Proper 13_YrC

Grace Church

August 1, 2010

One of the things I love about being back home in the Midwest is driving through the countryside. I grew up in a small town in northwestern Ohio; the church of my childhood was set in the middle of cornfields. Only after I moved away did I realize the spiritual power for me of those endless rows of corn and soybean fields, punctuated by big red barns and tall silos.

Corrie and I were driving through Wisconsin’s countryside this week and those same thoughts came back to me. Something has changed in the nearly thirty years since I left the Midwest, however. Back then, it was still the case that most barns had recent paint jobs, there were few that were in disrepair or crumbling. Now, it’s different. One can easily tell the active, successful farms from those barns and silos that are no longer in use. Many of the latter are decrepit; they look like just one strong wind might blow them over. Often these barns that are falling apart are relatively small, ill-suited to contemporary agribusiness, and crumbling for that reason. But there are others, that were clearly once the pride and joy of wealthy, successful families who had large acreage and herds.

We can see something of the history of rural America in that landscape. We see the prosperous and not so prosperous farms of a few generations ago. We also see the prosperous and not so prosperous farms of today. It’s easy to speculate about the families who lived and worked there, about their hopes and dreams. We can also see something of the widening gulf between rich and poor in rural America, for dotted among those prosperous farms are the house trailers and tumbledown houses of the poor. Continue reading →