Within the American Agricultural Landscape there exists a paradigm where farmers often experience heart attacks. This phenomena is most often attributed to long hours, intense work, financial struggles and the stresses of interaction with the unpredictable elements of nature. While these ideas are surrounded by a certain level of validity, they are but a pixel of the the whole image.
Lets examine another idea. The idea of Heart Order and the cause and effect of a lifestyle that does not foster the spiritual and emotional organization that generates this order. Even when well intentioned and organically minded, American farmers are steered toward agricultural and socio-cultural techniques and trends that usher in chaos to both soil and soul. From the use of chemicals and organic bi-products of commercial death to the hyper-consumption of processed food in rural farming communities, this resistance to natural order actualizes into the heart of the small universe that is a human being. Depending on the individual’s constitution, this will likely cause the heart to adopt a state of either excess or deficiency. The fire of the Spirit will become too hot or too weak. Either condition is not balanced and unbalanced is dis-orderly.
Who wouldn’t develop a condition of the heart and often the intestines from the anxiety brought about from poisoning your home, food, and body whilst creating a toxic product for others and perhaps enslaving animals? That’s a hard way to thrive. It would be for me at least. I got just enough of a taste of that to know I didn’t want anymore.
As my wife and I enter our 12th year farming, I won’t dare say it isn’t extremely difficult at times and can certainly be stressful. However, if you keep stacking bricks on a damaged foundation, your structure is bound to collapse and crumble. Destruction is assured. Stacking stress and extreme labor upon a Spirit unwilling to heal will likewise meet an early end. As humans, our foundation is our Spirit and it is worthy of repair.
The collective sum of all Spirits is what some call God. So, in turn, we collectively strengthen the power of God, the macro-cosmic, by individually restoring Heart Order within ourselves, the micro-cosmic.
-Christopher Winters
