We’re riding in a train over the rolling, green hills of England toward the highlands of Scotland.
Ah, how I’ve longed to ride a train, to look out the window and see the land pass by in it’s tranquility and life, to hear the click and the clack of the wheels on the track as we move slowly but surely along.
I’m looking out the window and see fences made of old stone that connect neighboring fields like a needle and thread connect the pieces of a quilt.
I see clouds hung low over the high green hills bringing a peaceful, lonely mist over the land.
I see sheep and cattle safely graze within the stone fenced fields as they dot the land as if they were living punctuation marks to accent the beauty of the land.
I see steeples rise from majestic stone churches as symbols and possibilities of hope for days to come.
Today, the train is a symbol for my heart.
The journey is a symbol for the day by day life of my heart.
“Listen carefully, my son, to the master’s instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart,” writes St. Benedict at the beginning of his monastic rule.
Our journey is helping me listen and attend.
As I’m looking out over the Scottish fields, I see how rich and green they are, yet I’m thinking about the Malian fields we just left, how sparse and brown they are at the end of the dry season.
You can walk through those fields and raise a small cloud of dust with each step of your sandaled feet.
You can spend a whole day moving rocks and stones away from part of the ground where you want to plant your seeds and still not completely clear the way to rich soil.
You can take your handheld hoe and bend close to the parched earth and chop away the brush that squats on the land during the dry non-farming season.
You can farm away on the hard, dry land and dig small holes in which to plant your peanuts and millet, broadcasting your rice seeds in hope of good rain.
You can work in the mornings and in the afternoons in spite of the sun, but only rest in the mid day hours when the sun is at its bravest and strongest and you are at your tiredest and weakest.
I’m thinking about those Malian fields.
One day, I was looking at my friend Momadu, watching him gather up whole tied bales of peanuts and put them on top of his head.
As I watched him and helped him, the thought occurred to me that my friend is a person of the land.
I’ve been reading the great Russian writers Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, and the characters that appear over and over again throughout the pages of their stories are people of the land like Momadu.
For them, the people of their Russian land are real, as real as the harsh Russian winters, as real as the big, dirt covered potato when it is turned out of the ground.
For them, the people of the land are the most real thing about Russia, a Russia that had drifted away to the deserted island of materialism and faithlessness.
In these writers’ stories, the people of the middle and upper classes lose their way and their souls and the people of the land become the very figure of Christ, the ones through whom hope and redemption come.
In my world of America, we don’t have that idea of the people of the land.
We have the poor in need of charity from the rich instead of the rich in need of salvation from the poor.
Who are the people of the land in America today?
In days gone by they were folks called salt of the earth folks.
They rose before sunrise and scrambled freshly gathered eggs for their families.
They toasted homemade bread and boiled fresh coffee, too.
They went off to their fields by 6 AM with their hats in their hands to protect their weathered faces from the summer sun, humbly bowed to the earth and raised to the heavens in hope of good rains and good crops.
There they stayed until 6 PM, working a half day that was a 12 hour day, seven days a week.
Their children spent their days working around the house or in the fields and playing in the gentle though unpredictable hands of nature.
It wasn’t who they were but what they did that made them saints.
If you were sick, they would bring home cooked food to you and would do your work for you even though they had worked all day themselves.
If you fell on hard times they would make anything that was theirs yours.
If you needed a tall drink of liquor and a long hour of listening they were there.
They were the dirt and blisters on their hands, the sweat on their foreheads, the prayers through the night, the smiles at sunrise, and the definition of love.
Dostoyevsky writes through the words of father Zossima in The Brothers Karamzov, “The Russian monk should go on educating the Russian peasant quickly. That’s your duty as monks, for the peasant has God in his heart.”
Dostoyevsky writes, “Salvation will come from the people, from their faith and their meekness.”
I served as a missionary in Mali for three years and now I think I can write along with Dostoyevsky that the people of the land have God in their hearts.
Each morning, I ask God, “Where can I find you today?”
For three years, God answered me from the hearts of friends like Momadu.
I found God in the field of his faith and humility.
I pray that my heart will become like his.
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