On the Road Again
During this season of social distancing, I am spending a lot of time walking the gravel roads surrounding our farm. It is amazing how quickly (one year to be exact) I have forgotten the joys of being outside on an Iowa farm during the spring: the fresh air, the chirping of birds, the sun shining down on the land, cattle meandering through the lots. It’s the beauty of the land this time of year that strikes me. A land that waits to be groomed, patient and still, laying in anticipation – soon to be massaged and prodded and gently planted by those warriors who have in their hearts a value for the earth and what it can bring. I feel a peace in my heart – socially distancing myself from newscasters and press conferences, from COVID-19 charts and maps, from armchair quarterbacks calling plays in a game with which they have no experience. Focusing my thoughts on the simple things that matter the most – faith, family, and friends.
Sometimes it takes a pause in our daily lives – a pause thrust upon us by no means of our own – to refocus upon what we hold significant. Maybe…just maybe…each of us is the land that waits to be groomed, a land that is being transformed as we are massaged and prodded by these trying times. Transformed by our changed positions, our added stresses, our personal responsibilities.
But the land never gives up hope. The land always knows there will be new growth, there will be new colors, there will be change. It is during this season that newness will come. And as the land shall be changed so will we, changed by this pause that has been thrust upon us. We can only hope for the creation of newfound values – cultivated into a gentleness and humility towards others brought about by that which we cannot control.
For now, I walk the gravel roads, pausing, waiting, and watching in anticipation of what this new season will bring.
