This morning the farm looked especially inviting, like a photographed far off place meant to attract the soul seeking solace. A diffused, soft light blanketed everything and sound limited itself to irregular chimes of chirps, scurries, clucks, and mind-easing wild movements. These rural recordings of nature tend to ease us into the work day before the obnoxious two cycle engines hideously hum and the tractor roars and the high humidity insensitively grabs us by the throat and squeezes until sweat pours like a waterfall. In the middle of the pasture between plots of summer food sit neatly rolled round bales of hay cut and tightly baled over the holiday weekend. They add a scattered, bucolic backdrop to trellised rows of cucumbers, legumes, tomatoes, and peppers running in ordered, unnatural lines. Dew drops form surreptitiously on the broad, rich-colored okra leaves and fall unhurried like early oughta be. The filtered light pushes calmly through the high tunnel plastic casting a radiant luminescence on the leftover decaying crop from long ago spring. Just before the mercurial grind of a farm day begins, before our bodies become tools, before the sun speaks in bold, we are granted the gift of an early morning farm scape as gracious as a prayer. May moments as perfect as mornings, in spite of the violence surrounding our existence, encourage us to unwrap the beauty overflowing in every corner of the world, and in spite of ourselves, find peace and joy in the good work we have been called to perform.
