Zealotry and lip gloss leads to farming

I should talk about farm stuff but that doesn't really make sense until I talk about how we got to that. It all started because I was tired- like my whole life. Seriously. I just thought I wasn't a morning person. When I joined the military one of my teachers said, "How are you going to be in the military? You have to get up in the morning. It's the military." It was years until I found out I was anemic- low iron in my blood. Oh, okay! So I'm not just undisciplined- that's good to know.

I wish I could say the next day I became the billboard of health but life is all tangled up in many ways. We are fearfully and wonderfully made- and in my mind that involves complexities- nothing isolated, you know? It took a lot to even get to the point where I had the time to read about health. Then I did. And then I became a zealot. I love zealotry. It's one of my favorite things, so let's talk about that next.

The word zealot is used commonly to refer to someone who has an extreme position in an area. It has a historical background involving people that were serious about their spiritual beliefs. Okay, so far, I'm with them. They were also militant. Okay, I love them. But what does militancy have to do with food?

It all started with that ridiculous show, Charlie's Angels. All my friends growing up wanted to be Barbie with her manicure and pink convertible; but not me. Oh no. I wanted to be attractive (lip gloss and all), but I also wanted to know how to do everything and pack a pistol (there's your militant seed). Don't Charlie's Angels represent the best of both worlds that so many of us are torn between? We want to be smart and capable but also feminine. I agree there were some components missing which is why I was drawn to Martha Stewart: baking, decorating, and entrepreneurship. If Martha Stewart were a christian Charlie's Angel that also became a nurturing and wise mother, she would epitomize my life goals. Let's be thorough if we're going to be zealous, shall we?

When I began learning about how amazingly healing the right foods can be, you guessed it- food zealot. I wanted to give our family the best I could and started transitioning all of our food over to the good stuff. Well sweet mercy, I know what you are saying... I'm not made of money either. We started thinking maybe we could grow some of our own since this is our first spring and we do have our own patch of land now...

So! We are finally getting to what possessed us to actually buy two cows and some chickens. But because the complete motivation behind that involves more militancy and, therefore, zealotry, we shall have to discuss that in our next post. Militant cow decisions coming up next- mark it on your calendar.

Crazy women and beauty out here

Women are like pulsing waves. They are SO affected by the moon. They splash their glory up on the sand and then retreat quickly to see if it is okay from a safe vantage point. I looked up the word lunar and sure enough, lunatic is derived from it. It seems it was coined because of the association of women's monthly periods (you did know of their relationship to the moon's cycles, didn't you?) with their mental and emotional state. But who, in their right mind, doesn't love the ocean? And of course, the waves are what make it glorious. Interestingly, God just so happened to choose the female gender to represent His beauty, and I think, zeal. I'm glad we have that established.

So, here's how unimportant time is: when something beautiful is planted in a little girl's heart, she remembers it forever. And so it happened, that after a time, my desire became evident to return to a peaceful rural place. It was what I found wonderful about my childhood. We were always outside, and providentially we didn't have a lot of toys at all (there were 14 of us, you know). When you don't have plastic manufactured things, you examine the flowers and mud puddles and ants and pebbles; and creeks and trees and birds. You note how the sunlight looks through a window at different times of the day and how wonderful quiet sounds. I wanted that for my kids and for the rest of my and Cory's days. That's the other thing women are designed to do- express beauty and bring it to those around them. That's why we bother with curtains and flowered dishes- it's actually quite spiritual. Maybe boys don't think of beauty in the same way, but they get it- you know, caterpillars (callapitters, as Sam calls them) and such.

And the smells are too much to mention. They say the sense of smell is the strongest link to memories and emotion. You cannot fathom the mix of smells God can spread out on a brambly covered piece of land in southern Pennsylvania in the summer. Lest I paint a picture of an idyllic childhood, let me assure you that mine was not. And this brings me to the most important thing about me you should know which has nothing to do with me. My God. I could offer many academic points about His existence and the validity of the bible, etc.etc. but that's not how I know Him. I know Him because He was there with me, even before I had the head knowledge of Him. God spent time with me, comforting and loving me, and I just happened to be outside most of the time- so that is where I got to know Him. So, of course, it reminds me of Him.

My sister, Dolly, said she read a quote from Elizabeth Elliott once. I sure hope she can find it so I can get it right, but it went something like this: The child off wondering at God and His creation, marveling at the birds and trees and flowers, is doing something just as important as the child in the group.

Thank you Dolly. I so needed to hear that.

And so in the course of time, after much praying and reading and talking and hoping; because we had so many, many details to work out... my husband, 2 boys, and I eventually were able to leave the life we had in the city/suburbs and finally make it out here. We are just really settling in and starting to taste of this life together. I thought I might tell you about it.