Why it Matters
7/07/08 - 2nd Day - After Breakfast. First of all I want everyone to know that in my last couple of blogs I am not condemning anyone who is on the process of pilgrimage in Christian Agrianism. Unless the shoe fits, don't try to wear it. Neither should you, however, exempt yourself from what I am saying if the shoe does fit. I am glad for the thousands and thousands of people who are moving forward in the move towards Agrarianism, and my purpose is to encourage those who are moving, reprove and correct those who are not, and to warn everyone that our way of life has already been attacked and overthrown once in the last 200 years, and for us to ignore the lessons of history would be pure folly.
So here's the deal... you are on your Agrarian way. You have your plot of land in the country (or in the suburbs). You start your garden, and in short order it is beautiful - you even consider sending pictures of it to the homesteading magazines. Your heart swells when you look at the neat rows and thriving plants. Your harvest is spectacular, and you spend hours and hours over a hot stove canning the most beautiful jars of beans and tomatoes that anyone has ever seen. You multiply your flocks, you get your chicken tractors going, you rotate your pastures. Your turkeys are the fattest, your apples are the sweetest, and you're fairly sure you have died and gone to heaven. Why, your Agrarian homesteading blog is gaining in popularity every day, so you must be doing something right. All is sunshine and baby ducks until the crash.
What crash?
I don't know... maybe the price of gas creeps up another couple of bucks and as the businesses and suppliers you rely on to maintain your prosperity begin to crumble, and as you begin to suffer from a dearth of supplies, feed, and other material, and as you lose your access to cheap and readily available grid energy, you find that a crash is inevitable. Maybe it is a long, slow, torturous crash... or maybe it is a dramatic and devastating one. You see, your idyllic Agrarian paradise was built on an endless supply of grid water, grid electricity, cheap fuel, and lots of money. You bought your soil, you bought your compost, you bought your seed or your plants. You flooded your gardens with cheap and seemingly endless grid water, powered by cheap and seemingly endless grid electricity. You hatched and brooded your fowl with heat lamps powered by the electric company or by fuel poured into a Chinese generator. Your harvest was canned in cheap jars bought at Dollar stores or Stuff-Mart, and you never thought you'd ever run out of rings or lids. Your pressure canner rattled noisily on an electric stove, or maybe you were clever enough to use propane or natural gas - all utilities you now cannot afford, or are not available. Your flocks begin to perish without store bought feed, and your pastures just aren't quite big enough to feed everyone like they did when the hologram of prosperity provided for you by the industrial society made you think that they were. You've put all your eggs in one basket, and that basket is called INDUSTRIALISM and you have built it all on the smoking ruins of the consumerist error. None of this compares with having to listen to your family and your children complain because they have never had to live without grid heat and air-conditioning. Now what will you do? You had months and years to search out the old paths and to learn the old ways but you didn't because - why should you? You weren't going to let a bunch of alarmists keep you from your dream. After all, you were busy with petty political homeschooling groups and knitting parties, or trying to make more and more from your day job so that SOME DAY you could retire and still afford all the utilities and supplies.
Four wheelers, tractors, chain saws, power drills, even trucks and cars may soon be useless or at least too expensive to operate. Don't you know your history? Your great-grandparents went through it, but it seems that most of you don't really care to listen. The agents of syncretism told you that if you would only put on Agrarian clothes and build you a little on-grid paradise outside the city limits that the revolution would be won without a shot. The agents of compromise told you you could have your farm and your city life too. Like Zsa Zsa Gabor in Green Acres, you want to walk around your old farmhouse with your designer clothes and your feather boa and you think things will never go bad for you. I beg to differ.
Think about it.
By the way, the newest sermons are up and available on BiblicalAgrarianism.com. Here are the print links:
Gelassenheit: Submission and Yielding, Part 1
Gelassenheit: Submission and Yielding, Part 2
One bit of fun news:
A False Prophet votes to allow woman bishops, and the Antichrist is disappointed.
Y'all be cool,
Michael Bunker
So here's the deal... you are on your Agrarian way. You have your plot of land in the country (or in the suburbs). You start your garden, and in short order it is beautiful - you even consider sending pictures of it to the homesteading magazines. Your heart swells when you look at the neat rows and thriving plants. Your harvest is spectacular, and you spend hours and hours over a hot stove canning the most beautiful jars of beans and tomatoes that anyone has ever seen. You multiply your flocks, you get your chicken tractors going, you rotate your pastures. Your turkeys are the fattest, your apples are the sweetest, and you're fairly sure you have died and gone to heaven. Why, your Agrarian homesteading blog is gaining in popularity every day, so you must be doing something right. All is sunshine and baby ducks until the crash.
What crash?
I don't know... maybe the price of gas creeps up another couple of bucks and as the businesses and suppliers you rely on to maintain your prosperity begin to crumble, and as you begin to suffer from a dearth of supplies, feed, and other material, and as you lose your access to cheap and readily available grid energy, you find that a crash is inevitable. Maybe it is a long, slow, torturous crash... or maybe it is a dramatic and devastating one. You see, your idyllic Agrarian paradise was built on an endless supply of grid water, grid electricity, cheap fuel, and lots of money. You bought your soil, you bought your compost, you bought your seed or your plants. You flooded your gardens with cheap and seemingly endless grid water, powered by cheap and seemingly endless grid electricity. You hatched and brooded your fowl with heat lamps powered by the electric company or by fuel poured into a Chinese generator. Your harvest was canned in cheap jars bought at Dollar stores or Stuff-Mart, and you never thought you'd ever run out of rings or lids. Your pressure canner rattled noisily on an electric stove, or maybe you were clever enough to use propane or natural gas - all utilities you now cannot afford, or are not available. Your flocks begin to perish without store bought feed, and your pastures just aren't quite big enough to feed everyone like they did when the hologram of prosperity provided for you by the industrial society made you think that they were. You've put all your eggs in one basket, and that basket is called INDUSTRIALISM and you have built it all on the smoking ruins of the consumerist error. None of this compares with having to listen to your family and your children complain because they have never had to live without grid heat and air-conditioning. Now what will you do? You had months and years to search out the old paths and to learn the old ways but you didn't because - why should you? You weren't going to let a bunch of alarmists keep you from your dream. After all, you were busy with petty political homeschooling groups and knitting parties, or trying to make more and more from your day job so that SOME DAY you could retire and still afford all the utilities and supplies.
Four wheelers, tractors, chain saws, power drills, even trucks and cars may soon be useless or at least too expensive to operate. Don't you know your history? Your great-grandparents went through it, but it seems that most of you don't really care to listen. The agents of syncretism told you that if you would only put on Agrarian clothes and build you a little on-grid paradise outside the city limits that the revolution would be won without a shot. The agents of compromise told you you could have your farm and your city life too. Like Zsa Zsa Gabor in Green Acres, you want to walk around your old farmhouse with your designer clothes and your feather boa and you think things will never go bad for you. I beg to differ.
Think about it.
By the way, the newest sermons are up and available on BiblicalAgrarianism.com. Here are the print links:
Gelassenheit: Submission and Yielding, Part 1
Gelassenheit: Submission and Yielding, Part 2
One bit of fun news:
A False Prophet votes to allow woman bishops, and the Antichrist is disappointed.
Y'all be cool,
Michael Bunker
posted by Michael Bunker at 7/07/2008 04:43:00 AM
4 Comments:
Thank you, Michael, for better articulating what was on my heart during my last rant, err post. All of us, even those of us who've been at this agrarianism for a while, need this kind of reminder to continue moving forward; not to fool ourselves into thinking that just because we've made it out of the city we're done. Though some may take it otherwise, this is true and loving encouragement, and it is appreciated.
Judy
First, in the spirit of full disclosure, I must tell you I am a practicing Catholic and have a degree in agriculture from a major land grant university. So, by way of faith and training I don't always agree with every essay you write. But, I appreciate your point of view and feel that there is much I can learn from it.
I am not one that is ready to go totally off grid. But, I am willing to embrace some changes in stages to work toward a more self sufficient life style.
On this subject, some of the real pioneers of a life dependent on God alone, forsaking the world were the early monastics. Some of the hermits in the early Church really left the world and depended on God alone for spiritual and physical sustinance. A model for us all, reguardless of faith.
Mr. Bunker,
Thank you again for your post and I appreciate much of what you write however I'd like you to please consider one point. The Lord has blessed you with the opportunity to speak to people in a direct manner but at times you seem to forget that we're all going through a journey but instead some posts seem to overflow with the expectation of immediate change and action. I am where I am in my walk and progression at leading a life that is God honoring and dependent on Him however you would probably be one of the first to understand that this journey sometimes involves major steps and minor steps.
As you have stated in a previous post which I can't recall the title currently you were 'that guy'. You shouldn't go around holding hands and trying to extend an olive branch of mediocrity but sometimes your posts come across as 'if you're not doing it my way then get the heck out of my blogsphere pagan'. This is probably just your writing style because some of the posts I've read by people who meet you find you to be courteous and patient.
May the Lord provide rain to your region.
Tom,
Thanks for the comment. In the last three blog posts I have addressed the issues in your comment. I understand that some people are going to get that impression from what I write, and their is no way to avoid it. Some people need to feel that I am condemning their walk, because inside they know they are rationalizing and making peace with the world and that they are just fooling themselves. Others will feel condemned by what I write, even though they ought not, because it may not apply to them. If I were to soften what I say in order to make sure no one feels condemned, then there would be no encouragement for anyone to examine themselves. As I have said, I judge myself as much as anyone else. I am far from where I need to be, and I need to be challenged and encouraged to never be satisfied with my own worldliness and rationalization. I have always acknowledged that this is a process... thus the name, "A Process Driven Life". Unhappily, the philosophy I advocate in Agrarianism is antithetical to the prevailing idea (Agrarianism as just a pretty neat lifestyle choice for Christians), and there is no way that I can blog and do what I need to do without some folks feeling like I am condemning them. I hope, in the long run, that people feel they benefit more than they lose from what I write. That's really all I can hope for.
Thanks,
Michael
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