A homesteader’s manifesto
Homesteading isn’t a “trend,” it’s the cry of a technologically exhausted generation seeking to break away from a godless system
I have wanted to homestead since I was a young woman.
In 2008, when this dream first took root, the world seemed so precarious.
As a hippie kid, I’d been raised on a healthy diet of whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables (local and organic), and tales of the ills of consumer capitalism and government-subsidized big agriculture.
These days, I’m a devoutly conservative, traditionalist Christian and yet still couldn’t be more convinced of these ills and their assault upon God’s Creation and His image bearers.
So I praise His name that after many years, my family and I have built a humble homestead; and over the last year, we have been able to enjoy the fruit (or meat, in our case) of our labor and witness the miracle of life and provision of life-sustaining death with our own eyes and feel it with our bear hands.
It is secular modernity that has produced environmentally and morally degrading consumer capitalism.
Authentic biblical and spiritual Christianity looks to the One Who crafted the design of a fertile earth bringing forth fruit to sustain the glory of His creation.
Just a trend?
So, it seems like an obvious statement to say that homesteading is a very natural conclusion to a values-oriented homemaking life that is itself growing popular among younger people settling down and raising families in this crazy age.
Sadly, however, like homemaking, homesteading is often dismissed as a mere “trend” among conservatives and Christians. Some do so because they haven’t chose homesteading themselves and feel compelled to defend their choice, others do so because they are or have been homesteaders themselves and appear to snobbishly gatekeep the lifestyle.
The implication I also often detect is that because homesteading currently enjoys a popular appeal among modern people, this means that it lacks significance and staying power.
I find this to be completely silly.
The “homemaking lifestyle” is a lifestyle for families and individuals alike that recognizes the strength and importance of the semi-self-reliant traditional family household as it stands against the encroachment of hyper-dependence on the political-corporate industrial complex.
That’s why we are all here today. I hardly think this is a “trend” in the way that we think of a boy band or style of pant leg to be a “trend.”
Passing, faddish, shallow.
Hogwash, I say.
Homesteading is appealing for much more significant reasons than passing, Instagram-inspired whimsical fancies.
This is why it’s so depressing to me to see so much cynicism and accusations of inauthenticity expressed towards the movement online.
Just because an idea is popular does not automatically mean it is an ill-founded or disingenuous one.
Human beings are foolish, lazy, and wicked by nature, but we are also incredibly receptive to Truth.
We were designed to be sustained by God and orient our lives towards Him. Of course the idea of “living off the land” is appealing, whether or not someone who finds it appealing will actually be able to “do it right.”
Homesteading, in this uncertain and technologically cluttered world, is a very empowering and I believe God-honoring response to the rise of corporate industrialism.
This is a particularly potent point when we consider how corporate industrial globalism has corresponded with the evolution of modern thought to produce a megalithic monster of human dependence on a system that hates humanity and the One Who made us in His image.
So, of course it’s appealing to generations of humans who are exhausted with processed supermarket food, rising grocery prices, and a cheap, hyper-digitized life to get back to nature and make a small path towards living off one’s wits and the fruit of the land.
In this day and age, it does not take an extreme degree of discernment to feel insecure about one’s dependence on a massive and precarious global system in an era of widespread unrest and instability.
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Just as turning to the God Who made us offers a refuge to our weary souls, turning to ways of producing food that work with, rather than against, the systems that He designed to bring forth life offers hope and authenticity in an age of hysterical fear and faking of nature.
My personal testimony began in the kitchen, the grocery store, and the garden before it ever brought me to church.
Connecting with the bringing forth of sustenance from the earth is only one step away from connecting to that great Provider Who gives us nourishment and life.
Yes, we must bridge that gap with authentic biblical truth that certainly can’t be restrained by one’s lifestyle and food source.
But humans everywhere nonetheless still crave authenticity.
Authenticity in an inauthentic age
Many homesteaders are looking to rely more fully on God than they are on government handouts or the cluttered, wasteful, and radically secularized modern infrastructure of provision and security.
That is not a bad thing. What is “bad,” in my opinion, is getting cynical about the natural human drive to be closer to the earth that was designed by Creator in Whose image we were made because it’s a “trend.”
Maybe it’s trendy, but it’s also very real.
Homesteading is hard, unpredictable, and often feels like it’s getting you nowhere.
Yet as you latch yourself on to the natural rhythm of life by way of gardening, raising animals, and otherwise doing a small part to “live off the land,” you’re also perpetually moving.
And when the fruit of the earth gives forth, so to speak, you see just how profitable the work of homesteading is.
Biting into that first taste of a delicious meal consisting of an animal you raised and slaughtered yourself makes all the risk and uncertainty worth it.
After a lifetime spent grieving the state of modern, western humanity’s relationship to food, sustenance, and divine Provision, nothing is more rewarding to me than relishing in the small step we are taking to heal this breach.
When I first saw a seed I’d planted bring forth food from the earth as a young woman, it became undeniable to be that there was a Life Force behind this miracle that could be named, identified, communicated with, and heard from.
This is what led me to God’s Word.
Now, when I help my husband butcher a goat or split wood to keep us warm in the winter, I praise God for the life that comes forth from death.
For His infrastructure of life-giving nutrients and life-saving resources; so perfectly created and yet woefully marred by a fall that would cause humanity to doubt its eternal Provider, Gardener, and Friend.
One of the arguments against the “trend” of homemaking is that it’s not as cute or as easy as it looks online. This is certainly true; but I hope you can see by now that this hardly takes away from the authenticity or importance of the desire to homestead.
Homesteading is not cute or easy, for sure. And part of this is why it’s so refreshing, and appealing, to people craving “realness” in an increasingly fake world.
Homesteading is hard.
And confusing.
Ugly. Raw. Real.
Difficult. Painful. Bloody. Messy.
Like life.
Like the trials that refine us.
Like the culling of God’s justice and wrath.
Like the waves and storms He guides us through safely to His shore.
Homesteading may indeed be popular right now, but it’s not just a new style of jeans or color pallet that will fade in a season or two.
It is a connection to the heartbeat of creation, a way of life that bucks the weakening qualities of industrialization and relies much more directly on God and the raw power of His creation.
I don’t know about you, but I hardly think it’s fair to dismiss this as a mere “trend.”
Great article. Just a different perspective from someone who has always lived this way. We never called it homesteading. We’ve always called it country living. What happened though is that even for those of us steeped in this way of life, convenience became king and it seeped its way into our lives as well so that even those in my generation (I’m 53) are having to find their way back to the actuality of homesteading. We too are relearning or learning these old skills.
Another fine piece Isa.
Even a small thing like planting a bougainvillea, and seeing it's flowers bloom marvellously after a year, warms your heart. And the joy is unique, as it resides in the in-between, liminal space of knowing that you planted it, but someone else blossomed it.
What's that thing about 'caring for rejected kids' all about? You can write another post on it..sounds interesting.
A