Planting Season

The broken gray clouds created a soft blanket over the Mississippi Delta.  His work for the morning was half done — the field was nearly planted and now it was time to take a break. He put down his truck’s tailgate and patted it a couple of times.  An older yellow lab jumped up and dutifully sat down  in the bed of the truck.  “Good boy,” he said to his longtime friend as he handed him a treat out of his overall’s front pocket. He then pulled a black, leather-bound book out of  his satchel. He sat down next to his dog and began to read it aloud:

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” Ecclesiastes 3:1

As much as he loved Sundays, when he wanted to really get close to God, he worked on the farm.  Sun-up to sun-down you could find him on his family’s land in the South Delta trying to get closer to the Lord.  Now it was time for another season, another crop.  He just hoped that it didn’t have quite the drama of last year’s backwater flooding. That had been closer to Hell than Heaven, that’s for sure.

Farming was all he knew.  Well, that and literature.  When he wasn’t farming, he was reading.  His mind was as fertile as the Delta soil and he felt obligated to grow a good crop between his ears, too.  The other farmers down at the diner made fun of him for always having a book in his hand.  He just smiled and kept reading.

His dog scratched a flea, turned four times and laid back down.  The sun broke through the clouds, changing the dark brown of the soil to a warmer brown.  And soon the cold steel of the truck’s bed began to warm (much to the dog’s pleasure).  He knew the warmth would soon make the seeds began to grow. Then the battle against insects and weeds would begin.

A crop duster buzzed the truck, wagging its wings as it passed overhead. It was his son, an Air Force Captain just back from Afghanistan, where he had flown attack missions in his A-10 Warthog. Dropping insecticide was much more fun than dropping bombs.  But the kid had loved to fly since his grandfather had taken him up the first time.  It was good to have the family back home again.  It was good to have his son back safe in the loving arms of the farm.

He looked at his watch, put the Good Book back into the bag and looked out at the field.

“Well, pal, we have work to do.”

He scratched the head of his old dog,  jumped off the truck and hopped back on his giant tractor.  It was time to go see God again. It was time to put his faith in practice.  The dog drifted off to sleep until his master returned.

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” He looked out at his field and said,  “Amen.”