William Dellinger is a farmer and minister of Mount Zion Mennonite Church near Columbia, MO. The following article is excerpted by permission from “Why I am a Mennonite Farmer,” Dreamseeker Magazine, Summer 2007, volume 7, number 3. It is also available at http://www.CascadiaPublishingHouse.com/dsm/summer07/dellwi.htm
On Becoming a Farmer
I decided to become a farmer after the birth of my first son thirty years ago, during the oil embargo of 1973. At the time, I was working at a gas station as an attendant, pumping gas. As I washed the windows and mirrors of customers’ cars, I saw the fear, anger and hatred that people held barely beneath the surface as they queued up for their daily dose of gasoline.
That small gas station in a rural Midwestern town had mile-long lines of enraged and fear-struck people. I’d never before or since seen or felt such imminent violence. I could see that eventually this violence and hate would be directed at someone, somewhere in war, and it has been ever since.
I’ve been a pacifist since the early 1960s, and I could not bear the thought of fighting, killing, or being killed. I could not bear having my newborn son taught to do the same, all for oil. How does any person live on this earth without participating in these wars or desiring to enjoy their spoils? I thought my best choice was to live in rural isolation and to farm.
Farming is not the perfect choice for a pacifist. My land was a battleground between the Missouri and the Osage, then later between those tribes pushed here by the westward white expansion. To the best of my knowledge, no treaty or peaceable agreement passed on title to this land. I cannot deny I am the beneficiary of blood-soaked land.
Neither is my farming removed from the oil economy. Although I do farm naturally, without chemicals or oil-based fertilizer, I also use a truck to carry produce to market, to deliver eggs, and to commute to jobs to help support the farm.
But at least farming potentially produces clean food for people, with a minimum of environmental damage or demand for scarce resources, including oil. I am not free of the oil economy, but I could do worse. Farming is the most moral vocation I could find.
On Becoming a Mennonite
While researching my family tree, I discovered that my first American ancestor had come to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, as a Mennonite refugee, then settled on a farm in Shenandoah County, Virginia. He and his wife, the daughter of a Swiss Mennonite minister, had come to this place as Mennonites seeking peace, and I wanted to know how they had sought peace and whether they had found it.
To belong to a church that seeks peace and to profess belief in a prophet and a God who promise peace has to mean more than simply voting for the most pro-peace candidate. I was also seeking peace in my own heart, and to me, Jesus Christ is the prince of worldly peace, and also the prince of my peace.
Quietly and gradually I came to know God and Jesus in my search. It was like a soft rain that comes in gradually on a fall afternoon, but then continues steadily day after day.
I am now looking at the virtue of humility as a reward of the Christian life and of growing with Jesus. Being important is a burden, a weight upon the soul and heart, both spiritually and physically. To be in humble growth with Jesus is light and relieving, a continually amazing reward. I was raised and educated to be important, and it takes something to look at the world with these new eyes. It takes Jesus.
I am also a Mennonite Christian because of the intertwining of gentleness, love, and compassion that appear to me to be central to the spirit of Jesus and to the practice of Mennonites. These qualities serve me well as a farmer, for farming can be violent: violent in the way a farmer treats his livestock, helpers, and family; violent if a farmer sees himself as king and lord rather than servant; violent when a farmer thinks he owns land rather than recognizing that the land owns him. Certainly gentleness and compassion are vital when working with animals, plants, and people. They matter also when working with tools, and machinery, with woodworking and blacksmithing, and with every breath and step I take.
On Farming as a Mennonite Christian
Mennonites have often understood themselves to be the “quiet in the land.” These days, many prefer to flee that legacy, but I seek to claim it. How can I as a Mennonite farmer be a peacemaker with people and with the land? How do I begin to grow in relationship with Jesus Christ, cease the sins of self-destruction and learn to be quiet in the land?
I prefer to be practical here, rather than lofty and theoretical. The following are simple rules I pray to live up to. I regretfully recognize that some will offend others.
Refuse to accept government subsidies.I pray this land will be part of the kingdom of God and not the earthly human kingdom. Government subsidies buy control. They cause environmental destruction, collapse poorer nations’ agricultural economies worldwide, and make welfare addicts of potentially free people.
Refuse to use chemicals, including pesticides, insecticides, rodenticides, andherbicides. Anything with the root word, cide, in it is not healthy to put on land or on food. Chemicals and chemical companies are expedient perhaps, but I cannot as a Mennonite Christian use these chemicals, or feed them to you, my neighbors.
Eat no meat and raise no meat for sale. Raising livestock is the least efficient use of land, is cruel, and cannot preserve the environment. Corporate meat, large-scale livestock production, and the eating of meat are bad for people and the land base.
Use a minimum of oil and oil by-products. Animal power must eventually suffice. Regardless of wars, price controls, and subsidies, there is a finite oil supply.
Farm every field as a garden. "The trees of the field clap their hands" (Isa. 55). Prefer birds, insects, and beauty over industrial cleanliness and order. Remember that God’s first creative act upon earth was to create a garden, then the gardeners. It is our God-given destiny to reclaim and restore the garden.
Pray at the start and end of the day. Pray before entering or leaving the garden, before seeding, before weeding, and before harvest. Pray a hedgerow around your lands (Job 1:10).
Farm quietly. Farm quietly so that you can hear the singing of the birds, frogs, and insects, and the singing and whistling of the farmer. If you do not hear such music, something is wrong with the farmer or with the farming.
Farm small. Farm so small that you know your land and land base like the back of your hands.
Plant a tree for every day of your life, to help pay your debt to earth. I've been planting trees since I was a Boy Scout. I now plant them on the 53 acres we live on, and on about 290 more acres we have an interest in.
Grow one-half of your gardens for the poor. Grow that half for widows, orphans, homeless shelters, anyone who can use it. Give the harvest away without expecting praise or reward.
Do not develop, grow, or eat artificial or ungodly life forms. This includes engineered plants or animals or any life form owned by anyone other than God.
Do not own, encourage, acknowledge as real, or work for any artificial being. This includes machines, computers, and corporations.
Become the quiet in the land.
Action Step: Write a code of ethics for your own line of work, setting guidelines for your interaction with the land.
