-^-for posterity-^-

today we talked about farming. i talked to vietnamese people about my history and they talked to me about theirs. i learned an incredible amount.

we talked about how important the land is. we talked about how the land provided us with life. the vietnamese people i talked with explained how much one small piece of land can mean to a farmer. that small piece of land is what sustained his parents and their parents and their parents all the way down the line. that dirt is what provided the nourishment that was required for their life. the soil is sacred.

“working the earth is a sacrament.” i don’t know if that’s a direct quote but it’s close. john ruth told me that when i was working in my salford mennonite church garden plot.

i thought back to my mother’s parents; kenneth and violet. they tilled the soil in north west ohio for years. they drove tractors over it in the hot sun. they planted and watched and waited. they fed pigs in the cold. they harvested and celebrated. they smiled and ate. the earth provided them with life. i owe my life to that patch of dirt in north west ohio.

the more i learn about this culture the more i realize i don’t know enough about those who have come before me. i don’t know enough about my grandparents and their parents and their parents and what sustained their life. i haven’t learned enough from their mistakes and their successes.

ancestoral veneration may sound strange to us but there’s a piece of it that really makes sense. we don’t spend enough time learning from the past in our culture. we don’t look back enough. we don’t ask enough questions and appreciate the dirt that is responsible for breathing life into us.