HEY COW!!! (cows, sloths, amish, and an "evil" empire. It's been a good weekend)[response #5]

Close your eyes. Do it, for real (well, after the next sentence of course). Now envision in your head a person that is characterized by the following one word: sloth. What did you see? In my mind a man materialized, a man who lies on a couch, who is dirty and unkempt, who is fat. This man does naught for himself. Harsh? Yes, I know, but that is what I saw in my mind. Now, on a less extravagant note, sloth to me is someone who is just lazy. They cannot, or do not (I am not sure which), push themselves and strain themselves. Their god is pleasure and ease. The chief vice to them is inconvenience and exertion. They are slow and unintentional. They are sloth-like, hence the term “sloth” that comes from the animal. To me, sloth is characterized by a dearth of activities. However, that is not how Ellen Davis describes sloth in Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture, at least in part. Sloth is “a sin of commission, not omission.” (p. 140) A true manifestation of sloth is in that it wast(es) and destroy(es) all the goodness that is really given” (p. 413 of the Karl Barth’s book mentioned on p. 140) Sloth is “stupidity.” (p. 140) This idea was new to me. It was a complete difference in the perception of sloth. Even though sloth is considered one of the deadly sins, Davis mentions how it is not considered to be one of dire concern by most people nowadays. I guess I never realized how true that is. Rarely is there a sermon preached on laziness. When was the last time an Alpha group or floor Bible study focused on this topic? I can’t remember a time. I wonder what factors were behind the downplaying of the sin of sloth. I feel like sin in general has been down played a lot recently, but that is another topic altogether. Let’s get back to sloth. Davis captures the essence when she portrays sloth as “work that is not motivated by love for the life of the community, beyond the temporal and spatial confines of one’s small life.” (p. 142) The degradation of the earth, the demoralization of one’s neighbor, and the detached father would all be sloth, laziness in demeanor towards care, to love for man.

            Now, who embodies this quality? This past Saturday I had the enormous privilege of visiting two great farming communities that in ideology are diametrically opposed. In the morning I visited the sweet people in the Amish community around Shipshewana while in the afternoon I visited the great feat of human intellect called Fair Oaks Farms. Both were respectively astounding, but could one be identified as lazy, as slothful? Let us look at the Amish first. I do not think anyone would accuse them of being lazy, but what about a disregard for the betterment of the community? Their life style seems to be exclusive. They are quite an inconvenience to some modern institutions, mainly the road. If we look closer though, I would have to disagree. Even though they may be an inconvenience to the 21^st century in some way, they are gracious people. They go out of their way to follow the traffic laws (they have batteries, which are expensive, in their buggies to power mandatory lights) and are some of the most hospitable people around. So now let’s look at Fair Oaks. This farm many might accuse of a blatant disregard for the created/natural order of things and of community. “Look at all the waste produced,” “Look at the conditions that the cows are in,” and “Farms were never meant to be this big” might be some common arguments against the rightness of Fair Oaks. However, we might counter this argument with a few reasons. First, Fair Oaks is efficient, very efficient. This provides cheap dairy products to a huge amount of people, the same people who would complain quite sharply if dairy prices were to skyrocket. This is a blessing to the average family. In regards to the environment, unless we were to eliminate dairy significantly from diets, large industrialized farms are the most friendly. If the same amount of milk is to be made, the same amount of cows must be fed, treated, and they will release the same amount of waste. Actually, that last part is not true. Grain-fed cows produce less pollution than grass fed cows. Also, the methane at a large operation can be harnessed and repurposed as energy. If we are to consider the cows’ well being, I would like to say these cows would not even exist if they were not on this farm. Really, there are just so many factors to take into consideration before labeling anything as evil or slothful. I hope that this blog might help us next time to consider more dimensions to tough situation instead of labeling and blaming initially.