When reading scripture, if there is one thing that always takes my breath away and surprises me, it is the earthiness of the texts. The people are immersed in the birth-life-death cycle, which shapes their lives and views. When a woman is giving birth, people are there to share in the joy. When weddings happen, they are multi-day events that make people pause from their daily routines to celebrate—having probably spent weeks preparing for the pause. When someone dies, it is the family who prepares the body for burial as the community gathers to support them emotionally and spiritually.
The people described in scripture are people of the land. Their lives are tied to the lands on which they live as they seek to work with it to produce the food that sustains them. In scriptures, lands and places are held in revere. Their connection to livestock was visceral—they felt the sinews of the meat, gave thanks for the life of an animal and its sacrifice, and experienced the life-blood of what they ate ritually and daily.
I’ve read in several commentaries that the standard diet in ancient Israel and Palestine was vegetarian. To own livestock for meat was not rare, but certainly not widespread. Wealthy people ate meat regularly. But the average peasant survived on grains, fruit, and vegetables, with a once-in-a-while treat of some animal protein. I honestly don’t know if that is true—there is a lot of talk about animal flesh in scripture—but it makes sense given the social economics of the time.
Land. Livestock. Plants. Nature. The people’s lives were tied to the seasons, when certain plants were ripe for picking, when certain lands were more fertile at certain times. The land was sacred. The exiles described in Isaiah and Jeremiah during the Babylonian occupation long for a return to their beloved Israel, their beloved Jerusalem. They long to be in communion with their neighbors again, experiencing the highs and lows of life together, working with the soil they had known for generations.
For years I have tried to build up the courage to try my hand at backyard farming. Pictures of raised cedar beds have danced across my mind. I even bought some books on how to start a small vegetable garden. But I live in a desert now. The pictures in the books look lush and green. My backyard is mostly sand and clay. Though, at one time, the Phoenix valley in Arizona was a thriving farm community. This land has been farmed for thousands of years. The ancient Hohokam people migrated annually from the mountains after the hot summers and built aqueducts, many of which are the same waterways that zig zag across the valley today. The water ways channeled the precious resource from the great Salt River to their farms. Now, I pay the City of Chandler for my water. And my backyard is pretty much dust and weeds, save two sturdy pomegranate bushes that I haven’t yet destroyed.
I grew up in Mission Viejo, California. Growing up we could see from our kitchen windows the cattle herds of the great O’Neal ranch across the lake—hills that are now Cota de Caza and the home of The Housewives of Orange County. But we still bought our meat from the grocery store that used to be closed on Sundays. Butchering animals just sounded disgusting, but I still ate their meat and frequented In-N-Out burgers without a thought of the connection.
My brother and I once planted a small vegetable garden on the side our house. We had about 6 huge stalks of corn, a long string of a zucchini plant, and several green bean plants. We tried our hand at tomatoes, but the plants never produced a single piece of fruit. Then my mom wanted French doors off the dining room. Our garden was flattened to become a patio. That was my first and last attempt at a vegetable garden.
My connection to land has been through camping, hiking, and backpacking. In high school and college camping and backpacking were my bliss. Over the past 20 years, I’ve only gone on 3 backpacking trips, one of which ended after the first day when something popped in my calf muscle. I’ve longed for that connection I once had.
But as I look back, a pattern emerged. My longing has always been to lush forests. Hiking here in the desert has not appealed much to me. It’s dry, even in the cooler season. The landscapes are full of low bushes and cactus. It’s hard to get lost when you can see for miles. I kind of like getting “lost” in the wilderness, being enveloped in a cocoon of tall trees and a distinct path weaving its way around the ground cover. My heart has longed for a connection to the land that I never really knew in the suburbia of my childhood. Now, edging towards 50 years old, that longing has actually grown stronger, but my will and knowledge has not caught up. Maybe my view of “wilderness” is too narrow?
I’ve been told gardening is learned a lot by trial and error. I’ve imagined turning my barren dog scat invested backyard into a lush desert oasis. But knowhow and money have kept me from diving into the experiment. I’m back in suburbia again, with a hawkish HOA that makes me feel like I’m living in a Ray Bradbury dystopia. Maybe I just need to dig in, feel the earth, and start doing something, just to give it a try. Maybe after the summer is over and the temperature finally dips below 100.
that was really good Eric.