I think there is a movement afoot in North Carolina and in our world right now to reconnect
with some of the agrarian sources of our life, whether it's our food, whether it's a deeper
understanding of how our decisions affect this earth and the land that we've been given.
I believe Come to the Table provides a place for that movement to continue to grow, to
become deeper and wider, and it creates this space for people to talk about what they see
God doing as part of this movement.
I think what inspires me are the examples of people in so many of the communities that
I visited among who, in their own way, are bearing witness to the love of God who are
reaching out to their neighbors and who've had their heart broken for the people around
them who are in need and who have sacrificed deeply of their own life to make their communities
better, to care for its young, to reach out to its elderly, to make sure that everyone
has what they need.
One of the first encounters that I had with thinking more deeply about issues related
between farming, food, and faith came when I was invited by a friend to attend Come to
the Table in Western North Carolina in Asheville, one of the first ones, and it really opened
my eyes to a whole dimension of things that I hadn't been aware of.
In my mind, when faith is only a kind of spiritual issue and it's about something that just
happens on Sunday morning, when it's only about the next world and not this one, it
loses the heart of what it's about.
My understanding of spiritual is that whatever is truly spiritual deeply affects the things
of this earth and is mediated to us through the gifts that we've been given in this earth,
gifts of body and land and food and neighbor.
When I think Come to the Table allows us to be together in a way that reminds us of this
and challenges us to live out of a faith that is broader and deeper and that understands
that the way we treat our neighbor, the way we relate to the land, the way we relate to
food is at the heart of what it means to be a human being and a person of faith.
I believe that the book of Genesis shows us a God who is intimately involved in creation
and who even paints a picture and image of God as the original gardener cultivating the
life of this earth, and it tells the story of God creating humankind to till and to keep
the garden that God has made.
I also believe that that's part of the definition of what it means to be a human being.
The word for Adam in Genesis is taken from the Hebrew word for the clay for the ground
and literally says that to be a human being is to be a creature from the earth, from the
ground, from the clay.
And so for me, when I think about issues of farming, when I think about food, I'm reminded
of what it means to be a creature who doesn't stand on our own but who are part of the web
of creation and who draw our life from the sources of life of earth and sun and soil
and rain and food.
The work that I do, I really think of as a calling.
It's a calling that's come to me in part because of having grown up in a small community
on a farm where we raise tobacco and tomatoes and having been raised as well in a small
membership United Methodist Church.
And I feel that my doing this work is God's calling for me to use my experience from that,
my love of places like Brown Summit where I'm from and try to use whatever gifts I have
to strengthen other places, to make them aware of their own gifts.
