Back from the Front

More Posts Coming!

I greet you one and all. I can’t believe it has been over a month since I last posted. As you all know, when we are very busy time can really fly, especially when we enjoy our work, even though at times it can be exasperating and quite wearisome. I suspect the more we all get involved in the hands on work of building biblically agrarian businesses and communities the less time we are going to have to blog and deal with e-mail. Lord willing, at some point down the road our primary communications will be daily, face-to-face fellowship with fellow believers within our own growing communities, though maintaining communications with fellow agrarians scattered throughout our beleaguered country will remain vital. While many of us have never met personally, I do not believe it has dawned on us yet just how important our “electronic” relationships via blogging truly are. Being able to communicate through blogging is great, nonetheless, being scattered to the four winds is not so great, by any means, which is something I believe we will come to painfully grasp all the more as our overtly pagan culture aggressively seeks to take greater dominion of our lives. We need true biblical agrarian community far, far more than we realize.

I am about to post a number of articles to the Rural Missourian, which should occur over the next couple of weeks, the Lord willing. The first one deals with the difficult realities of laboring as unto the Lord under the growing burden of our centralized, corporate state that is hell-bent on forcing everyone to serve its usurious, debt-based economy for the “good of all.” Directly or indirectly, debt free or otherwise, we all bear a very heavy economic burden under our present form of commerce and government which makes the already difficult work of agrarian reformation far harder than we realize. The second article is an update on Missouri Woods, a vision being developed here for Christians to steward the woodlots and forests of the Lord in a productive and sustainable manner of restorative forestry that creates real provision for families through developing private property and generationally blessed businesses and inheritances . . . all of which goes hand in hand with establishing productive farms. This article, which includes several pictures, reports on what was to be a one-day fact finding mission on draft mules which became much more: a very rewarding “hands on” first lesson on muleskinning and log skidding by a local Amish farmer and logger. I have a few other articles in the hopper that should interest you including one on a fictitious website – “ludditechurch.com” – which debunks the hasty presumptions of many who do not understand biblical agrarianism and, thus, accuse those who embrace it of “opposing all change, particularly technological change,” which is what a Luddite basically does.

“Resurrecting the Hope of Thomas Ian MacRuad”

Sometime this coming summer I hope to publish “Resurrecting the Hope of Thomas Ian MacRuad,” a short story and my first attempt at fiction, something I have discovered is much harder to do than it looks. With all of the rewriting I have done thus far, my appreciation for good fiction has vastly increased. Realizing that meaty, theological diatribes (something I am guilty of) on serious matters don’t always convey to the reader the heart of the writer nor his intended impact and scope, I wrote this brief story to better illustrate just how far we have departed from the biblical agrarian world of our forefathers. I say short story because it is actually a sketch or storyline for a trilogy work I would like to see written that would put into a multi-generational epic the tangible, down-to-earth hope of biblical postmillennialism. There sure has been a lot of bogus Christian fiction written in the last 20 years. It's long past time to publish something good.

This story takes place here in Missouri in the region known as “Little Dixie” among the rich hills that crowd the Missouri river. It’s basically two snapshots of the same piece of land, one taken in the 1860’s during the War of Northern Aggression and the other one today. It’s the story of how we can come full circle sometimes, yet totally miss it, except the Lord sovereignly open our eyes in His mercy and grace.

Correction

I have been doing greater research into the concept and viability of using mules to do selective hardwood logging and restorative forestry. The more I dig into it, the more I am convinced it will work . . . and work profitably. In my research, however, I discovered that in my last posting I attributed the wrong war to the person who gave the humorous quote, “Mules are dependable and steady while horses are all prance, fart, and no sense.” It was General Joe Stillwell, but not of the War of Northern Aggression but of World War II fame. It was none other than Army General Joseph “Vinegar Joe” Stillwell, the tough American officer noted for his sour, tackless demeanor who fought tenaciously in the rugged, dense jungles of the China/Burma conflict of World War II. Yes, mules were used extensively in Asia and the South Pacific during this war, chiefly because they were so dependable under heavy attack and wretched conditions.

Florida.com

We were recently helping a brother unload a trailer when we were amazed by the license plate it had. If one didn’t know better one would think that a new state has been added to the union, Florida.com. It didn’t give the name Florida at the top, as most license plates do, but Florida.com, instead. In Internet lingo the “com” refers to commercial. Perhaps there are other states doing this, but talk about letting the cat of fascism out of the bag. Fascism is where the state joins forces with commercial entities to create an all powerful political/economic union known as the corporate state. The corporate state has long been expanding its powerful tentacles throughout our nation, but I guess because the American people have grown so use to it, it doesn’t matter if it is outspoken about it. Ah yes progress, I guess my “Luddite” tendencies are showing. I better jump on a mule and head for the woods where I can send smoke signals to fellow Luddites, warning them to stay away from sich feerightful thangs!