for the Mad Farmer - Thinking Peacefully

Jason Rodenback

for the Mad Farmer I saw the Mad Farmer outside the city standing defiant at the tree line; I heard his voice crying out for the wilderness from the false security of my sanitized room I witnessed his lonesome prophecy and I felt myself then for the first time hollow as I always had been chasing dreams of greatness and manufactured purpose, empty distractions and greedy comforts I heard his voice calling me, “Forget those! Know your smallness! Inhabit your incompleteness! Embrace your partiality, your connections to this earth and your neighbor!” He said, “Listen to the birds in the trees; hear their songs carried by clean winds in the leaves while there still are birds and clean winds!

“Remember children’s voices as they play at working; find your own playfulness in the satisfaction of the peaceful work of your hands. “Float the rivers and watch the heron fishing in the shallows as you ride their currents in the cool mist of the morning! “Plunge your hands into the soil; plant a seed and watch it grow. Take its nourishment in yourself and you will know again your own lost godliness.” when he spoke, I felt something deep inside my mind, some wild part of my ¥ that had once wandered free but had been locked away and hidden by ambition to rise above my place in the created order and that lie I was told about what it meant to “grow up” it was loosed, free to wonder and explore, and many of the answers I had sought in transcendent and timeless philosophies made themselves clear in the imminent and temporal truths of this earth, its lands and waters, its creatures, and our humanity stunned at this, I rushed down to the place at the edge of the trees where the mad farmer had been shouting; I came just in time to watch him turn “Wait, I have questions!” I called. as the old coot disappeared into the woods, he replied, “So do I, and precious few answers to speak of. But ain’t got time for that now. I’m going fishing.”