4 1/2 minute read
It’s just under two weeks until I Am a Field comes out. If you haven’t ordered it, I’d be highly appreciative if you did. There’s the paperback version, the Kindle version, and the audio version (read by yours truly).
Note: if you’ve bought the book via Amazon, it would be SO helpful if you’d leave a review once the book comes out. Verified Purchase reviews are, apparently, highly influential in how Mr. Bezos and his Amazonians push the book!
In light of it being a week away from launch, I’ve decided to make today’s blog post a taste of the opening of the book. It’ll give you a sense of the metaphor and maybe how you can see God as the good farmer and your life as a field…
*****
Picture a field.
Vast acres of wide open, untouched land.
It’s mostly dirt. Dry, dusty, seemingly uninteresting dirt. Rocks litter the land. Some of the rocks are small and baseball-sized with an inch or two jutting up out of the ground. Other rocks are boulders weighing hundreds of pounds, sticking far enough up so they can be seen from a quarter- mile away.
A massive briar patch lies on the west end of the field. The tangle of prickly, wiry shrubs is so thick you can hardly see into it. Covering at least an acre, the briar patch feels like nature’s way of saying, “No trespassing. Keep out. Stay away.”
A few trees dot the field, but they’re not much to look at. Some are so rotted by pine beetles it seems as though a stiff wind could blow them to splinters and dust. Others may be fruit trees, but they clearly haven’t shown bud in a long, long time. Stumps pockmark the land too. With roots that dive deep into the ground, these stumps serve as stubborn tombstones—reminders of once mighty trees now fallen by lightning strike or beaver teeth.
And then there are the weeds. Almost every variety of weed— wild plants that serve no purpose except to choke out any plant that might exist for a greater purpose—has made its way up from the dirt all across the field. Kudzu, hemlock, buffalo bur, and shepherd’s purse rise up, gnarly and defiant from the dry ground. “This land is ours,” the weeds seem to growl.
There are a few signs of productive life on the field, though: A small patch of pale green grass that has somehow sprung up just outside the shadow of one of the larger rocks. An old apple tree on the southern edge of the field has a few shriveled, barely red pippins hanging off it. Near the briar patch bramble, there’s even a tiny rose bush with a solitary pink bud considering whether or not to ever open.
On the southwest edge stands an old farmhouse and a red barn that are a sparrow’s sneeze away from collapsing.
Passersby show no interest in this field. Who can blame them?
The field is largely unproductive. It appears to have no promise. It’s more dead than alive.
That’s the field.
*****
Now, picture a Farmer.
This Farmer ambles along in his held-together-with-prayer- and-chicken-coop-wire pickup truck on the road bordering the field.
Suddenly, he stops the truck.
He climbs out, crosses the street, and walks up to the field. This Farmer is tall and broad and tough.
He wears a green and yellow John Deere cap that’s seen better years. A checked flannel button-down peeks out from beneath a dust-caked pair of brown Carhartt overalls. On his feet are a pair of Red Wing ropers so weathered they look as though they were born underground.
His face is creased and folded from years in the sun. His rough hands look to be made of hundred-year-old baseball mitt leather. His wide shoulders would have no problem swinging an axe for hours without a break. And the grit in his eyes tells you he’s so flinty and strong he could use barbed wire as shoelaces if the need arose.
Those eyes are also clear, focused, and somehow kind as well. There’s a light in them. A hope. An optimism. A “Sure, it’ll take some work, but let’s do this” attitude.
With a hand shielding those eyes from the glaring sun, the Farmer takes a good, hard look at the field.
He sees the dirt and the rocks and the dying trees and the briar patch and the stumps and the weeds.
But he seems to see something else too.
What he sees isn’t apparent.
He walks the field, taking in every acre, and with every step, a smile spreads across his face.
An hour later, this Farmer makes his way back to his pickup truck.
With a nod and that grin, he fires up the engine.
And he drives into town —directly to the courthouse to ask the land and title clerk about the field.
After that, he hurries to the bank. Striding through the door, he heads straight for a banker, and holding a scrap of paper with the location of the land on it, he says, “I want to buy this field.” He pauses and stares into the banker’s eyes. “No matter the cost.”
By week’s end, the field is owned by the man in the John Deere cap and dirty overalls.
And it’s all done with the excitement and joy of a child on Christmas Eve.
That is the Farmer.
(Excerpted from I Am a Field.)