Big Love

The management team doing their management thing (planning)

​A few years ago, I made a conscious decision to pay little attention to what others were doing and just focus on my little corner of the world.  I don’t mean callously, but more like less judgmental. I can recall the exact moment.  Why, I realized, was I spending energy worrying about what others were doing that I perceived as wrong?  What good was that putting into the world? And what if my perception of wrong was, well, wrong? And even if my perception wasn’t wrong, why did I think that was my job to sort it out?

And so I quietly descended from my high horse😊 and turned inward to my little corner of the world. It’s harder to pay attention and thus, judge, from solid ground.  Plus, not paying attention gave me more energy to work on my own, uh, manure, and work on doing the absolute best we can in our own lives and work.

​I chose this path because of the wasted energy, the negativity, and because of my own sanity, but the unintended result of this is that the farm—where we spend so much of our time—has become more of a bastion, a shelter, a big ball of love.  Seriously, the farmily has a giant beating heart that is pumping it’s love outward into the community, and the community pumps it back.  People want to be here; I want to be here.  This, I think, must be what they mean by “fulfilling work”.  We feed families, yes, that is our mission, but we also feed our own souls by doing the work in such a warm symbiotic environment.

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