No Small Potatoes: How it matters where you live

“I am the Real Vine and my Father is the Farmer (1)…Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you (4)… I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you’re joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant (5)… if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon (7).”—John 15:1 – 8 (MSG)

As my cousin, Debbie, and I were out for our afternoon walk on the farm, a car approached. We stepped to the side of the gravel road; the car stopped beside us. “What’s growing there?” the driver called to us through his open window, gesturing toward the field.

“Potatoes,” we responded in unison.

Staffed for Ministry: Have you been transformed to lead?

Then the Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?”

“A staff,” he replied.

The Lord said, “Throw it on the ground.”

—Exodus 4:2-3a

I have a staff. But I usually call it a walking stick. My friend fashioned it for me from an old tobacco stick.

Many Southern Maryland farmers used to grow tobacco, but twenty years ago they voluntarily accepted funds from Maryland’s Tobacco Buyout program, agreeing to give up tobacco production in lieu of an alternative. Since then, many have turned to produce, flowers, and agro-tourism. I applaud them for giving up the lucrative income of a harmful addictive substance and taking a risk to try something new. And I enjoy the results of their creative efforts—mazes of corn and sunflowers, pick-your-own patches, and petting zoos. I am also impressed with their resourcefulness in using leftover tobacco sticks. Once used for hanging tobacco plants in barns for curing, these sticks have been turned into stars, crosses, and walking sticks.