Off-Grid Living for Agrarians, Part 13: Local Culture

In abandoning his Agrarian roots, man has abandoned his connection to the land, and with it has cast out his peculiar local heritage and culture. In it's place he has adopted a rootless, amorphous, and temporary international culture - defined alone by man's insatiable and fruitless hunger for more - more personal peace, more affluence, and more comfort. Biblical cultures were defined by those peculiar practices endemic to a particular people, and those practices were derived by their necessity due to the close and personal interaction between the people and the land. Relationships, celebrations, and even diet were defined and restricted by land and growing practices, and all of life was governed by what (and when) the land would produce. By definition, then, the culture was a representation brought forth from the divine gardener of a piece of land, the good ground, from which the progenitor of all men had been derived. Each culture was the product of not just the morality and laws the people had accepted for themselves, but of the types and quantities of crops that would grow readily in the local soil, and the animals indigenous to the place which could be used for food, or which could be sustained easily by what could be grown.

I have mentioned quite a few times in this series that our ideas of what the ideal life will be should change with our knowledge of what a perfect God wills for His people, and what He has originally declared is good for us; and our expectations should reflect our experience in what will work well where we are. As you will already know from reading this series, I put a high value on a good philosophy and right thinking in engaging in an off-grid Agrarianism plan. As we grow and learn, some practices, means, and methods will develop (or re-develop) which are highly successful, and others will be abandoned as failures. What will develop, then, if the Lord wills and tarries, will be the development of a particular Christian Agrarian culture where we are. Traditions, practices, feasts, etc. will become more local (because hopefully we will have already cast off the international pagan/apostate ones), and we will once again begin to be defined by our peculiar Christian culture. The Christian man and the Christian family will once again be connected to the land. He will have legends and the stories of building and working the land, and He will have a sense of history that is more in line with reality and less the result of socialist, industrialist, and secular propaganda.

Once upon a time, when the South was still Agrarian and predominantly Christian, even within the south there were many, many, diverse and discernible cultures. While the South was generally one in their values, morals, and overall respect for the land and the family - within the south, in fact even from town to town, you would have found a grand diversity in how these values were practiced. Every small town had different festivals and celebrations. One town might have "The Watermelon Festival", while another town celebrated "Okra Days". Around here, the two big days for us right now are The Fiesta De La Paloma (the Feast of the Doves) in Coleman, Texas, and Santa Anna Funtier Days in Santa Anna. As our Christian community here (if the Lord wills it) grows and expands, we will develop our own special days and festivals, and these ought to develop organically, and they should reflect God's love for His people, and His overall plan for man. We already look forward to "First Wednesday" which is our monthly community work day, and we all look forward to the two Ranchfests we have every year. But the point is that our desire in our Off-Grid Agrarian lives is to live our lives more locally, and to do so it all has to start with us.

I mentioned in the 11th part that we ought to start looking to focus on growing more perennial fruits, nuts, and crops. The harvest of these crops will likely be a regular yearly event, and can be a time of great fun and fellowship. We ought to also be looking into what types of food and crops are indigenous to our area. Those that have developed here and succeed here are great, and if they can fit our criteria, then we ought to pursue them; but if we can reclaim those foods and crops that really thrive in our soil, then we would be foolish not to focus on them. It has been a shocking (perhaps it should not have been) thing for me to realize that the crops that I have grown over the past 8 years that have done the absolute best, are these:

Okra
Black-eyed Peas
Green Beans
Squash

...and now I have learned that Sweet Potatoes and Greens (Mustard, Collard, Spinach, etc.) grow great here.

Now let me see... that looks like a Southern Menu if I ever saw one! Why should I be shocked that these foods grow well here in the South? There is a reason that these foods are identified with the South - and sometimes we are too slow to figure these simple things out - I know that I am.

I intend to really focus on these locally successful crops, and our diets will change to represent what grows well here.

Our minds and hearts need to be more local. Live wherever you want to live, but if you plan on being a Christian Agrarian - then really LIVE there. Make it your home, and you and your Christian fellows will see a Christian culture thrive there. Rather than spend your time in the world, partaking in the world's culture and society, put those things behind you and live your life as a Christian among Christian friends and family. This series is about Off-Grid Living, but more specifically it is about successful Off-Grid Living. Our mindset is critical in our success, and a right philosophy of life and living will immeasurably assist in that success. The Apostate "christian" world has adopted the mantra "Grow where you are planted" as a rational for professing "christians" living worldly lives among other worldlings. I would add the following asterisk:

* IF you are planted in good ground, and IF you are sure you are not a tare, and IF you are willing to work and grow in the soil, and IF you are intent on being obedient towards the production of good fruit, THEN you should 'grow where you are planted'.

Your servant in Christ Jesus,

Michael Bunker