Goodness

I haven’t written much in a while, quite a while actually. Not that I haven’t felt the need nor desire to, or have had a lack of things to write about. Truthfully, I could have written my thoughts in a thousand different blogs on what’s going on in the world, and more near and dear to my heart, the issues with our beautiful, but oh so suffering, USA.

My mother always said that you shouldn’t talk about religion and politics to anyone, as everyone has their own opinion and you aren’t going to change that. So, I have lived by that advice, and I am not going to start now, but I will say that I am sickened by what is going on in what seems like everywhere, with everything, and everyone. So much that it’s hard not to think that there is more evil than good in this world.

 I have lived through threats of wars, real wars, bad politicians, and just plain bad people, but I cannot ever remember so much going on all the same time! Maybe it’s always been this bad, and I didn’t realize it, but do now in our age of instant information. Or, maybe there really is this much evil, selfishness, and hatred out there, but I hope not.

 I know some really beautiful, loving and giving people, and those are the ones that I surround myself with. The kind of people that really just want to have love, peace and happiness in their lives. Simple really, but lately, if you watch the news, it feels like that is hard to have. Luckily for me, I know many good people, and two people in particular that I am blessed to have in my life are my mother and father in law.

They are the epitome of hard working, giving, beautiful, and loving people. They restore my faith in human kind in so many ways, including a couple of weeks ago. While my 89 year old mom in law was in the hospital for a fairly serious infection, her family gathered in her room waiting for the doctor to advise the options for her recovery. Some of the siblings stepped out of the room for a moment, but I stayed behind and witnessed a beautiful moment between them that I have to share.

 Mom in law looked over at her husband of 67 years with fear and sadness in her eyes. Dad in law (a gentle giant mountain of a man) came over to her and reached down to kiss her. They kissed, hugged, and both had tears in their eyes as she softly assured him that she was not going to leave him, to which he replied that when she did take that journey, he would be going with her. True love, and one of the most beautiful things that I have ever seen! I thought to myself, if we could all experience that kind of love and devotion, wouldn’t this world be a better place with less hate, evil and anger?

Yes, there is a lot going on out in this world, and a lot of it is scary, and very sad, but I also know that there is still goodness and good people out there too. Maybe we have to look a little harder to find it, or open our eyes a little wider to see it, but if we all live by example with the goal of love, peace and happiness, maybe we too can experience that same kind of pure love and devotion that took place between two scared, beautiful people in that hospital room a couple of weeks ago.

Farmers

This time of the year, in the early fall, I love the sound of the combines taking off the soy bean fields.  Its not that the actual sound of the machines sound like song birds or an angels harp, but still, there is something so soothing and comforting to me in hearing those machines purr, while they carefully go through each row of beans, early in the morning, throughout the day, and  sometimes, even pretty late into the night. I even like seeing their trucks sitting on the sides of the roads, waiting for the farmers to finish up and put more beans in them to be taken on to the grain mills. The now stubbly brown field, freshly cut, left with maybe a few fallen beans, waiting for a hungry deer to come by and gobble them up, look bare, but also like an accomplishment.

I wonder if they ever think about how many products their beans are going to be made into, and where all of these beans will end up. I know I would be thinking about all that, but maybe that’s just me.

And the farmers, oh, how I admire the farmers for doing what they do. Truly unsung heroes in my book!

All farmers are hardworking people, keeping long hours in all weather, at Mother Nature’s mercy, yet, they keep on doing what they do. Some of them make farming their full time job, but many cannot afford to do that, so they keep a regular job, and then farm on the weekends or whenever they can, hoping and praying that the weather, and their equipment will cooperate with them to get the very important job at hand done, in the sometimes very small windows that they have to work with.

 I don’t think that they do it for the money, as many that I know sometimes just break even when all is said and done. No, I think that they do this for the same reasons that I raise a garden each summer, regardless of how exhausting it can be. They do it as a labor of love, a comfort knowing that someone will eat because of what they did.  Strangers from near and far benefit from these hard working, good people that we call farmers.