An army of days stands between the sweaty work of breaking soil and the harvest that puts bread on the table and joy in a cup. Only the courage to trust in labor’s good product pushes through that threat. Anything less and a man lies down, folds his arms, and asks the air ‘What can I do about all this?’
Life takes root in that very courage:
Those who till their land will have plenty of food,
but those who follow worthless pursuits have no sense.
One does not necessarily attribute courage and self-denial to the farmer. His quotidian movements about the land seem prosaic, ordinary, undramatic. Yet in the quiet, often solitary movements of his hoe, the steady removal of weed and thistle, the thankless task of watering parched dirt, the soil’s tiller battles against the lethargy and myopia that promise immediate entertainment and starve one’s children.
He does today what is necessary for the blessing of a moment two seasons from now. He delays fulfillment so that stomachs, hearts, and minds might thrive on the fulness of a well-stocked winter.
So also those who turn a different soil. Each morning’s decision to delay gratification this day builds a future still unseen. The battle for life and blessing does not always produce the clash of swords and a trumpet’s call. The sounds, more often that not, are quieter ones, product of a thousand miniature, consecutive decisions against the easy thing.
Canter Bridge 