Circle M Farm

The most pervasive feeling that characterizes my life here on this pretty little farm is Thankfulness. And then there are mornings like today when it’s 14 degrees below zero at morning chore time.

When we lived in a rather shabby two-flat in Chicago, my signature decorating flourish was writing on walls. The cracked plaster in our sagging living and dining rooms was the perfect canvas for an ever-evolving graffiti of quotes saved from books, movies, songs and conversations. Intended to be more art than mess, the words were etched in tidy black Sharpie or gold paint marker and they genuinely helped me to remember ideas I found important. Irreverent as the practice might seem to a more grown-up homeowner, it was a serious exercise in notetaking for me, a way of committing to memory and life words that I hoped would shape me, and the lives of those who shared that home.

I feel differently in and about this Wisconsin home and I haven’t written on a wall yet. Perhaps I’ve grown up some, or been sobered by applying six coats of primer before we could re-paint and put the Chicago house up for sale. Perhaps I’m just intimidated by the newly-drywalled surfaces in this remodeled farmhouse. But there was one quote I always intended to put up along the ceiling in our city kitchen, though I somehow never got around to it, and I think it might be the single indiscretion I allow myself on these smooth walls:

“Give Thanks to the Lord, for He is Good, His Love Endures Forever.”

This is a scripture, introduced in the Old Testament book First Chronicles, oft repeated in the Psalms of David, and written again in the prophets Ezra and Jeremiah. It is a phrase I find imminently appropriate for contemplation every morning, and indeed every hour of the day, especially those hours that dip far below zero.

At first look, this scripture seems to be a simple song of worship and thanksgiving, an acknowledgment of good things received, of blessings observed. This is the very emotion I so often wake up feeling here on the farm. The land is pretty and productive, my house warm and comfortable, my children and animals healthy, the day ahead of me full of good work and rich harvest. To look out any window is to see some satisfying scene of cultivation, to open any door is to smell fertility of one kind or another, to walk in any direction is to meet adventure. I’m not sure that I could count the number of times in an average day that I’m moved to a spontaneous prayer of thankfulness at encountering a fresh or familiar joy.

But there are then the not-so-average days. Mornings, like this one, when livestock have to be fed and watered in spite of forbidding temperatures. Afternoons, like yesterday, when I found my youngest dairy doe weak in the barn with a mysterious bout of diarrhea I feared might pass to all the goats penned with her. Summers, like this past one, when I lost five lambs to stomach worms that herbal concoctions, then organic vitamins, and finally conventional de-worming poisons were powerless to combat. And sleepless nights, like so many this year and in those to come, when a teenager isn’t home and isn’t where he said he would be.

On these days the Scripture suddenly reveals itself as an exhortation.

“Give Thanks to the Lord, for He is Good, His Love Endures Forever.”

The words form a command, actually, to give thanks, and not merely to feel it. Faithfulness in thankfulness is, in fact, a discipline, and certainly one that comes easier with experience. What does it mean to give thanks? I’m not entirely sure, but I feel certain that part of it is pausing to remember, in the hard times, in all times, the good that has been. And I think another part is accepting that the good things we do have aren’t necessarily the product of our doing. This sort of conscious accepting can, with practice, develop into an appropriate posture of need. Indeed, some translations of the Bible read “Mercy” where there is “Love.” When you are God, I suppose love and mercy are pretty interchangeable.

And so finally, the Scripture is an encouragement. It’s tough to be thankful, let alone hopeful, while picking diseased tomatoes in the midst of a drought. My feelings about this farm and the privilege of laboring here will undoubtedly continue to change with the weather. How could they not? But my fundamental world view about the worth of the land, the validity of my role and the providence of the universe will remain unshaken on the foundation of this Scripture, especially if I’ve practiced living in it when the feeling didn’t come naturally.

“Give Thanks to the Lord, for He is Good, His Love Endures Forever.”

That’s a truth worth writing on every wall of the farmhouse. This land and this work are good, because He who gave them is good. And I am loved. Thanks be to God.