I Am Alone, You Come and Be Alone with Me, Too

brosishelp

Today is one of those days as far from the pastoral farm idyll as you can get.

First, I run out of diesel in the tractor.  I have to bleed the engine, a task I cannot do by myself.

Second, our weakest lamb has keeled over in the field from I know not what.  I carry him from the field around my neck. He pees down my back as a carry him in.  I lay him down propped up against the trunk of our big maple in the front yard.He is burning hot and I struggle to get a quart of electrolytes into him.  I look at him. I do not pray. I don’t believe in prayer. I just call on the spirit of my mother’s perseverance and my father’s cussedness to do what I can for him.  I hope the deep shade helps.

Third,I still have to move our fence so I walk back out to the field and in that special September hot that only September can get, I put up our fence netting in the increasingly hard, dry earth. So hard in so many ways.

I am back at the house. Writing this. I gave the lamb more water, but it does not look good. And I am so alone.

The whole time I have been working I have been listening to Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast, Revisionist History, the episode called “Generous Orthodoxy”.  It, too, is a lonely story.

A pastor officiates at the wedding of his son—under ordinary circumstances, an affirmation of family and community. But what if the son is gay? And what if the pastor belongs to the most traditional of religious communities?

“Generous Orthodoxy” is the story of Chester Wenger, a 98-year-old Mennonite minister who chose to confront his own church over a question of deepest principle. It asks: What do you do when the institution that has defined your life comes between you and your family? Wenger offers all of us a master class in the art of dissent.

Dissent within orthodoxy is the story of my life that my wife and I have chosen.  Homebirth, unschooling, patchwork economics, working class solidarity, and always opposition.  For over 20 years I have worked in the most orthodox institution in our country, public schools, and have tried to lay a generous set of alternative, sometimes parallel and other times divergent tracks for my students to ride upon.

And my wife is working off the farm today. My youngest child has just moved to Arizona.  A good friend and fellow homesteader just lost his youngest daughter to a heart attack.  We helped raise her as a very young child. I am not sure about this load of alone. Not sure at all.

Yet I do not write this for sympathy or pity. Hell no. I write to get through it somehow like Chester Wenger and his wife did and continue to do. Nature is indifferent to our struggle. Like Nature, the Internet is indifferent as well.  There is an odd comfort to me in such indifference.  I will go out every hour to do what I can for the lamb.  I will move the sheep to a new field this evening, bring them feed and water. I will get my wife to help me bleed the fuel lines when she gets home. I will mow the fields. I will do the work I can to help my students learn.  I will keep on.

 

pablo-32

9 Comments


  1. // Reply

    When it rains, it pours!

    When I opened my email this morning I had a Tweet from Charles Cameron, a friend I met in 2005 via the Social Edge forum. He pointed me to his blog article, with a title of “The Republic of Bloggers”.

    In it are three videos with music that I think will be soothing to you as you reflect on this day.

    I know that I enjoyed them as I looked at the desolation of my own efforts.


    1. // Reply

      Uplifting music, spirit-filled, helped so much. Thanks, Daniel. Thanks.


  2. // Reply

    Dark days.
    May they be less common than the bright.
    After night,
    Awake to find the morning and its light.
    Poor lamb.
    Tomorrow, persevere, as is your right.
    Not alone.
    If only in strong spirit, I support you in your fight.


    1. // Reply

      Feeling the spirit of your supporting hand. Thank you so much.


    1. // Reply

      Love to hear your voice with my script. You are breathing out my spirit. Thank you.


  5. // Reply

    Thanks, Joe. Circle o’ life, dude.

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