New Wave of Writing

Today I decided to scrap the rest of my personal blogs and combine into one that explores much more of my deepest curiosities. My good friend, Mike Mather, gave me this book "Conversations with Wendell Berry." It has been spectacular to read. Berry's main conversations tend to focus on place and love and creation. He is a farmer and author who often tries to connect the life of agriculture with faith, ecology and economy with the ways of Jesus' kingdom. His remarkable writing has brought much into my mind about place and vocation in my own life. I thought I would write daily, or as much as I can, on the matters of ecology, community, farming life and urban life, faith, and the way of love.

Place has always been a bit of a curious notion to me. I was one of those kids who couldn't wait to get the hell out of small town rural america. My upbringing in rural illinois certainly represented to me by the end of high school a sense of backward thinking, irrelevant, small minded, and hick country folk who would rather suck on a toothpick and talk about the weather, than to do something worthwhile in this life. There must be something more exciting out there for me, or so I arrogantly thought at the time. Arrogance may even be a bit too small of a word for my sharp criticisms of the rural life. Now that I have lived in the most urban and industrial state in the union, been to an ivy league institution, lived on a road with fire engines driving by constantly, and with very little trees or land to speak of, I began to see that there was something disturbingly missing.

On both sides of my family, we own significant amounts of land, both some that is still currently used in farming and the rest an inheritence from generations passed on by. When I think of my dad's family farm in Illinois or my mother's family acreage in southern Appalachian Kentucky, I am amazed that I somehow thought that there was something better "out there" than what God had already given me. I have stories and memories hidden deep within the forests and trees of southern kentucky, on tractors and fields in the flat lands of Illinois, and a sense of hope, peace, and what life is really about when I think about the food grown on these lands. Why didn't I see this beauty before? Thinking about how my grandparents and great grandparents gave themselves for decades to farming land in Illinois is a little more than simply remarkable. They are saints in my book. They have given themselves to a place and to a way of life, one intimate with the earth and her rhythms. Oh, how I long for such a life. Is it possible to find such a life in the urban landscape? I believe so and since that has been where my immediate family and I have chosen to live our lives, I begin this blog with simple reflections upon committing to a city landscape over long periods of time, the possibilities available now that I am a home owner, and how my living in these spaces impacts local economy.

I am not sure of the answer to these questions. I am hoping to bump into some answers as I look along the way. I invite you to travel with me, agree with me....disagree with me, make suggestions, ask questions, and find hope in your own "place." For now, I begin this new wave of writing as one of the "forest christians" seeking wholeness, peace, and joy not only in the church and her people, but among all creation.