English and Hebrew were not a perfect marriage when it comes to man figuring out exactly what God wanted in communication with man (we English speaking people) but with some help it has been done fairly well. When Creator God was “working out” the world, or things in the world, as we know it, the appointed historian Moses, who could be credited for the actual writing of the first books of the Bible, expressed various steps with the phrase, “…and it was so…” Sometimes in the creation story as recorded in the book of Genesis, the historian wrote “And it was good…” Conjecture is something anyone can do so I will put my “conjecturing hat” on and do some guessing why these two phrases were used to sum up the various steps of announcements of the creation of the universe, how things like light, days became numerable, the separation of land from water—boundaries in principle and fact. No, when all this was going on I wasn’t standing by giving God ideas—remember, I am just conjecturing.

I find it interesting that when God created what we call Earth, or dry land, and the gathering together of the waters, the words, and “it was good” were used. The verb can easily be changed to present instead of past tense for the sake of my conjecture and in doing so a little bit different expression is brought to mind. Not only were the earth (land) and water good, but also they continue to be good until this day. The Amish folks have often been denigrated by us moderns; consider this criticism by a Soil Conservation Service: “The Amish minds are too ‘unscientific’ to understand the intricacies of proper soil management, so they should learn to rely on outside experts for advice.” (I wonder who is the dumber or smarter?) I have gained much from my wife’s handing me a book written by David Kline. If you want to take the time to hunt up this book and read it for yourself, I think you will come to some of the same conclusions my wife and I have.

In David Kline’s book, Great Possessions, Wendell Berry wrote these thoughts in the book’s Introduction:

“The Old Order Amish communities, of one of which David is a member, have preserved profound connections between things that conventional American society has normally separated. David’s way of life, for example, does not divide the life of the mind from the life of the body. That he lives by physical work has not denied him an active mental life, nor has it denied him both physical and mental delight. In the same way, his work does not involve or imply the rigid divisions of human domestic life from the life of nature that is now normal in the industrial economy.”

“This book announces on every page that the world is good, an article of faith that is here brought to rest upon experience. That David Kline and his neighbors look at the world and find it good, and that they honor its goodness in their daily work, permits them to say something that, after a decade of severe agricultural depression, is at once astonishing and profoundly reassuring: ‘Farming is good.’”

David Kline’s usual three-word phrase, “Farming is good.” is found through this fine book. It might surprise the typical modern American to find a principle or two that makes it perfectly clear why the Amish think as they do. For example: “The Amish are not necessarily against modern technology. We have simply chosen not to be controlled by it.” The very fact is that they’re not terribly concerned with a few weeds in their cornrows. The very presence of some weeds can be a positive when storms come along and the Amish explain they can “depend on a smattering of quack grass and on sod waterways to hold the topsoil.”

At another farmer-advisory meeting when the jargon began to revolve around “input – output” “acre-eaters,” “work-is-drudgery” and the “bottom-line” the remark was made, “No-till sure beats plowing.” David Kline probably remained silent at that meeting but in his regular essays in the newspaper he dropped the bomb: “…I enjoy plowing. Just this past year the SCS technician told me, in all seriousness, that if I’d join the no-till crowd I’d be freed from plowing, and then my son or I could work in a factory. He insinuated that the extra income (increased cash flow) would in some way improve the quality of our lives.”

Another perspective should create profitable ruminations – “no-till farming with its dependence on vast amounts of chemicals is being touted by the experts as the way to guarantee green fields forever. What they fail to say is that these green fields will be strangely silent—gone will be the bobolink, the meadowlark, and the sweet song of the vesper sparrow in the twilight.”

Somehow, someway I rather feel the Amish farmer regards the “good earth” a bit differently than the big farmer consortiums. Interested in reading David Kline’s “Great Possessions”? The publisher is NORTH POINT PRESS.

THE WORDWRIGHT