Integration

The weeks have flown by this month and this past Monday was our last class in the "Exploring the Small Farm Dream" workshop we've been taking. It has been an intensive process of reflecting on what it is that we want to do, why and how. Four weeks later, we still have quite a lot of research to do, and many decisions to make. We're faced with the unique challenge of starting a (profitable) farm on a relatively small, largely wooded property. Which is at turns an exciting challenge and a (seemingly) crazy idea.

While we don't yet know just what this farm will look like, or quite how we can make it work, this class has been a confirmation that this is the path we both want to be attempting to walk. Early on, before the first session, we were asked to fill out a worksheet describing our dream. One of the questions was especially telling: It asked how an agricultural business would become integrated with the rest of our life's pursuits. Our responses were the same: it would allow us to follow our lives' pursuits. Making our living from our land and hands would give us the opportunity to do the things that give us the most enjoyment, the most fulfillment. It would allow us to stop being constantly pulled in two (or more) directions. For both of us the idea of being able to live an integrated life: where we are able to work and live together, providing for ourselves (in real goods and income), is the goal. To be sure, as the boys continue to grow, we will still have the challenge of juggling their needs with the needs of a growing farm. But to close that gap, to integrate "work" and "the rest of our life's pursuits", is a dream worth pursuing for us, and hopefully, with a lot of hard work and creativity, one we can bring into being.

The next month or two will continue to be filled with research and thinking and decision-making as we look ahead to the coming year and what we hope to accomplish. In some ways, this is a rough time of year, as Advent starts and Christmas is just ahead, to be attempting to focus intently on such a prospect. On the other hand, perhaps it is not such a bad time after all: to integrate this season of waiting, anticipation, preparation for the celebration of Christmas with the waiting, anticipation and preparation of fleshing out this dream of ours for the year(s) to come.

...if we are to wait, let us wait in purpose;

...if we are to watch, let us watch in wisdom;

...if we are to expect, let us expect in hope.

May we be prepared. May we be ready.
(...a meditation from our church bulletin this past Sunday)