One of my Saturday morning delights is opening up the week's summary of essays and interesting tid bits from the Front Porch Republic. Click here for the website: https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/
As it is Christmas Eve, here is an interesting thing to think about regarding Christ's birth and the difference between then and modern day America. Jeffrey Bilbro assembled this little thought piece.
In his delightful book The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs, Joel Salatin invites us to imagine whether Christ would have been born in the “stable,” or factory house, of our industrial American food system:
Matthew Sleeth, founder of Blessed Earth, asks a profound question: “Would Jesus be born in a factory house?” He was born in a stable. Undoubtedly this stable had several kinds of animals in it and was fairly small. Some have even suggested it may have been a bit of a cave. Or it may have been the ground floor of a house. I have no idea, but knowing the Hebrews and the times, I’m confident it was bedded with straw, fairly small, and inhabited by donkeys, sheep, goats, and perhaps a cow and some chickens. It was a quiet place. It was an inviting place. Rude, to be sure, but far different from a modern industrial factory.
This brings us to the question, then: What does a beautiful farm and food system look like? If the hand of the Christian is to touch the world with beautiful artistry that illustrates the creative genius of a magnificent God, what does such a farming and food system look like? Does it look like the bowels of a factory chicken house? Or does it look like something different?
Does it smell like a confinement dairy, a cattle feedlot, or a fumigated strawberry field? I suggest that a godly farm—may I say good farm?—should be aromatically and aesthetically sensually romantic. It should attract us, not repel us. It should beckon our senses with whimsical enticements of participation rather than assault our senses with repugnancy. It should be something we want to embrace rather than escape. Is not this the yearning of God’s heart, to use His people to extend His creative beauty into the nooks and crannies of our communities?
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