Free Manure

When life gives you manure...

I love fresh eggs. Our family was spoiled years ago when we raised free-range chickens and sold eggs out of the parsonage. There is nothing like the rich color, texture and taste of eggs that are cooked while still warm from the nest! These days we no longer have our own eggs. We buy our eggs – as well as bacon and cordwood – from a farm down the street. Their eggs are almost as good as ours.

In front of this farm, not far from the banner advertising fresh eggs, there is a sign offering “Free Manure.” I assume the sign is referring to pig manure, since there are numerous pig pens on the property. I don’t have any experience with pig manure, although the manure our chickens produced was high in nitrogen and wonderful for our vegetable garden.

I pass by this manure sign regularly, and it has got me thinking. I wonder how many people take the pig farmer up on her offer. I also wonder if this sign can be taken as a metaphor for the political and cultural situation we find ourselves in today in this country. There is a lot of political manure these days. The stinking lies, deceit and disinformation from government and media sources are free to anyone who wants to poison their minds.

I fear that the poison, which is streaming through the internet, radio waves, and television cables, will lead to the downfall of our nation. Ever since the fairness doctrine of the United States Federal Communications Commission was abolished in 1987 and the rule that prompted it deleted in 2021, the news media has been in a downward spiral. Now the country is neck high in manure ... and not the porcine variety.

The question is: How we can keep our spiritual health in a society that is so sick? Some people check out completely, focusing on “spiritual things” and leaving the “worldly things” to the world. Others sell out completely, surrendering their souls to political messiahs or ideologies. Others attempt to serve two masters, keeping a foot in both worlds. Jesus made it clear that dueling loyalties do not work.

I have a different approach. As the saying goes, “when life gives you manure, use it for fertilizer.” Manure happens. That is the way the world is. The world is not going to change its manure-producing nature. Seen from a different perspective, all the world does is change! The only constant is change, and often the changes are not for the better.

That is what a study of history teaches us. Civilizations rise and fall. That is what the spiritual traditions of the world teach us. Why should be think that America is the exception? The world is impermanent. Nations are impermanent. Our democracy is impermanent. Our freedoms are impermanent. The American experiment is impermanent.

That does not mean we should cease striving to form and maintain the most just and compassionate society that we can. But we need to remember that all victories are temporary. The law of entropy applies to society as well as physics. Social systems tend to degrade over time. We see that happening in our country.

What most people do not realize is that this is normal. What is happening in the United States is not an aberration. It is also not the end of the world; it is the way of the world. That is what Jesus said in his Olivet Discourse. Siddhartha Gotama talked about this in his Deer Park Sermon. Life is suffering. That is what the Cross symbolizes.

When we see the universe as it is, we can live in the world while knowing we are not of this impermanent world. We can hold to the peace that is at the heart of the universe. We can abide in this peace while not ignoring the suffering of the world. As the great hymn says, “Change and decay in all around I see. O Thou who changest not, abide with me.”

Suffering is real. Injustice is real. That does not mean that God is asleep, like the two emergency management officials in Kerr County, Texas, who slept through the floods that destroyed their county on July 4. Neither is God a “deus ex machina” that magically sets all things right, if you are a member of the right religion and privy to the right prayer language (in Jesus’ name, Amen!)

God is the author of this drama called human history. (God also plays all the roles in this drama, but that is for another blog post!) My favorite line in Ehrmann’s Desiderata reads, “And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive God to be.”

I do not conceive God to be anything. God is beyond human conceptions and beyond the ups and downs of human history. Furthermore I know that manure is just another name for fertilizer. So accept the universe’s free gift of manure. You deserve it! And grow a beautiful spiritual life!