Youth Essays Title OK?
Hello, I am Evan Flory, youngest son of Betsey Flory, the Youth Leader for the UCC in the Southeast. Today we are here to talk about water. I am here to share with you an experience that made a huge difference in the way I and several other individuals choose to live our lives. This eye opening experience was not a big expensive trip. There were no airplane tickets, drawn out itineraries or expansive waivers.
Our mission on this trip was one line long. Work.
This summer, my mother, my brother, myself, two individuals from this church, two individuals from my home church and Julie Mavody from Central Congregational in Atlanta took part in a program put together by my mother called Practicing in the Garden.
On this trip we did many things, but every step we took, every breath me took and every thing we saw was more important and more precious during this week. Starting off at Pilgrim House here in Chattanooga, we awoke at 6 am each morning to start our hour long drive to Sequatchie Valley. Interestingly enough, as we arrive at the nearest town square, we are still roughly thirty minutes away from our destination. Our destination is a small organic farm, known only to a few residents of the Chattanooga/Sequatchie Valley area. This farm-called Sequatchie Cove-lies in between two mountains. Upon entering the main area of the property, you would never guess what it holds.
Foremost are the occupants of this place. The mind behind Sequatchie cove is William Keener, referred to as Bill by all-even his own son. Next, the amazing cook and shy quiet mother of the farm, Miriam Keener. Additionally, there are Kelsey Keener-the farmer's son that makes the girls say "Ooh"-Nathan, resident of Chattanooga, main assistant of the farm, Mary Louise, a college student and intern at the farm, John, a seminary student and intern at the farm, Derrik or Blade, a former student of Bill's special education classes-and self-recognized "Best Tractor Driver in Tennessee," Jim and Emily, grandparents of Kelsey, parents of Miriam.
From the moment you meet these people you know this can't be an ordinary farm. This cannot be where the tomatoes and corn that you buy at Kroger comes from. After being introduced to the main residents and workers of the farm you find yourself looking around, wondering how the week ahead will fair, considering the lack of shade in the field-something you don't think about when you buy tomatoes at a grocery store-the expanse of the farm, which you will be traversing on foot, the heat of the sun above and the humidity of the air stuck between the two mountains. For the next twenty minutes, some of us probably started to dread the week ahead of us. As we are shown around the farm, everything seems yellow and brown. The truth of the matter is that everything is yellow and brown. Why? There is a simple answer; because they are real. The commons house is made of beautiful wood, taken from the very land of the farm. The two cottages are the same, and we are taken away from the dread of manual labor for a few seconds while we stare fondly at the craftsmanship of the buildings. They are real and solid.
The first day goes slow and you sigh in relief as you hit your pillow and fall asleep. The second day is easier, and you start to see the things that you were meant to see. When you look over the green fields you see God in the most perfectly manifested embodiment imaginable. It makes sleep better and downtime more relaxing.
The next couple days pass like this and then there is the canoeing. A three mile stretch of shallow river gives you a chance to see what the world does with its water. It gives you a first look at what water really is. At one point on our canoeing trip we all stopped and jumped into the river in a deep section and swam, and in these minutes, there was an epiphany about what water was to the Keeners. Without these moments, we may have never been able to understand the things we learned later on that week. Furthermore we hiked to a waterfall, fed by a spring in a cave where there was water that we actually drank from the ground-something many of us had never done before. The daily tasks of the Keener's included things that are commonly considered to be "farm work." Picking berries (gallons at the time), weeding fields, spreading manure, bailing hay, moving sheep and chickens, feeding animals and gathering eggs, but we could not think of anything comparable to the satisfaction that comes with the sweat of real work.
Watching Miriam pick a gallon of blueberries is an activity that consumes the better part of half an hour-when a group of three or four of us did this, it took the better part of a couple hours. The work of food production is not a natural ability. We learned foremost that before one can make food, he must make soil-he must have water.
Bill Keener refers to himself as a grass farmer on occasion. He must tend the grass so that it feeds the cattle, which make manure, which makes the grass, which feeds the cattle. It is a truly ingenious cycle; one that happens naturally but is merely perfected by Bill.
Amidst the hard work we saw the many gifts that water gave us. On a rainy day we all rushed to the rope swing to take turns swinging in the rain. On the sunnier afternoons we learned the true meaning of "cold water" by swimming in the little Sequatchie River, something that does not hold a candle to a swimming pool. In these moments of fellowship we saw the world we were in and we obtained understanding. Downtime was important, even between shovelfuls of manure. On one day we kept a conversation about the less-heard-of points of Nazism going for thirty minutes between grunts as we fertilized a new row of blueberries.
These were the moments in which we realized the importance of the world we were in, we found how work play, and the gifts of God's world tied into living a healthy and natural life.
Throughout the week we encountered many new, eye-opening things. We learned that water made our lives possible in many ways other than just giving us something to drink. We learned about how it built communities and even religion.
Our world is filled with water, and proof of God's love lies in the fact that it was given to us. Lend your ears now, please for some more in-depth accounts of this trip. Thank you.
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