Book Review: Farming as a Spiritual Discipline

This little book written by Ragan Sutterfield, a farmer and writer from Little Rock, Arkansas, is, in my opinion, a must read for those who care about the earth and about the God who created it.  My husband and I have had the privilege of hearing Ragan speak a couple times at conferences at Englewood Christian Church, and each time we gained a wealth of knowledge.

I love this book because Ragan mixes theological ideas alongside practical applications for your life.  He shares early in the book "in our fallen state we have forgotten our place, both within God's will and love and also in our love and care for creation.  We need to be reminded of who we are and what we are about (pg 5)."  He suggests the practice of farming as a way to remind us.

Ragan spends some time talking about the Agrarian Mind as a practical way we can live every day with the virtues of humility and frugality (two virtues that he states become more apparent in us when we farm).  He gives practical examples of things that we can do like reduce our dependency in oil by biking or walking to places, learning to make food from scratch instead of buying it from the store and raise our own chickens.  Simple ways that we can make a difference in our homes and communities.

I'd like to share one more quote from the book "As we become more productive, we also become more aware of the labors of others.  We begin to respect chefs more as we learn to cook and farmers more as we begin to garden.  After growing a tomato yourself it becomes almost disrespectful to throw away a tomato grown well by someone else.  It is said that Ghandi would use a pencil until it was a tiny stub out of respect for the person who made it.  Such frugality almost seems absurd in our age when pencils are made fast and cheap in a factory (35)."

I share this with you in hopes that you can see the humor in the situation I almost got caught in today.  I was cleaning up our kitchen after lunch today, when I saw two over ripe bananas in our fruit bowl.  I picked them up and walked over to the trashcan to throw them out.  No one was going to eat those bananas around here.  Then, I remembered the imagery of Ghandi using a pencil until it was a little stub and I put them back in the fruit bowl.  I'd never made banana bread before, but I thought I had heard that you use over ripe bananas for that.  I found a fabulous recipe for them and spent my afternoon baking banana crumb muffins.  The redemption process is at work even in old, brown bananas.

You can order Farming as a Spiritual Discipline here.