"I believe very strongly: that farming is a liturgical act (at least it is when one is farming well – which, in my case, is less often than ought to be the case). And, like any good liturgy, it is a liturgical act the significance and meaning of which only slowly reveals itself. I don’t even understand most of what I am saying and what gestures I am making before God when I am participating in this liturgy of field and forest. There is this much, though, that I am sure of – I can feel it in the work: Good farming affirms the goodness of God, it of all creatures great and small, it affirms the goodness of man, and of the human body, and of what Tolstoy affectionately called “the brotherhood of all men” and of what Wendell Berry calls “the community of creation”. And it does more than affirm: without even intending to, you very often find that you are engaged in an act of gratitude. I am not talking about the feeling of gratitude. You find that the work of farming just is gratitude."
~ David J. Clark
~ David J. Clark
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Artwork from Gwenda Morgan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwenda_Morgan
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