elegantly natural tool of wood and metal in his hand - a type of mini-scythe used to disrobe the tobacco plant leaf by leaf.

In this picture, his face is browned, caressed and tanned by long days in the sun. He stands in the afternoon sun, a king of tobacco - the plant that brought good fortune to many in this part of the country, the same plant that now leaves these strong men coughing away their health. It's the crop that blessed them, the crop that is leaving this land damned.

He grows other plants - mostly soybean and corn now, since those are the two crops that form the underbelly of what is an industrial giant: the American agribusiness. In total, he owns over five hundred acres of land - vast stretches of dark soil this time of year. Neither trees nor wild flowers stand or blow on this land; those things impede the mechanization of it all.

This concerns me. The conservationists and environmentalists - people like Wendell Berry and David James Duncan - whom I have been reading are quick to point out the ills this spells for our future. Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma in particular has been a popular read in our household recently, which is a grand exploration of America's current food production system. More and more, the food we eat is less and less rooted to a local community. Instead, food is becoming more and more homogeneous, energy inefficient and hazardous.

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The term "pasture" hardly even exists in reality these days. More and more, land does not contain life in wild, necessary varieties. (Such spaces are marked off as national park land.) By and large, farmland is now nothing more than a factory without walls - managed and manufactured by huge machines and intricate chemistry and biology. The line between natural food and innovative technology is thin these days. (For example, Pfizer is in bed with food giant Monsanto. ) All things are succumbing to the demands and interests of an international, industrialized, capitalist economy.

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Pesticides and global shipping, genetic modification and gargantuan processing plants: it all begins, in part, here - in the heartland, on farms like the ones this man owns. But, this is what really gets me: I like this man. He is the salt of the earth, tremendously kind and giving. He never intended to get rich, and he's still a long way from the wealth executives in the grain, processing and food industries are raking in. He just found himself drawn into a vortex that no one knew would multiply and spread; it just so happened it has grown far beyond anyone's imagination and beyond any local communities control.

And, as it is now, he is far removed from the end of the food chain. He does his job because it is what he has come to know, what he loves: "I've never felt closer to God then setting down a straight row on a Sunday morning when the sun is just coming up," he says, as testimony to his deep satisfaction. He is proud.

And rightly he should be. There is a type of beauty even in this new farming. Each year brings its own hopes and fears, satisfactions and tribulations. And the semblance of pasture remains. While not all together in one place, you can still see some cattle gathered into a pen some miles away, still feel the wind and see its effects in a windmill. Even if he never knows exactly which family will eat his corn - like the farmer who takes her crop into the local market - he can be sure that he has produced food and done well for the rest of humankind.

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I mention this largely because I believe all things are connected through a grand design, a careful, well-planned sovereignty. And to realize that the idea of pasture has been negated and nullified in the actual sense is to recognize that the role of the pastor is also being usurped and challenged. Eugene Peterson has said as much. I don't have anything new to add.

But, I cannot help but comment on this episode: the tension of walking good earth, farmed by a good man who just so happens to use dangerous chemicals and toxins. I found myself struggling with the endearing nature of this man's personality while remaining firmly against the system that has swallowed he, myself and many more whole.

Sin is systems, or maybe it's that systems are sinful. Either way, I learned recently how easy it is to love a servant of the system, while being reinforced in my disdain and defiance of the mechanizations that reduce and marginalize life.

Wes