Of Interest: "Farming as a Spiritual Discipline"

Flourish Book Review: Farming as a Spiritual Discipline by Ragan Sutterfield — Flourish.

Sutterfield describes what should be our correct relationship with nature: that of creatures of a loving God who, by extension and Imago Dei, should love creation. Practically speaking, Sutterfield says that farming is a route to reconnecting with the ways of loving creation that we have forgotten.

When it comes to growing food and farming, Sutterfield says that we can react to the changeability of nature in two ways: artificial control, or cultivation. Either we “attempt to overcome the variables” of the environment with cruel and harmful means, or we use a way of farming that forces us to order our lives around the unpredictability of the changing seasons and weather. Farmers who don’t cater to the pressure of consumerism and expansion live out the disciplines of humility and frugality, virtues that Sutterfield believes are “paths to find our way back to a true understanding of what is valuable.” READ MORE ...