I miss having land to cultivate. However, I am also now a mother of 2 babies and seem to have a lot less time now to devote to anything other than the simple humble, everyday tasks such as cleaning, cooking, laundry, diapers and nursing. I don't think I'd be capable of tending lots of land right now anyway! I have a new path to holiness, which is through my new tasks. However, I still think it very important to get one's hands in the dirt every so often. In Russia, as Catherine Doherty points out, a farmer is called Krestianin. This means "Christian", which fits: a farmer should be the epitome of a Christian. Farmers, Shepherds and such live very close to the natural created world in which there is unique peace-- one which is hard to find amidst our noisy culture of today. I may not be able to be a farmer, but I can try to find those bits of peace and give them to my children through doing little bits of contemplative gardening outside in our little suburban plot of dirt here in our own backyard.

Here, working with what we have, we have taken out the old play structure and replaced it with a large portion of dirt, which is now our vegetable garden. (We can always go to the playground!)We compost all vegetable matter, which I carry out and top with leaves. Currently I have lots of large containers going for this decomposition step, but within a few weeks I hope to "build" a compost pile, using wet matter and dry matter, with the help of the sun. We have wildflowers, herbs and berries bordering the yard and now perennials in large pot containers to cheer up our tiny concrete patio. I'd like to have goats and chickens, too-- just to get our neighbors out of their little suburban comfort zone-- ;)-- but for now this is enough. It is enough to stay in touch with the outdoor world, trying to hear the geese, the birds, the bees in the midst of the deafening silence of Suburbia.

Prayer to St. Isidore the Farmer: