posted by Angelee Garcia, July 2 2013
It could be easy for one to romanticize the simple life of the farmer, but listen. There’s the good, and there’s the difficult.
There’s neck pain. And sore hamstrings.
There’s humidity. And early mornings (for a night-owl like me).
There’s numbness. My right thumb is tingling from a week of strawberry-picking.
And there’s (always more) weeding to be done.
Norman Wirzba counsels, “If we want to show true delight, we must first tame our self-ambition by learning the arts of detachment and genuine attention.” According to Wirzba, “Delight…presupposes the internal personal preparation whereby we put a halt to the controlling, self-serving impulses that would reduce others to our personal satisfaction.” To delight, we must first detach ourselves from our expectations and self-centeredness. Detach, and pay attention. Then, delight.
We continually return to these words in our Wednesday night discussions. True delight happens when we detach, when we “de-center” ourselves and pay genuine attention to the goodness of what God has created.
It seems through the process of detachment I come closer and closer to “the real.” Reality. To the Gospel. Up close and personal, the Gospel shows me my sin. It reveals brokenness and hardship, and that all these things are real. But what is triumphantly real about the Gospel is that Christ, the one who knew no sin, became sin for me. For us.
So here I am, sore and sweaty. Where is delight?
In laughter, laughter, laughter with my fellow farmers. In homemade veggie burgers. In conversation and questions as we work. My fellow interns are really good at this detachment and genuine attention stuff. They marvel at a drop of rain on a leaf. They offer help. Or a back massage.
God, help us see what is real, what is truth. May we, like Christ, put aside our own comfort and pleasure to delight in all your creation.
Learn about intern, Angelee Garcia
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