May 16, 2020

Mothers, farmers and other lay people have created extensive opportunities for professionals, specialists, nonprofits, consultants, and others who make a living working at the tasks that were meant to be done from a place of freedom.

God’s divine wisdom and intuition.

Many of these tasks are related to every day bodily functions, hunger, spiritual growth, economic disparities, and human values.  The work of spiritual labor.  It’s not that professionals cannot do these tasks, but my concern is in our dependence on them.  Emotional labor has been turned into work that is only valued once something has been produced from it, once a financial transaction has occurred.

As a mother and farmer that has pulled up a chair in professional spaces I found myself surprised at the assumptions of my motives and the confusion caused by my intentions.  Farm women of Faith especially face a unique burden as they walk out of the fields of contemplation and the kitchens of essential labor to find a world that’s built on an economy of oppression.

I’ve been silenced, but my strength is multiplied when I choose to sit in silence.  

from a place of stillness and solitude I rise up again and again to face the challenge of the work at hand, and the need for storytelling to bring us back home.  In the process of modernizing we’ve lost the innate ability to live into the richness of God given opportunities.  Eating, moving our bodies, making babies and birthing them, even the act of dying has become difficult to do among the non-essential “add-on’s” of death care.

i want to live a life of all-in, essential, God powered experiences that bless me, my family, and our community.