I'm not going to beat a dead horse. (Lord knows I don't have the extra energy to spare, really.) Suffice it to say that we all know the pitfalls of social media. In the last 12 years that I've had this blog, we have all seen the internet change in wild, painful ways. I certainly haven't been immune to it. As my friend Natali has stated, “If you enroll in a math class, you're going to have math problems.” Well, we've enrolled in the Wild West era of social media. And boy howdy, do we have social media problems. Unrealistic expectations, filtered faces, puffed up ideas and statements, clickbait, and downright lies are but grains of sand on the beach of issues. We all see it. But what do we do?
A farming friend of mine, thick in the having-nursing-babies stage of life, recently signed off her account for the final time stating that she, in fact, needed her world to be smaller.
EUREKA! A SMALLER WORLD! Now there's an idea.
While the age of information has been nice in more ways than I can possibly comprehend, the reality is, I'm just a homemaking, homeschooling, homesteading Mom. I get up in the morning and cook breakfast for a batch of kids before they bundle up and head out in the snow for morning chores. I wash poop stains out of underwear, vacuum old banana peels out from under my couch, sometimes forget to pay bills on times, and have to come up with something nutritious and budget-friendly to get on the table for supper. This is my life, my teeny tiny sliver of influence and experience. This is my small world.
It is mine to live and love.
Having a globally minded world-view can, occasionally, be a wonderful thing. But really, my only way of contributing to the globe is to pray for it – faithfully. Which, turns out, if I spend less time responding to comments or messages on social media – I actually have time for. While I have been very grateful in the past for what I've learned through some of these interactions, the cost has become too much for me to bare. So comments, responses, and messages go unread and unnoticed. Information has become cheap and people have developed the grotesque habit of wanting to be spooned every teeny piece instead of experiencing, problem solving, and putting their hand to it themselves.
I recently rewatched Victorian Farm for the umpteenth time and in my gut, I could feel the butterflies. The feeling of inspiration and motivation and determination that drove me to start this farm 10 years ago. To scrape every dollar we had together to buy this land. To start in anyway we could. To learn to do things I'd never been taught. To explore a lifestyle that makes no sense to most people. To choose to do hard things in a cultural current that aggressively flows towards convenience.
What we do here – it doesn't make sense.
But to me, it makes all the sense.
Writing these words, here on the blog, somehow feels stable and refreshed. I've missed writing this many characters in one sitting and taking the time to flesh out a thought without mindlessly scrolling, scrolling, scrolling…
I need my world to be smaller too. I want to exercise influence, richly, where I actually can. With people that value the time it takes us to learn, share, photograph, post, and teach.
My husband deserves the world. So do my children. My church community. My family and friends. You all. This is a small, sacred little corner of the internet where I can grow in thoughts and actions – all the while getting better at being a farmer and cooking the food that we grow here.
My zeal for the work that we do here has never been greater. From planting cabbages to harvesting lambs, I'm here for it. My world of people that this makes sense to may be small, but for the people that are here for it too, I'm grateful. If you need your world to be smaller too, continue to check in here on the blog. We have a whole slew of recipes and farm content coming your way this year – like in the good old days.
Let's grow.
(Get it? Grow? Instead of go? Grow? Like food? Never mind.)
And Amen.
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