The Heritage Tour -- Berclair, part 2

We were struck by the precarious nature of farming. Talking with Troy, the peer who farms our land and much more, he recounted the experience of recent years that included two floods and an extended draught. Miserable crops bookending no crop -- the vagaries and vulnerabilities of tending the soil. He deals the cards -- fertilizing the soil, planting the best seed he can buy, working the soil when rain surfaces the sand -- but ultimately the game is beyond his control. He may or may not have a crop to harvest, depending on the rain that may or may not come, or come too early or too late or two fast.

"It takes a special kind of person to be a farmer," we agreed as we drove back down the road; someone who can deal with the ambiguities and disappointments, the hard work and and often futile expense.

Is it optimism that keeps him going -- or a quieter kind of hope? Is it a simple passion for the effort regardless of result? Or is it what it is for all of us -- albeit on a more dramatic scale -- who enjoy no guarantees about the fruitfulness of our efforts? Exactly what, for example, is the reliable harvest of any one of my sermons into which I have invested the most fertile hours of a week?

I have no idea the emotions Troy feels when he lays his head on the pillow each night, and I wouldn't presume to romanticize them. But to us he betrayed no despair. Rather, what he put forward was a good-natured, philosophical peacefulness reflecting the conviction that he has done what is his to do, and prepared for the worst, he hopes for the best. It is, I think, something like the scriptures describe as "casting bread upon the waters..."

Finally, it is the best that any of us can do.