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Learning the Language of the Fields

NFP

Just in Time for Gardening Season…
Dan Deffenbaugh’s New Book



Hasting College faculty member Dan Deffenbaugh is not a native Nebraskan, but the “2005 Nebraska Professor of the Year” and NFP activist understands the importance of ‘place’ (and, as we learn from his newly published book, Learning the Language of the Fields: Tilling and Keeping as Christian Vocation, the value of your personal garden patch). Chosen as “one of the best spiritual books of the year by Spirituality and Practice,” the text, Deffenbaugh says, “encourages Christians to be committed to the spiritual, ecological and social well-being of their local communities — kind of an antidote to the enthusiasm for globalization that we hear so often these days. A danger of being a ‘global citizen’ lies in the potential to forsake the responsibilities that await you in your own backyard.”

The Nebraska religion professor practices what he preaches. Working with a coalition of local churches and nonprofit agencies, he helped establish the “Open Table” program to eradicate hunger in Hastings. “I have been struck by the balance Dan brings to his work,” the Rev. Betsy Bennett, president of Open Table says. “He is able and willing to talk about the theological underpinnings of the work we are doing, and he is very aware of current political issues that bear on the problem of hunger in the United States, but he also is eager and willing to do the hands-on work that needs to be done.”

A specialist in ecological theology, a devout environmentalist and an avid organic gardener, Deffenbaugh also serves on the board of directors of the Nebraska Bird Observatory at Crane Meadows, an ecologically diverse site encompassing 250 acres of native prairie and Platte River habitat. “Like the primal couple in the garden,” he writes in the introduction to his book, “we are called to be faithful tillers and keepers, people who take the time to wonder and not wander, to watch intently and listen, with dirt on our hands.”

Learning the Language of the Fields:
Tilling and Keeping as Christian Vocation

Daniel G. Deffenbaugh
Cowley Publications (2006)
254 pages
Paperback $14.95

Reviewed by Frederic and
Mary Ann Brussat
“Spirituality and Practice — Resources for Spiritual Journeys”
www.spiritualityandpractice.com

Daniel G. Deffenbaugh is Associate Professor of Religion at Hastings College where he teaches a variety of courses, including Sacred Space and Ecological Ethics. He has been the Summer Education Director at Narrow Ridge Center, an environmental education and retreat center in Washburn, Tennessee.

“Many these days take to the trails or to the rivers and lakes hoping in some way to regain a sense of being one with nature, but they fail in this because they cannot get away from the ingrained tendency to relate to these places as ‘environments,’ as commodities. The climber sees the mountain as an obstacle, a challenge; the hiker, ‘wilderness as therapy,’” Deffenbaugh wisely observes in this paperback. But there is another way to approach nature: “Persons reveal themselves only in a relationship of care and gratitude. The garden is the one place where this can occur today, where people can, over a committed period of time — not just a Sunday afternoon here and there — listen and watch patiently, enter into alliances, perform rituals, give thanks, know intimately the myriad persons of their community, and experience a sense of living in place.”

The traditional Christian view of human beings as having dominion over the earth has alienated many who feel a spiritual kinship with creation. Deffenbaugh believes that if this religious tradition does not affirm the intrinsic goodness of the biotic communities in which we live and work, then Christians will be missing a chance to deepen their faith and savor the multiple pleasures of the world which God created. The author salutes the myths among the indigenous peoples of North America that connected them in satisfying ways with nature. These are contrasted with the stories told among Euro-American immigrants to the New World who saw themselves as overlords of creation who could exploit the earth and its resources for their own purposes. This commodification of nature has led to the present predicament where four companies (Monsanto, DuPont/Pioneer, Novartis and Dow) now control a major portion of the North American corn, soybean, and cotton market and are involved in the genetic modification of crops.

Deffenbaugh calls Christians back to a reverence for place instead of the traditional eschewing of time on earth coupled with a yearning to be with God in heaven. He also sees in organic gardening a chance for individuals to nurture life within a context that brings us in touch the soil, plants, animals and the four seasons. The author is convinced that tending to the growth of various garden plants is a kind of lectio — the reading, ruminating, responding and resting in the text of our place. Wendell Berry’s writings are good examples of this kind of spiritual practice. Thanks to his regular tilling and keeping, he knows the language of his fields and revels in his relationship with the biotic community.

Deffenbaugh brings ecology down to earth and challenges the Christian community to develop a new spirituality of place.