Once in a While You Can Get Shown the Light…
The other day I had an experience that flashed a lightbulb on my thinking- and recent writing- about the FF Mission Statement in practice. It made quite an impression on me at the time, and I’ve thought about it a lot since. I think it’s worthy of a dedicated post, to conclude my recent series about the Featherstone Farm Mission.
There are still a couple of old school breakfast places left in our region of SE Minnesota, where old timers gather for coffee and conversation every morning (the ROMEO Club, as one old farmer described it to me: Retired Old Men Eating Out). Sometimes I join these groups, but more often if I’m out for breakfast, it’s solo and with a pile of papers I’m trying to review in quiet, away from the farm office.
I was in one such place in late April and, after eating and working at a solo table up front, I made my way back to visit with the Romeos. As usual, they had lots of questions about what was going on at the farm at the time. I responded honestly, that I had little idea about work progress in the field and/or greenhouse, because I was still so involved in business and season planning in the office (any farmer’s least favorite part of the trade!).
Then I added that I had a second full time job just then, as general contractor for a pair of major apartment renovations at a residence we own for farmworkers for Mexico. This work I actually enjoy, ugly as it can be sometimes, and have posted several videos recently showing off the progress. It’s true enough that this has been a full time+ engagement, trying to stay ahead of the electricians and plumbers and my son Jasper, who has been making great progress on renovations since late March.
Of course the Romeos were sympathetic, and could well understand the idea of being stretched thin… too thin, I’m sure I described it.
But then an old timer by the name of Ellsworth Stensgaard (a guy we’ve known since he hauled a hundred+ loads of shale to build the road to our new vegetable building in 2008) tipped up his cap (“Make America Pray Again”), looked me in the eye and said “well now it sounds like you’re bragging, Jack.”
As Robert Hunter wrote: Once in a while you can get shown the light / In the strangest of places if you look at them right. This was- and IS, a shining example of this.
My first reaction was “this is no bragging, it’s complaining…” (neither is particularly useful, I get that!). But then the essential truth of what the man said hit me: in some warped,self referential world I was bragging about taking on so much, getting so much done etc. But how fundamentally screwed up is this, martyring oneself for any purpose, really, and talking it up to boot?!!. Ellsworth had called this out, and I was guilty as charged.
I realized this at the time, and acknowledged it to the Romeos after the initial shock of “the light” had faded. This kind of thing has to stop; FF must become more personally sustainable for me and for others. It’s not right to push oneself at this level, and I should be troubled by the fact that, after 30 years, I still do it. I am troubled, believe me. But how to change this condition, so I’m not tempted to overextend or to take some perverse pride in doing so, either one???
The answer is, that I simply have to want to change things more than I am comfortable bellyaching about them. And it’s so easy and comfortable to bellyache, about mega corporations taking over organics, about unstable land tenure, about destabilized climate… the list of things to bemoan is long indeed.
We are making big progress on levelling out the intense highs and lows of the local agriculture roller coaster at Featherstone Farm. Mainly this progress is thanks to the many 6-10+ year veteran employees here, who amaze me every week with their dedication and creative problem solving. Ellsworth Stensgaard in his way is reminding me that the great things happening at FF are about other people… not me. He’s right!
At the same time, there is this another tension that surrounds the FF Mission that the bragging comment calls out. This is something I was aware of as I was making videos and writing in March and early April about employee housing, about cover cropping, about the triple bottom line we use to evaluate our work at Featherstone Farm. Here it is, in short:
How does one highlight the real good embodied in word and deed at a place like Featherstone- and contrast it with so much of the greenwashing that occurs in our modern food system- without coming across as a braggart??
I’m not sure I have the answer to this. Any more than I have answers about the proper scale of agriculture, or about improving land access for small producers, or about global climate change especially! One short answer- necessary, but not sufficient- is having lots of humility. This is something I’ve written about plenty over the past year. I’ll admit I am much less confident, less self assured now than I was, say, pre-pandemic.
So Ellsworth is reminding me that I may think I’m fixing a lot of issues at employee housing, or doing a ton to promote local agriculture and environmental health in SE Minnesota- and smugly martyring myself in the process- but this is a self congratulatory illusion and I should drop it for good. For the sake of reality, and of humility, both.
The Featherstone Farm Mission Statement is full of lofty words and aspirations. But really what we can hope to do in this world is just to survive, to treat others with kindness and compassion, and to recognize the profound limits of our own impact.
Once in a while you can get shown the light…
Gratefully, Jack