Shalom Hill Farm

Just one short week ago I spent two days with one of my classes at Shalom Hill Farm, in southwestern Minnesota. We had a very powerful experience there, and I am still coming to grips with what it might mean for my understanding of how we care for creation. While we were there we were invited to visit two very different kinds of farms (one was a diversified, rotationally managed cattle grazing farm, and one was a cattle/pig feeding lot). We also spent an evening in a roundtable discussion with local resource people working on water and soil conservation issues, as well as river revitalization (the Minnesota River, which flows into the Missisissippi near the Twin Cities, is the most polluted river in the state). Yet even all of the information and new relationships we developed did not have as great an impact on me as the sheer simple, deep beauty of the landscape. This week, whenever I felt my pulse beginning to race, my anxiety level rising (usually when reading or listening to the news), I would stop and try to remember the still peacefulness of the prairie.