There’s just something about Arkansas’s rural landscapes, where the rhythm of life is measured by the seasons. Here, neighbors still greet each other with a warm smile and a firm handshake. Community is built from shared hardship and triumph. It is a place where the simple pleasures of life take precedence over the clamor of ambition.

Yet it is exactly a clamor that threatens our rural way of life. 

The threat is the insidious, unending hum of technology — crypto mining — which is encroaching upon the sanctity of the Arkansas countryside.

Rural life is when humanity beats in harmony with the land. Despite modern technological advances in agriculture or the expansion of commercialism, rural life in Arkansas is still rooted in simplicity and connection to the earth. It is still a place where the land lives and breathes. 

But now our rural spaces are menaced by crypto mining, which interrupts the balance between humans and the land. 

Crypto mining, with its voracious appetite for energy and its relentless pursuit of profit, has set its sights on our rural spaces. Drawn by the promise of cheap electricity and vast expanses of available land, crypto mining operations — large swaths of computer farms —descend upon our communities like modern-day prospectors, seeking to extract digital gold from the blockchain.

As a result, Arkansas’s rural landscape is turned into fields of digital industrialization. And the noise, the relentless white noise of these computer farms… the tranquility that is rural life is shattered by the ceaseless hum of machinery, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.

But perhaps the greatest danger these crypto mines pose is not just the physical transformation of the land, but in the erosion of rural culture itself. In the rush to exploit the resources of Arkansas’s land, we risk losing something more precious — the intangible sanctity of rural space. 

Arkansans are deeply rooted in their rural communities. They understand that the beauty of these places lies not solely in their economic potential, but in their ability to nourish, to abide, and to connect us to something greater than ourselves. They remind us that rural Arkansas is not just a landscape to be exploited, but is rather made up of living, breathing spaces.

As we confront the threat of crypto mining in our rural communities, let us recognize the value of what we stand to lose. 

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Around the time I pass through Bee Branch, the quirky town near Greers Ferry Lake, the cattle pastures of central Arkansas give way to what was once an ancient plateau. I wind through long switchbacks and creep up in altitude. It’s a sneaky climb, and if you’re not paying attention, you can miss the experience. 

Long ago, this land was a mesa. What emerges before me now are gentle peaks and valleys — the Ozarks — which water and time have carved into something of a mountain range, but also something different. 

It’s late December and shadowy gray clouds blot out the sun. There’s a heavy mist coming down but somehow it’s still beautiful, achy almost. I feel a deep sense of longing, a thirst for primitive beauty. I think about the opposite equinox and how next year this stretch of highway will flood with party barges and lake people smelling of sunscreen and summer. But today, it’s sleepy out. Blurry and wet. Quiet. 

There are more diminutive pieces of farm land along the roadside now. I spot cattle, horses, chickens. Animal husbandry defines Ozark agriculture because the land is inhospitable to crops; it takes grit to live in these parts, which lack fertile soil and quick thoroughfares. Winding county roads hug the rugged landscape, and for the willing, each stop offers its own treasure for the patient and curious traveler.  

Bee Branch looks like it could be the town that birthed the first Sonic Drive-In. It’s charming; old grain silos and mill equipment flank the road, its shoulders heavy with flea markets signs and kitschy garden ornaments made from scrap metal. I sneak farther north, and the morning’s opaque mist lifts a little, revealing sweeping Ozark vistas, valleys, and hollers. I spy hideouts for hillbillies tucked into the mountainside, humble dwellings of those who know what it takes to make a life here. 

This land requires a different kind of tenacity than other places in the state, and that is neither good nor bad. To be honest, I never felt connected to the land in Arkansas when I was younger. I was told my father’s family came from the heart of the Ouachitas down in Garland and Hot Spring Counties. Dense, tall forests of shortleaf pine blanket the ground in needles there. The forest is farmed at every turn, and the highways are clogged with menacing tractor trailers, hauling logs that threaten to spill at the next pothole. 

Growing up we spent Thanksgiving holidays just outside of Malvern, another town where the Sonic Drive-In could have been born. Beside the highway sat my grandma’s trailer, which smelled of mothballs and pine cones. When we’d visit, my sister and I would make mud pies with old plastic planter trays. My great uncle lived on the other side of the road, which we were forbidden to cross lest we get hit by a car. His home was a pre-war shotgun with bad lighting. It had just a few bedrooms and more than a few taxidermied deer whose faux dead eyes followed my every move. The yard was spacious with buried vintage cars and tractors. There was also an old school bus where my second cousin slept. My dad’s people were money-poor but rich with family, ritual, and pie.

Even then Arkansas didn’t feel like home. But this changed the first time I laid eyes on the Ozarks. What I felt then was what I feel right now — that sense of achy longing, a bewitchment with its melancholy. It’s a curiosity to explore and understand. It’s a profound sense of place and time, sandwiched in ancient layers of shale and limestone. A few years ago, because of my sister’s diligent research, we learned that my father’s people are actually Ozarkian. I now have a photo of my 19th century ancestors posing along the edge of a bluff shelter— a revelatory confirmation of my place in the Ozarks.

Highway 65 turns into two lanes, and I start a curving descent into a valley. My ears pop from the forgiving attitude change. Just as the sun breaks through the clouds, I’m officially in the Ozarks. A mile up ahead is the Serenity Farm Bread bakery, the point of my detour on my way home to Fayetteville. Serenity sells crusty loaves of sourdough bread made via bygone methods. The bakery and its provisions exude hillbilly hippie, two identities that are not mutually exclusive. Rather, they compliment quite nicely. I think of the book my friend Jared wrote about the counter-cultural bohemians who forged a land revolution in these parts. Are Ozarkians the original hippies? Perhaps. 

The bakery is in an old, pale yellow farmhouse with a green roof. It’s the Saturday before Christmas, and they’ve sold out of nearly all their bread. What’s left is Ozark black apple walnut. I pick up a few danishes and some oatmeal raisin cookies, also made with sourdough. I buy a funky piece of pottery. A couple of locals pop in to grab a pastry and lightheartedly complain about the holiday traffic. The highway seems quiet enough to me, but I suppose even a sporadic stream of cars makes it feel congested this time of year. 

Behind the farmhouse, lower in the valley, a striking pale oak tree catches my eye. It’s bleach white and looks like a static lightning bolt that’s suspended in midair. The albino bark is probably caused by some kind of parasite or fungus, but the tree stirs up that achy longing in me, that bewitchment. What stories does it hold? What changes has it seen during its long life? I linger for a minute or two, staring with curiosity and wistfulness. 

Despite being stripped bare, the tree is hauntingly beautiful. It’s knotted, tangled, and without its skin. It’s vulnerable, yet it endures. 

What, I ask myself, is more Ozark than that? 

The post An Ancient Ozark Longing appeared first on Arkansas Strong.

I am often asked what drives me to fight so hard for public schools. The people who ask me this are usually introspective types who read books like Finding Your Why by Simon Sinek, or perhaps Pastor Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life. I recommend both of those books as well as a fair amount of introspection. And I love people who ask me honest questions. But I am never asked that question by public school teachers; they already know. Because every public school teacher knows a James.

James grew up in an old clapboard house his father inherited from his father, on land they did not own but were allowed to farm. He was the oldest of 4 children. His mother was a homemaker and his father a driller for the gas company. His few clothes were patched and his hair was often greasy. He slept with his siblings in a cold, drafty room with a high ceiling under a pile of quilts.

For a child in poverty, James was pretty well-fed. His father grew a huge garden, and they raised their own beef and hogs. They gathered eggs from hardworking hens. James had a BB gun by the time he was 4 and hunted squirrels with his uncle. His mother fried them up just like chicken to eat with mashed potatoes and gravy.

James also scoured the Ozark Mountains for rabbits and quail that the family ate. He fished in the Arkansas River for their supper. A few years later he would hunt deer and learn to dress it himself.

On his first day of school, James wore a shirt his mother made him. She dropped him off at the Cecil schoolhouse, which had 2 classrooms. James was with grades 1 though 4, and the class next door had 5th-7th. Between the 2 classes there were 97 students. 97 for 2 teachers.

James cried all day. He didn’t know anyone. He didn’t even know how to tie his shoes. He did know the alphabet because his mother taught him.

James says his 1st grade teacher was nice, but it’s the teacher next door, Mrs. Lyla Crawford, who made a bigger difference in his life. I guess she had bus duty because when the last bell rang, Mrs. Crawford noticed how sad and scared he was while waiting for the bus. So she took his little hand in hers and walked onto that bus with him and sat down. She patted the seat for him to sit beside her. And as mile after country mile passed James snuggled up next to Mrs. Crawford. He even laughed a little bit while they talked. And when he got off the bus, James told his mother he loved school.

James went on to County Line for high school, and then to Arkansas Tech, the only one in his family ever to go to college. After that he earned his master’s degree at the University of Arkansas. The world opened up to him and he became a history teacher, bus driver, junior high principal, then an assistant superintendent. I guess he really did love school because he gave 40 years of his life to educating children in public schools in Arkansas.

But that’s not all he did.

James is my dad. I am living proof of how public school — and specifically the teachers a child encounters there — can change the trajectory of a person’s life. And it is never just that one person. In our case, my dad’s education changed what my brother’s and my life would have been and is still changing the lives of his seven grandchildren.

Every public school teacher has taught a James. And I say public school teacher because public schools are the ones who serve the children in poverty all over this state. At the end of the day, James is why we fight for teacher raises to recruit and retain people fleeing our profession. He is why we fought the LEARNS Act. We know that vouchers won’t fix education because vouchers don’t fix poverty — they just exacerbate it. And when public schools are hurt, James gets hurt. James, and all of the children like him, as well as all of the other lives their lives touch for better or worse in the future. 

I fight for public schools because it is personal to me. Our state government holds in its hands the power to change the lives of children like James every day, which in turn changes the lives of their families for generations. It is a sacred privilege and responsibility. But instead of addressing the poverty that plagues our schools and communities, our lawmakers deliberately choose to leave children like James behind, for their own personal gain.

This is not okay.

We are the ones who stand between a corrupted government and our children. We are the Lyla Crawfords, the ones who see them and refuse to leave them behind. And we are not going away.

Elections are in 2024. And actions have consequences. Just like when we give out report cards and a student has failed to do what we asked—they fail the class. Arkansas Strong is keeping track of the legislators who ignore their teachers. They are failing our state.

There are 30,000 teachers in this state and every one of us has a sphere of influence. Families, students, and parents who support us; communities that depend on us to lead. If we stick together and vote, we can decide who represents us, ousting the ones who have failed Arkansas.

This is a long game. And we are in it to win it — for the sake of our kids, and for generations to come.

The post On What Drives Me appeared first on Arkansas Strong.

Debate in the United Methodist Church

The United Methodist Church (UMC) is known for being one of the more progressive protestant denominations in the United States and will be voting on whether to recognize same-sex marriage and LGBTQ clergy next year in the upcoming General Conference. The result of this decision is expected to split the church in two, as this has become a hedge issue among conservative and progressive Methodists that just won’t result in a verdict that leaves everyone happy. For some conservatives, it’s been a factor that encouraged them to leave the UMC entirely. For progressives, we see it as an overdue and necessary step towards the formal inclusion of queer people into the body of Christ.

These kinds of debates aren’t necessarily “special” to the UMC, but it is ground zero for a new divide in American Christianity: An increasing split between self-described “Conservative” and “Progressive” Christians who view the scriptures from different lenses. Conservatives tend to be more literal and fundamentalist, while Progressives are less literal and are becoming more affiliated with a movement known as “Deconstructionism,” referring to the practice of revisiting and rethinking long-held beliefs of the Faith. Many in the Deconstruction movement are adherents of “Liberation Theology,” emphasizing the liberation of the oppressed from social, economic, and political power structures; with the movement having roots in Latin American Catholicism. Pope Francis is a notable Progressive, specifically on economics. As stated above, I’m in the “Progressive” camp, just so you’re aware of my bias (If the title didn’t give it away). It’s also important to note that being a “Progressive Christian” does not necessarily correlate to being a political progressive, and vice versa.

The UMC is not just limited to being relatively liberal on gay rights. The church recognizes women as pastors, has spoken in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, and the necessity of the eradication of global poverty. As a kid, I saw so many amazing people in my church get involved with the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) or other service projects in the U.S. and globally. During the pandemic, the UMC has spoken forcefully in favor of church members receiving vaccinations and listening to health experts, while also advocating for government leaders to be responsive in getting vaccines to rural, impoverished, and non-white communities. While no denomination or church is perfect, the UMC has done an amazing job of recognizing something I don’t really see from most other churches: social justice and faith in action are both essential to and intertwined with the Gospel.

Progressive voices of the faith

In my life, I’ve cast 3 votes for President: Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, and Joe Biden. What do these three flawed politicians have in common, aside from the obvious? Yes, they are Democrats, but they are also highly religious. I can hear the rage comments now… “Killary isn’t a Christian/they believe in abortion/they’re with the devil…”

While mainstream American Christianity is dominated by the Southern Baptist and Evangelical traditions, which at this point are as firmly rooted in the Republican Party as low taxes and AR-15’s, the idea of Democratic politicians being religious is a foreign concept to lots of voters on both sides. Separation of Church and State is engrained in the minds of progressives, and most conservative Christians tend to think that supporting policies like reproductive choice or same-sex marriage means you’re not actually a Christian. (Or at least you’re going to have an uncomfortable conversation with the big guy after death). Many Catholic Bishops openly criticized President Biden’s right to communion because of his pro-choice politics, despite him being a devout Catholic and a regular attendee to mass. Clinton and Warren are both UMC members, with Warren invoking the Gospel of Matthew’s Parable of the Sheep & Goats as the basis for her politics; and Clinton speaking candidly about her daily devotional during the 2016 election, titled “Strong for a Moment Like This,” written by Rev. Dr. Bill Shillady.

As I mentioned earlier, the mainstream American church is dominated by the influences of the Southern Baptist and Evangelical traditions, firmly planting the politics of the Church on the right of the political spectrum. While Jesus belongs to no party or ideology, I cannot begin to describe both the short- and long-term harms this is doing to the Church. The obvious is Donald Trump, and the relative indifference of the Church to his egregious assaults on political norms and democratic institutions. However, it goes so much deeper than the behavior of the former President. Senator Ted Cruz, the poster-boy of Evangelical Conservatism, lead an effort to invalidate the 2020 Electoral College votes. In Arkansas, GOP State Senator, and candidate for Lt. Governor-Jason Rapert-is renowned for his inflammatory statements on twitter, while professing a fervent and zealous devotion to Christ. Should I even mention Jim Bob Duggar? Republican politicians and ideologues have been prone to problematic behavior and policies, including the demonization of immigrants, mocking movements for racial justice, and labeling any social welfare spending “socialist,” all while invoking Christianity in the same breath.

Woe to those using the Church for hate

I know people who have left the faith entirely, because of the sheer disgust they have felt watching the Church not only be silent, but often engrained in, the politics of the right. Let me make clear that there are millions of good people who find themselves on the conservative side of the fence, and their politics & faith are just as valid as mine. The issue is that not nearly enough of these people have spoken out against the increasingly cruel politics and the cult of personality surrounding Donald Trump. This is only accelerating the decline of Christianity in the United States, with irreligion on track to be the majority religious consensus as early as 2035. While there are certainly problems on the left, the political marriage of mainstream Christianity to the Republican Party will continue to push away from the faith those who cannot accept Donald Trump as the face of the party of supposed Christian values.

Progressives are also hesitant to talk about faith in the pursuit of the policies and justice we seek for society. We are warry of sounding “churchy” or alienating voters from our message who don’t profess Jesus. After all, Progressives are much more religiously diverse than Conservatives, and many Progressives don’t subscribe to religion at all.

But at the core of Progressivism is representing the interests of ordinary people. From collective bargaining and tackling gross inequality to addressing the impacts of systematic racism and the necessity of environmental preservation, there are massive overlaps in values between Progressives and people of faith (in particular, the Christian kind). However, only about a quarter of Americans identify as liberal or progressive. What gives? Well, you’d be surprised how few Christians know about the overlap in values. The Christian-Right has done a phenomenal job of turning so many Christians into one issue voters: the issue of abortion.

When bringing up abortion, it’s important to make two points crystal clear: (1) There are valid views by people on both sides of this issue, and (2) most Americans fall into the category of “Pro-Choice with conditions,” i.e. favoring the legality of abortion while also supporting limitations that restrict later stage procedures, such as late term abortions. A slim majority of Christians classify themselves as “Pro-Life.” What the Right won’t tell you is how Pro-Life we Progressives really are. We support policies that mandate sexual education based on science instead of abstinence, and easier access to birth control, so that teens are knowledgeable about sex and can prevent unwanted pregnancies. We advocate for economic policies such as higher minimum wages, access to affordable healthcare, and educational opportunities via college or trade school that give young adults economic mobility; allowing them to start a family, without falling into deep financial distress.

Too often, the issue of abortion is only seen as a moral issue instead of an economic one. There are thousands of young women who simply do not see a viable financial path to having a child, and the tragic realities of the Foster Care system too often do not leave adoption as an alternative either. While Conservatives are prone to stop the conversation at birth, Progressives should talk more about how we actually have the solutions to making abortion unnecessary, without taking away a woman’s right to bodily autonomy. And that message should be directed towards Christians, who for too long have been written off by Progressives as simply being closed-minded or religious bigots.

Progressives: get out of your bubbles

The elitism of the Progressive movement is also a major problem to its success and is a reason why Democrats are prone to only win elections when the opposition is just insanely bad. (Remember “basket of deplorables?”) Progressives tend to be city-dwellers, stuck in their blue bubbles and sipping their chardonnay, worried about issues like global warming (albeit, a valid concern), while people in the middle of the country are living paycheck to paycheck and seeing the talented youth of their towns meander to big cities for job opportunities and like-minded values. You just can’t really worry about global warming when you’re not sure how to pay for the necessities. While there are still plenty of poor Democrats and affluent Republicans, new trends show that Democratic congressional districts are becoming more urban, wealthier, and formally educated. Republican congressional districts are becoming more rural, poorer, and less formally educated. There also happen to be more districts that lean GOP than DEM in their Cook Partisan Voting Index (PVI). So how can Democrats (Progressives) fight this elitism and win elections? Head to the Church.

In Christianity, we are taught that we are all made in the image of God. There is value in every single person. And though the Church has done plenty of horrible things while it has been a power structure (Crusades, Inquisition, persecution, hanging out with fascists, etc.), the Church’s roots are those of humble origins. Jesus, a brown refugee, and working-class man, stood in defiance of the religious and political elite of his day; He began a movement of mostly women and slaves that would turn into the world’s most dominant religion, built on a foundation of radical love. This shared recognition of the value of human life, and our commitment to seeing through social and economic justice, means that Progressives not only have a home in the Church, but the Church needs Progressives to be a political voice of the faith. If not, Progressives will continue to be a minority in this country for the foreseeable future, and the Church will continue to only be associated with the problematic political right. For Christianity and Progressivism to survive for the long-term, it’s time for the Left to go to church.

Sources

• How America Lost Its Religion – The Atlantic

• “Pro-Choice” or “Pro-Life,” 2018-2021 Demographic Tables (gallup.com)

• The Age of Deconstruction and Future of the Church – RELEVANT (relevantmagazine.com)

• What is liberation theology? – U.S. Catholic (uscatholic.org)

• Hillary Clinton Thinks About Preaching, Bill Shillady Publishes a Book of Devotionals – The Atlantic

• Democrats and Republicans Live in Different Worlds – WSJ

* United Methodist conservatives detail breakaway plans over gay inclusion (nbcnews.com)

The post Jesus Rode a Donkey:<br>Why the Church and Progressives need each other appeared first on Arkansas Strong.

In good faith: critical thinking, truth telling

I have a dish towel in my kitchen that shows the back end of a hen, with her head turned so she’s glancing back. It says, “Sometimes you just have to say ‘Cluck it’ and walk away”, and that’s exactly what I’m doing.

It’s been about a year now since I stopped trying to act like a Christian. I needed to take some time to be away from it and just live. I kind of wanted to know what questions would come up and what I would miss about it. It turns out, there’s not much I miss.

All my life, I’ve been some sort of evangelical, and there have been a lot of good things about that. My faith led me to places where I could serve people and love them in unexpected ways. I was very young when I learned that love is something you live, not something you talk about, and I certainly didn’t succeed in being loving all the time, but I sure can say I did my best.

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It’s been about a year now since I stopped trying to act like a Christian.
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My faith also taught me that change is difficult but part of growth, to look for ways to make a difference where I am, to get back up when I fail, and to be fascinated with the world around me, just to name a few things. My life so far has been rich and full of beauty and adventure, and much of that is due to the choices I’ve made because of my faith.

A God who loves

The Good Samaritan by William Henry Margetson

The more I studied the Bible and thought about what it meant, the more I loved it – not as a manual for living or a magic book of encouragement, or even for its component parts, but as a fairly comprehensive picture of what it looks like when people believe in a God who loves and they try to live up to it – and of what that doesn’t look like. People are complex, beautiful creatures but flawed and often stupid.

We do dumb stuff and then wish we hadn’t. We do weird things we think will make God happy only to find out that it was just weird and we were making things more complicated than they needed to be. Sometimes we do evil things and put God’s name to them just because it’s what we want to do and we think that God said he (/she/it?) would be with us so that just makes whatever we want to do the “holy” or “righteous” thing to do.

Sometimes, though, we just reach out and love someone else and work for the best for them, and that’s when it’s really transcendent. That’s what I love about the Bible. It’s mostly just the story of people acting like jackasses and still being given another chance to not act like jackasses. Even the good ones are pretty dumb. It’s just that they’re trying. So, my problem is not with the Bible.

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I’m a middle aged white American woman living in a rural area of the Bible belt in 2021 and I want so little to do with the church as it is here
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My problem also isn’t flawed people. Obviously, I’m not perfect and neither is anyone else. We might like to pretend we’re not shooting in the dark but really, we all are. Many of the individual people in the church are trying their best, and many are doing wonderful things that I love to honor and support.

But I don’t want to be a Christian anymore.

Bible Belt: a new perspective

I realize that this has a lot to do with the time and place in which I live. That’s true, but the fact is that I do live in this time and place. I’m a middle aged white American woman living in a rural area of the Bible belt in 2021 and I want so little to do with the church as it is here, in my time and place, that just the thought of being called by the same name makes me feel ill. I’m well aware that there are other iterations in other cultures or backgrounds that I would have fewer issues identifying myself with, but the fact remains that I am not in those places, or living in those times. I am here. And I want nothing to do with it.

I’ve spent hours upon hours trying to piece out what brought me to this place, like putting together a puzzle where each little piece holds a clue to the whole picture that is not made clear until the end. But if this story were a puzzle, it would have at least 3000 pieces and I don’t know that I’d ever be able to get it all together. My anger is not with a person or disappointment from any one event, although I’ve been angry with people sometimes, and definitely been disappointed.

Members only?

My anger is with an institution. It’s an institution that offers a social club with eternity insurance – failure to join with the correct words and practices of initiation resulting in torture forever – and coverage continues then cost-free and regardless of other choices forever. It’s an institution that has proven itself, over and over again, to be more interested in doctrine than in love. It’s an institution that is determined to address the issues of “the world” instead of the issues of the church.

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Jesus looked for the people his culture hated, and he loved them. He had mercy on the people his community saw as enemies.
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It teaches children that popularity or looking the part is more desirable than kindness. It teaches the gifts of the spirit without emulating the fruits of the spirit. It has consistently confused political party alliance with religious devotion, explicitly or implicitly endorsing the use of Jesus’ name in acts of political violence. It has proven that the outward performance of devotion is of higher value to it than the quiet and meek solidarity with the weakest and poorest among human beings. It openly portrays the concepts of social justice, equity, peace, inclusion, and anti-racism as anti-Christian.

What would Jesus do?

Our world is in turmoil. People can be assholes and honestly, we know it. Jesus was different. He walked around in a world full of turmoil and divisions and popularity contests and religious rules and political posturing, but he was kind. He looked for the people his culture hated, and he loved them. He had mercy on the people his community saw as enemies. He broke the religious rules if he could show love instead. He chose to sacrifice himself instead of pursuing political power.

Christ of the Ozarks in Eureka Springs

In fact, our world is hungry for the kind of stubborn kindness that Jesus showed. We’re all desperate for a promise of something that makes it all worthwhile. People (myself included) are looking for examples of lives worth living. In the church we see people screaming for their own rights – to own guns, to move freely without regard for the health of others, to sing their songs, play their games and abuse those with whom they disagree, to hold hateful signs and scream hateful slogans when others demonstrate peacefully against acts of violence.

It’s not that there are no people serving the poor without regard for reward, or caring for the sick or taking in the refugee, but those people are largely hidden away where they do not have to embarrass the ones who are not doing those things. No, the church is not where the world around me finds its kindness and acceptance and justice and peace in the storm. A tree will be known by its fruit, and the fruit growing from this tree is division and jealousy and sorcery and contempt for others and misogyny and spiritual posturing, and open racism and love for violence and rivalries and magic thinking.

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I’ve been standing in front of a door, thinking that inside is where I need to be... but what’s really happened is that as I’ve tried to work from inside, it has actually pushed me further away.
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Love is something you live

The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control. These are the very things we all look for when the world around us is in turmoil, and they are things that are there to be found. I can think of a few people who have defied the odds to become the pop heroes of our culture, and they are anything but perfect. Dolly Parton is revered by diverse multitudes, not directly for her music but for playing the long game in her investment in bettering the lives of those less fortunate than herself, and for doing that without fanfare or great publicity but simply, as the opportunity arises, and with faithfulness.

Brené Brown is a superstar for teaching people to accept their own vulnerability and love truly and expansively and with humor. Michelle Obama became, in a way, the Proverbs 31 woman and Esther to Generation X – caring for her family while utilizing a position she would not have sought for herself as a springboard to serve and encourage others she would never have a chance to meet. Fictitious as he is, Ted Lasso inspires millions to choose to turn to others with cheerfulness and kindness and a healing hand when possible. In each phase of my life, I’ve known people whose kindness and true compassion has set them apart and made them an example to others. There are many more pop culture figures who have come forward to fill the hole left in our hearts by the church, and that’s great, but the fact remains that they are doing a job the church is leaving undone.

No place for me

Several months ago, a relatively new friend was talking about the many friendships she used to have that have been destroyed by the political turmoil of the past years – from the vindictive political campaigns that started nationally but have spread to even the tiniest elections, to the racial upheavals, to the politicized response to the pandemic, and on – and she asked me if I could relate. I thought about it for a moment and realized that yes, I had lost friendships, but more than that, it’s been the final blow in robbing me of my religion and my faith community.

I’m no longer going to pretend this is all okay with me, or implicitly endorse what I see as blasphemy with my participation in its programs or my identification with its name. I find that for years now I’ve been standing in front of a door, thinking that inside is where I need to be. That if my faith is real, I would stick to the church and change it from the inside, but what’s really happened is that as I’ve tried to work from inside, it has actually crowded me out and pushed me further away. So, my decision is not to walk away from my place, but to walk away because I no longer have a place, and it was making me crazy to keep feverishly trying to find it in an institution where there is no room for me.

Making peace

Nothing much has changed in my everyday life. I’m not exploring alternative lifestyles or joining a coven. I’m getting up every day and loving my kids and my husband. I’m trying to be a loving family member, a good friend, an advocate for peace. I want my kids to be diligent and kind and passionate and successful adults so I cheer them on as they try those things out and encourage them to try again when they fail. I want to love others, so I try to approach each person with honor for their humanity. I’m trying to learn what I can about the world around me.

Please don’t misunderstand my purpose in writing this. I’m not writing to ask you to join me. We each occupy our own space in the world, and I trust you. I’m not even asking you to agree with me. I’m asking you to remain my friend and as my friend to be with me in this – to trust me that I’m doing my best. It’s hard and lonely and kind of infuriating to be me right now. I need my friends. If you have questions or want to talk about things, I’m here for it, but please don’t try to evangelize me. I don’t know what will happen with my faith, but if God is God, then I am safe, and if not, I am at peace.

 

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With the patriotic pop and sizzle of July Fourth near at hand, I am ruminating on a 2008 Wendell Berry essay entitled “Faustian Economics”[i]. Berry, whom I like to think of as the patron saint of small farmers, preaches the gospel of limits—a word with the power to rankle us freedom-loving Americans. Yet I can hardly think of an idea more timely or appropriate to the hills we call home.

My husband and I co-own and operate a small, diversified farm in the Ozarks. Though we are fairly new to owning a farm, we both come from farming families that run generations deep in this region. We are entering our fifth year of raising mostly heritage breeds of livestock—sheep, swine, and cattle. We also cut our own hay, like most of the local farming families we know. But we are the only ones in our community doing that work with a team of Belgian draft horses. Think Clydesdales, but blue collar.

We are working towards performing the first three quarters of the hay making process with the horses—cutting, fluffing, and raking into windrows. In that system, our tractor is only needed at the end for baling, in effect cutting out three quarters of our carbon emissions. Is it slower? Sure is. But speed isn’t our only metric. That goes for everything on our farm. Health matters more to us, as infuriating as that is at times when we watch the rest of the farming world run circles around us. But health before all else. Health of our livestock, health of our soils, health of our watershed, health of our air, health of our family, health of our product, health of our community. And that requires a great undertaking that we will likely wrestle with the rest of our lives: understanding and accepting our limits within a healthy system.

Belgian draft horses can pull substantial weight making them excellent working animals.

Limitlessness Leads to Loss

In the decades following World War II, the American agricultural system summarily swapped the checks and balances inherent to the land for the ideal of limitlessness. Earl Butz, secretary of agriculture under Nixon and Ford, was known for touting the line “Get Big or Get Out” to America’s farmers. Butz bade farmers plant commodity crops ‘from fencerow to fencerow,’ with no allowance for land to rest, no crop diversification or rotation. The family farms so prevalent in the Ozarks found no place for themselves in this brave new world of consolidation. And most of the farmers who worked them found themselves faced with the gut-wrenching decision to either take on a crushing debt load in order to buy into this new structure or bid farewell to the only way of life their people had known for generations.

Our region’s agricultural numbers evince both those who Got Big and those who Got Out. In 1950, there were nearly 40 thousand farms in the Ozarks, averaging 136 acres each. By 2017, that number had decreased to fewer than 16 thousand farms with an average acreage of 246[ii]. Hear this: in not quite seventy years, we sustained nearly a 59% decrease in the overall number of farms in our region, with those remaining farms growing by 80%. All of this while the agricultural labor force was rapidly draining out of local economies—a trend that began in the WWII years and continued on for decades afterward[iii]. In short, the insipid doctrine of limitlessness was taking hold in our home place.

It does not take an expert to recognize that the Ozark Plateau is already marginal land. We do not have the black topsoils of the northern Midwest. We have rocks, with a skin of red clay on top. Constant production is too much to ask from any landscape; it is a laugh-worthy request of the Ozarks. While most of Arkansas’ row cropping has historically been confined to the delta, the uplands are largely employed with animal production. But Butz’s edict portended a new era for livestock farmers too. The diversified, low intensity flocks and herds maintained by so many Ozarkers fell out of favor. High-concentration chicken and hog confinement operations became the norm, churning out millions of pounds of meat per year into the American and global markets and unleashing hell on our local watersheds and ecosystems. In effect, Butz’s mantra and the changing national policy it reflected displaced traditional farmers not just physically but in the collective American psyche as well. The scale, care, and community consideration so central to our style of farming in the upland south became an anachronism, those who valued it parochial.

Rethinking our Food Supply

Fast forward to a world in crisis. In addition to a myriad of other collateral lessons, the COVID-19 pandemic has uncovered the weaknesses inherent in a globalized food system. I hope to God that every American sat up and took notice when that cat came screaming out of the bag. You cannot look at a food system in which the grocery store is totally cleaned out of milk yet the dairy a mile down the road is dumping its product because their market has evaporated and tell me something has not gone terribly wrong. Farmers are plowing crops under or leaving them to rot in the field in the same communities where thousands of families are now food-insecure[iv]. It is easy to cast blame on the farmer when these stories come to light. It is also lazy to do so. James Rebanks, a shepherd in the ancient tradition of the UK’s Lake District, once tweeted with great acumen, “Intensive farming isn’t a moral failing of a farmer—it is a social and economic failure of a society.”[v]

The pandemic has prompted my family to reevaluate our food supply lines and make changes. We started buying milk from our friends up the road who run a small dairy. We now buy eggs from a neighbor with a home flock. Another friend bakes bread out of her home that we purchase. These are the things I would not have “had time” for before. But it turns out that these small visits around the valley have such value in themselves; it is a chance for us to check the pulse of the neighborhood, ask after everyone’s kids, and have a laugh in a time when laughter is more golden than ever. It feels like each visit we make or receive weaves a single strand back into the social fabric that is so threadbare in many of America’s rural places. Even after things return to some kind of normal, I’m unwilling to give these gifts up, even if it means cutting out other thing to make time. We have found an expansive place within these new limits we have set for ourselves, a world of abundance within five miles of our front door. We know our neighbors better. We know this valley better. We know how to feed ourselves when supply lines dry up. And as a mother of three suddenly parenting in a world with precious few guarantees, that helps me sleep at night.

Health Before all Else

I am not talking about doing things the hard way just for the hell of it; I’m talking about being willing to do things the hard way when health dictates it, and, as consumers, giving farmers a market for products raised with something more than speed and profit in mind. Every dollar spent is a vote cast; not a one of them is neutral. Consumers vote for a food system in which farmers are paid fairly for their work, good animal husbandry is encouraged, sustainable land use practices are valued, and local communities and economies are protected. Or they vote for the system we currently have, in which more and more power is consolidated into fewer and fewer hands, family farms are going under at eye-popping rates, rural spaces have declining or non-existent economies, and, as made so plain by the current pandemic, renders us highly vulnerable in times of global crisis. “Viewed in the longer term,” writes biologist Marc Foggin, “the typical globalized intensive agriculture models for feeding the world that are currently favored and promoted by many policy-makers, businessmen and governments are simply unsustainable. Business models that focus only upon increased food output without including drivers that respect social and environmental issues have seeds of destruction built into their DNA.”[vi]

Nor am I suggesting farmers bear the financial weight of switching to a locally-based agricultural system with no guaranteed market for their products. That is why the two sides of this equation—the farmer and the consumer—must co-evolve. As grand as it would be if ethics alone could pay the bills, the reality is that if consumers are unwilling to pay what agricultural products actually cost to produce, farmers are often faced with the choice between doing what they know is better for the land and doing what they know will keep their names on the deed to the family farm. As Maria Benjamin, a fiber farmer in the UK, recently stated in an interview, “It’s not that things are more expensive now, we’ve just become used to things being super cheap. But they’re not super cheap, because someone’s being ripped off along the way. And if you don’t rip anyone off along the way in your process, it’s going to be more expensive.”[vii] Full stop.

Yet we turn a blind eye to those paying the true price for our perceived ‘freedom’. Going back to Berry’s essay, “in the phrase ‘free market,’ the word ‘free’ has come to mean unlimited economic power for some, with the necessary consequence of economic powerlessness for others.”[viii] Freedom for who, then? Exemption from limits for what segment of our population? We can wave our flags and pledge our allegiance until the cows come home, but ‘freedom’ will only ever be an anemic assemblage of seven letters until we all fall under its purview.

The truest liberty grants us permission to be exactly what we are—humans in place and time doing the very best we can. Seeing the faces of our neighbors instead of price tags. Sustaining an economy that is fair for all and kind to the land that carries us. Conducting the most basic of our lives’ tasks with dignity and respect. That is a lineage worth passing on.

[i] Paul Kingsnorth, editor. The World-Ending Fire: The Essential Wendell Berry (London: Allen Lane, 2017).

[ii] USDA Census of Agriculture 1950-2017
         For years 1950-2002 see: http://agcensus.mannlib.cornell.edu/AgCensus/homepage.do
         For years 2007-2017 see: https://www.nass.usda.gov/AgCensus/

[iii] Brooks Blevins, Hill Folks: A History of Arkansas Ozarkers and Their Image (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 148-149.

[iv] Ben Kesling, “Coronavirus Forces Farmers to Destroy Their Crops,” The Wall Street Journal, April 26, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-forces-farmers-to-destroy-their-crops-11587909600.

[v] James Rebanks (@herdyshepherd1), Tweet, March 25, 2019, www.twitter.com/herdyshepherd1.

[vi] John Hodges, Marc Foggin, Ruijun Long, and Gongbu Zhaxi, “Globalisation and the Sustainability of Farmers, Livestock-Keepers, Pastoralists, and Fragile Habitats,” Biodiversity (2014): 2, http://plateauperspectives.org/wp-content/uploads/Hodges-et-al-2014.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1iuAsXxEWOH11Fcj3p1VRwtyhX9BgO4F19Wyd54a69kXlMEVAwVKT6694.

[vii] Maria Benjamin, interview, Countrystride, podcast audio, March 18, 2020, https://podtail.com/en/podcast/countrystride/countrystride-28-future-farming-six-generations-wo/

[viii] Kingsnorth, The World-Ending Fire, 215.

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“As a kid, I spent my weekends and summers on the Buffalo River exploring the highest waterfalls and largest wilderness areas between the Appalachians and Rockies. At that time, people like Harold and Margaret Hedges and Dr. Compton were simply friends of my dad and grandparents, people we met for float trips. I know now that they are heroes for stopping dams on the Buffalo. The lessons learned from them, about the river and conservation advocacy, influence my family and work today.”

-Ross Noland, Buffalo River Foundation Executive Director and Attorney at Noland Law Firm

If you know Arkansas, you know the Buffalo River. The Buffalo is our country’s first National River. The Buffalo River and watershed make for fantastic recreation, floating, and camping in the state, and people come from all over the world to enjoy it.

In 2017, tourism to the Buffalo generated more than 71 million dollars for Arkansas, and about a million and a half people visited it. It’s both natural beauty and economic boon in our state. Many Arkansans grew up on the Buffalo, between family fishing trips and youth group floating trips. The Natural State and the Buffalo River are a package deal.

“The Natural State is full of conservationists, Arkansans who advocate in ways big and small for bipartisan measures to protect the state’s beauty.”

Ross Noland (Little Rock) is an attorney and the executive director of the Buffalo River Foundation, a group that works with private landowners in the Buffalo River to conserve the watershed. The National Park Service owns only so many acres in the watershed; future conservation depends on private landowners to protect the land.

“Save the Buffalo”

For decades, a “Save the Buffalo River” campaign has protected the health and safety of folks who enjoy their time on the Buffalo. The Buffalo River Foundation has played a big role in that work. Noland provides some historical perspective: 

“ ‘Save the Buffalo’ became the rallying cry of a coalition of conservationists, led by Dr. Neil Compton, in the late 1960s and early 1970’s who opposed multiple impoundments on the Buffalo. The Army Corps of Engineers lived up to their reputation of seeking to dam every free flowing stream in the state. Representative Hammerschmidt and Senator Fulbright introduced legislation to protect the river in three successive Congresses. A group of dedicated conservationists punctuated this effort by making the trip to Washington DC to testify in favor of the Act on the ‘Jubilee Bus.’ Their combined efforts led to the establishment of our Nation’s first National River in 1972, through the Buffalo National River Enabling Act.”

Keeping Hog Farms Out of the Watershed

Most recently, hog farms were built in the watershed; waste from the farms caused heavy and toxic algae growth in the river, costing the state in clean-up and closures. In 2019, Governor Hutchinson struck a deal with the owners of the hog farms, and the problem ceased. Many fans of the Buffalo thought the problem was resolved.

But this month the Arkansas Legislative Council put off a proposal to permanently ban certain hog farms in the Watershed. With toxic algae growth still a problem, Arkansas officials are looking into next steps for protecting the Buffalo.

Noland served as attorney for the Ozark Society and Arkansas Public Policy Panel in 2013-2015. He played a part in the prohibition on medium and large hog farms in the Buffalo’s watershed. The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality recently completed the five-year renewal of that prohibition. But ADEQ faces the same challenges this year as Noland and fellow conservationists faced in 2015. 

Legislators failed to take a vote on the Ozark Society’s and ARPPP’s first two attempts at legislative review years ago. It was not until a bipartisan panel, led by former Congressmen Snyder and Bethune, testified in favor of adoption of the rules that the prohibition passed review.  With that history in mind, Noland urges leaders and organizations working on the current prohibition to “keep going – there is a bipartisan path forward. It’s been done before.”

We might have a fight ahead of us to save the Buffalo River, again, and Arkansans will, again, rally around the simple truth:  we can feed hogs all over the state, so there’s simply no need to put these farms in the Buffalo River Watershed, endangering one of Arkansas’s natural treasures.

It doesn’t take a law degree to practice conservation, either. The Natural State is full of conservationists, Arkansans who advocate in ways big and small for bipartisan measures to protect the state’s beauty. There’s only one Buffalo River, and we invite you to reach out to your elected representatives to voice your support for keeping the Buffalo watershed safe and clean.

Noland concluded, “My seven year old daughter is convinced she can row a thirteen foot raft herself (she’s close!), and my four year old son is absolutely furious anytime he figures out I’ve been on the river without him. Visits to the farms, cabins, waterfalls, creeks, and people of Buffalo River Country are defining how my children learn and who they will become. These experiences–in wild places and with people who live in a place very different than our own–make us better people.”

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