A Farm Story

I’ve been looking forward to writing this for a long time.

It’s a rainy Sunday afternoon in the coffee shop. I did my best to not drink coffee today, and as is most of life, my best is rarely enough.

I want to tell a story; a story about a father and a son. The story is non-fictional in more ways than one. The story begins a long, long, time ago…

the farm

I was a young child, barely six years old and I remember spending a lot of time with my parents, probably like most six-year-old children. We were a very happy family, going for Sunday bicycle rides, fishing in lakes, playing board games; you know, the happy American family.

Something that separated our family from other, “happy American families” was the inheritance of a large amount of land. This land is found about thirty five-minutes from home, out in the countryside. I didn’t know what to make of it as a young child, but even in elementary school I came to realize that this inherited land was exceptional. In fact I was the only child in my school, outside of my brothers, who had any kind of land they owned. What made us different from other families wasn’t the land itself, but our deep love for what we affectionately named “The Farm.”

The Farm doesn’t have any buildings on it, save an old block powder shed pushed back into the hedgerow. The place we have fires and cook meals is in the burned down ruins left from an old barn. Built into a small knoll, after the fire burned away the dross of the barn, all that remained was a single stone wall. The south side of the barn has only the corner stones from the old structure. In the summer a wall of briers forms that must be annually plowed through with sickles. The Farm is one of the most beautiful places on earth. The Farm is where I have spent time with my family, my friends, and alone with my savior. The Farm has been for me a sanctuary with fields o' peace.  This year is the first year I won’t be visiting the Farm, because I’ve moved to Saint Louis, Missouri, and I’m too far away.

It was to this Farm that many Sunday trips were spent. My favorite time to visit was in the fall, with the changing colors of the cherry trees, the smell of decaying leaves, and the apples we would periodically find in the orchard of old. My Mom and Dad would take us for walks through the farm, hiking up through the shooting range, into the caverns of Pines, past the Red-Dog road, and onto the Right-Away to find whatever nature might bring us that day. I especially loved the dinners we cooked over the open fire, amongst the ancient ruins of a once active barn. My dad would roast apples on the fire and cut us off pieces too hot to the touch. The act of waiting for them to cool mixed with the smell of smoke and a family who loves you, makes them taste so much better.

I remember a late autumn walk with most of the leaves gone from the trees, before my youngest brother John Michael was even born, with my younger brother Andrew being only three years old at the most and our beagle Casey probably still a puppy at the time. We left the ancient barn, just the four of us (plus Casey), and began our trek through the ever-changing scenery of the farm. We were so small that we couldn’t go far before tiring, so my Dad spent a lot of time carrying us, whether atop his shoulders or held against chest, watching the foliage pass away as he trekked forward and we looked backward our head resting on his shoulder. Andrew, being the younger, spent more time riding atop Dad, seeing the farm from the Bird’s Eye View, because he was smaller and struggled going far. Andrew was a thin child, but always eager to keep up with his older brother, often times exceeding goals pretending he was two years older.

When it came time for a rest from the hike, we stopped by one of the eleven fields on the farm and lay down together in the straw still attached to the earth. The golden waves being blown to and fro as the wind made a near ocean of waist high straw. Andrew and I were too little to walk through the fields, but we could certainly lay down and rest in this wavy sea. Everything was new and exciting, even the large blades of grass, nearly sharp, and different than grass found in a suburban lawn. Dad took a blade of grass, stretching it between his palm and thumb, and blew air making a hollow “Whooooooeeeeee” sound. Even the blades of grass had life at the Farm.

As we arose from our rest and headed toward the orchard, Dad turned and with expectation in his eye, said that he could see apples hanging from the tree! For some reason apples were rarely seen on the apple trees in the orchard of old. The trees had mainly been overgrown with briers, golden rod, and tall grasses. Nevertheless, this year the apples seemed plentiful for the picking. Andrew and I however, were far too small to reach the low hanging branches of the tree. Rather than pick an apple and handing it to us, Dad reached down and put his hands nearly completely around the middle of our puffy blue coats and lifted us high in the air to pick the apples ourselves. “Pick me up, Pick me up” Andrew and I cried, eager to reap the fall harvest and to taste these small red gifts from God. After we gathered our apples, we made it the short three hundred yards to the old barn, made a fire, and ate dinner with roasted apples for desert.

Sitting here in this coffee shop, reflecting back on these moments of ignorant bliss from my childhood, I realize now why Dad lifted us up so high. As a young child I would often wonder why my Father didn’t ever do whatever it was that we were having so much fun doing, like picking apples. Dad never cared if he was the one to catch the fish or shoot the rabbit. More than anything, my father wanted his children to experience the joy of the event. It baffled me as a child, because I couldn’t figure out why my dad would deny himself such pleasure. I never felt bad for catching the fish or shooting the rabbit, because my Father was so happy if I had the experience.  It dawned on me this past year the reason he never participated.

I recently read the book, “Desiring God” by John Piper, and the premise of the book is that “God is most glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in him.” The point of the book was Christian hedonism, or put another way, the proper way to understand pleasure. I struggled reading this book, until I remembered my Dad and our time out the Farm. I remember his joy at watching his sons experience the pleasure of the earth. I remember his love and excitement when he taught us how to fix something or when we finally understood whatever it was he was teaching us. He loved to watch us play sports and to succeed in whatever we were doing. More than anything my Dad loved to watch his children be happy.

In much the same way, our heavenly Father loves to watch us be happy. I would ask my mother as a young child why Dad wasn’t participating, and she would answer, “Your Father would rather watch you.” I finally understand that not only did we as young children more greatly enjoy the activity, but my father took great joy in watching his children have fun. I love to think about my heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, watching me as I love his creation. I love to picture him smiling at me from heaven as I discover a new plant, play a game, or go for a hike. I love that it’s not just me having fun, by my Father’s great joy is to watch his children play.

            How extraordinary would it be to take this relationship, of father and son, to our other relationships in life? Would it not be beneficial to marvel at the artist making art, or the carpenter cutting wood, or your friend programming computers? Do we delight in other’s happiness? Do we love the quarks of our friends; their desire for StarTrek, there constant A cappella singing, their love of hip-hop, their extroverted personalities, their constant thinking, or their care-free delight of a moment? What would it be like to love watching other’s love the things they love? I think this is part of our call as Christians, to delight in a friend the way that Jesus delights in us. I’m certainly guilty of being more annoyed by friends quarks, but it is comforting to think about a day when we all will perfectly delight in one another, when our differences will make us united. When being from different cultures, ethnicities, and geographies will bring love and not fear.

            Even today I watch my Dad delight in his children and I can tell you that from knowing a Father’s joy, I can feel God’s love for me as his precious son.