Our farmers and land are a precious commodity

The following was sent to the Dodgeville Chronicle by Shirley Sigg of Hollandale. it is a reprint from a rural life pamphlet. She said she hoped we’d print it to remind people how precious our land and farmers really are.

REFLECTIONS

The farmer is a sacred calling because he is a collaborator with God in the work of His creation. In partnership with God he becomes to men a provider of the food, fiber, and shelter they need. Let the farmer, then, no longer belittle himself in his own eyes. The farmer’s calling is among the noblest in all the world. The Lord considered it so, and the farmer must think of it in the same terms. With God he lives and works in the vast realms of His bountiful and beautiful nature. He is not one of the millions who in thick formations swam through factory gates. He is a free man as he strides through his fields guiding a plow, sowing the seed, or harvesting the crop. The farmer’s calling is one that must command great respect. Much knowledge and skill are required to manage well the farmstead with its land and fences, barns and granaries, tools, and machinery. Farming is among the greatest of human arts. The farmer must be an artisan and a craftsman,a capitalist, financier, manger, worker, a producer and a seller. He must know soils and seed, poultry and cattle; he must know when to till the soil, cultivate the fields, and harvest his crops. In the presence of his Lord the farmer should recall all this, not in the spirit of vainglory or pride, but in grateful appreciation of the calling that God gave him as a tiller of the soil. Praise and thanksgiving should rise in his heart as he reflects on the high regard the Lord has showered upon him and his world.

by the Most Reverend Aloisius J. Muench