Before Our Harvests are Through
SEEDS: Originally published in the York News-Times
September is settling into the cornfields. The relentless sun faded stalks from green to golden brown. She blazed with a sort of hellfire during many of the hotter than ever recorded before days this summer. We were forced to contend with her. Then some rains came, (for some at least).
The farmers have the harvest itch now. Some have started rolling through the fields. The ranchers say keep bringing on the rain for thirsty pastures. More than half the nation is still suffering from drought. How easy it is to forget that when we get a few inches in our own backyard.
The backyard is a safe place, but the world is a far bigger place. I often think how I would like to follow a single kernel of commodity corn to its final destination. Like trying to track down a grain of sand in an ocean.
We’re all in this together like grains of sand. They say the earth cannot sustain a growing global population. When I was born in 1977 there were around 4.2 billion people. Today, there are around 8.3 billion. I beg to differ that we can’t make it all together somehow. What the world needs now is love, sweet love, sharing (and learning from one another). We also need to be intentional about learning new ways to grow nutrient dense food and highly productive crops in actual functioning soils with new practices. We need to learn from people the world over.
We need to “feed the world” they say. “Awe corn shucks,” we’re not feeding the world though. Heck, we import 90 percent of our food in Nebraska alone research states. The same is true for other supposed ag strongholds, even the “I” states like Iowa. They import much of the actual food they eat too.
Americans sometimes have a knack for taking things too far. We’re really still in our infancy when it comes to cosmic time. Corn has its place in the world, but “King Corn” can’t reign forever. There’s going to need to be some give and take. We’re not into kings of any sort anyway around here, are we? Let’s read the Magna Carta again for goodness sakes. Better yet, let’s travel back and learn from a time before titles and deeds. Before bureaucrats. Before Roman calendars and clocks. When time and freedom were woven into life naturally and guided by seasons, stars, sunrises, and sunsets.
Yes, September is settling into the cornfields. The hot sun and passing time faded stalks from green to golden brown. Life is pressing wrinkles of time into our faces too. We’re just here for a New York minute in the great expanse of time and space it seems.
There are only so many harvests left in this life. Maybe we can focus on what yields more than bushels around here. Maybe the harvest should be measured by what it truly yields for all people. Changing just a small portion of our farms would change the course of life for countless neighbors. Changing our minds and hearts would move mountains for everyone.
Another harvest is coming, followed by a vast clean slate of soil to imagine something even better growing upon. When our ancestors first settled here, one of the first structures they built were schools. They valued growing food for themselves and their neighbors. They valued lifelong learning.
Maybe we stopped really learning for a while. Maybe we stopped fully taking into consideration the plight of our neighbors near and far too. Looking in the mirror here and seeing myself missing the big point too. We can now.
That’s the sincere hope I have for the Heartland. We’re all seeds that can take root, sprout, and bloom to inspire even more hope in the Heartland we love too. Time to get to work, together, before our harvests are through.
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