Reflections from Godspeed the Plough

Godspeed the Plough was the name of the conference on Church and Agriculture that i attended last weekend. A group from Anderson went and i met up with them after coming from the memorable IU vs. AU basketball game in Bloomington. The conference was at Englewood church in Indianapolis.

I had been to Englewood before. To a New Monasticism conference or get together. I could easily discern that the church community there was continuing to grow, flourish, and tackle life together. very uplifting for me to see. just a lot of great people in the church doing very creative things, it was great to rub shoulders with a handful of them. it kinda puts a physical appearance on a lot of things that the church i'm a part of, The Mercy House is trying to do or may do in the future. They have a book review, publishing house, urban garden, beehives, they own a lot of houses around the block and fixing them up for people to live in, they make amazing homegrown meals, they have school, they were just starting a food co-op for their neighborhood, some of the people live close and in a tight community with one another and so forth. these are just some of things that i saw and i am sure there is much more. the church just seemed so simple but they were doing such radical things to help their world and their neighbors.

But as to the conference... it was also very inspiring. i have been at school for a couple months and have been away from agricultural initiatives since mid-August when school started. it was very nostalgic for me as i kept thinking back to my family's farm where i grew up and where i had a garden last summer. i kept getting visions on things i could improve and do anew next year and the years to come. This was especially true when sitting in on a break out session called Land, Art, and Agriculture. I have come to see agriculture as an art-form as of late. It is so interesting and stimulating how aesthetics and function can be so interwoven. in many ways these are so compatible that on a farm they are always present together. a farm is a lot like the recycling symbol. death brings new life and life brings death. the plants and food grown one year become next year's soil in a compost pile. livestock provide blackgold and other produce as they do favors for you around the farm as long as the farmer knows how to use them and keeps them fed. When widening my perspective of what a farm is i grew to appreciate everything in nature that was around me, because even the most miniscule things have tremendous purpose. Weeds can give indications of soil health, forests are gardens that we may never see the harvest of, water falls miraculously from the sky to keep everything vibrant, so many things were made for each-other to keep the farm and nature functioning as one organism. this cycle and this way of the earth never ceases to fascinate me.

I will post further on my experience at this conference in the near future and address what questions it forced me to struggle with and what i am learning as a result of the questions.