Ever have one of those things you just have to do because it’s calling to you and you’re not sure why? That is exactly how I felt about my visit to a walnut farm during the harvest last fall.

The drive past the groves is soothing, the repetitive patterns of trees whizzing by as I drive.  Flooded rice paddies are washed in autumn light, sun rays dancing across the water. The wheat fields were freshly cut; the smell of the harvest filled the air. The infamous Colusa County birds feed off the remnants of fruit and seed; fires burn in the distance ridding the fields of harvest debris. Pheasant season is about to begin – a banner draped across the main road advertises a church Pheasant Dinner.

The farmers were still in the fields working the harvest, picking the last fruits of the season before winter, tilling the soil before the land grows hard and still. The harvest is a time for celebration, the fruit of the farmers work is ripe, the hard labor of the year is reaped, the days get shorter – nature’s signal that it is time to rest.

As surely as autumn leads into winter, winter will break into spring, signaling new growth. The ground awakens, the birds chirp and farmers return to the fields. The rhythm of life is played out in these fields, a rhythm of nature and at one with our creator. “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under the heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;” Ecclesiastes 3

This is what brings us peace, knowing when to sow and when to water, when to rest and when to toil, when to strike out on a new adventure and when to wait. The farmer knows; he knows when to prepare the soil, when to plant and when to harvest.

Knowing like the farmer is what brings us closer to our creator. It brings us peace.

Happy Lent everyone.