Farming the Sun

Well, it has happened! For most schools here in the States, the first day has come and gone. Some are still anticipating that first day, and it will soon come. In conversations with people affected by this glorious event I have heard a common theme. "My kids could hardly sleep, they were so excited about the first day back to school." It's what I have called Joyful Insomnia. You have definitely been affected by this giddy malady. The day before your wedding, Christmas Eve, in anticipation of vacation. There you were, perfectly grown up, mature, within yourself; and as giddy as a school child, unable to sleep. Your heart was racing, your mind reeling, the room alive with possibilities for the coming day. The excitement of what was to soon develop kept you wide awake for hours when you knew you should be fast asleep. Yet the new day does not bring complaints of little sleep, but instead a full burst of energy for the exciting day ahead. Ah, if only every day cou...

To be engaged in farming the sun, we have to be dependent upon forces that we cannot control. Each new day will bring the challenges of response to circumstances we did not fully create on our own and which we cannot fully resolve without the involvement and cooperation of others. Farming the sun means that I need you, and you me, and that there will still be things we face together that are beyond our power and ability. Thus, an interdependence and rhythm will be set in motion that will call us to daily community, daily humility, and daily hopefulness. I believe that the world in which we live is designed for greater community and greater collaboration as we recognize our individual and collective limitations. As farmers must depend on weather which they can only haltingly predict, and certainly cannot control, and therefore enter into a larger community of cooperation and dependence, so we all must learn that we are no different than they. To farm the sun we must be prepared for...