I’m reminded of the old story of the preacher who learned a valuable trick very early in his career, although it was a trick that he thought was a bit unchurch-like and that he was careful never to reveal. When he started his sermon each Sunday, this preacher would sneak his hand into his pocket for a cough drop, and discretely slide the cough drop under his tongue. That way, when the cough drop was finally gone, he knew it was time to wind up his sermon so everyone could get home just in time for lunch.
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As tricks go, this one worked exceptionally well, except for that fateful last Sunday. The preacher began his sermon as usual, but lunchtime came and lunchtime went, and then the afternoon came and the afternoon went, and even suppertime came and suppertime went, and still he kept talking.
And he talked and he talked until 9:07, when the congregation was suddenly awoken by a loud crash, and there lay the poor preacher, dead in the pulpit where he had talked until he had dropped in a heap.
It wasn’t until they got him to the undertaker’s that the quizzical discovery was made, for in the preacher’s pocket they found a cough mint, and in his mouth a button.
I know I should apologize for telling such a story, especially because it builds up such a great sense that somehow there’s some great insight or some powerful meaning at its core.
If there is a point to its telling, however, it’s only that you can get anyone to listen to almost anything if you put it inside a narrative. How else would I get you to listen to me talk about church life 75 or 100 years ago?
And it’s also that narratives are the way we understand the world.
In agriculture we’ve started to embrace the idea of looking at budgets as the narratives of our farms. In agriculture too, we see the arcs of each other’s careers in terms of family narrative.
But the secret behind the picture that associate editor Maggie Van Camp portrays so well in her story “Unleash your Midas touch,” is that today’s top farmers understand this better than any of the rest of us.
It’s a commonplace but it’s nevertheless true that if you can visualize where you want to go, you vastly increase your odds of getting there. And you increase those odds all that much more if you can articulate the story of how you can do it.
The stories of these farms are incredible, and I urge you to read Maggie’s story slowly, always looking for quotes that you can ruminate on through the day. Here’s just one, this time from Jerry Bouma when he is talking about how this next generation will prove to be a generation to watch. Says Jerry, “Their objectives are a lot bigger, grander than we ever could have imagined a decade ago.”
Are we getting it right? Let me know by email.
