The Lost Art of Doing What Has to be Done

A strange thing sparked this thought in me. I have been reading a book about the women of the Bible. It's really a fascinating read. Sadly the women of the Bible often get downplayed, but they have incredible stories which show how much God listens to, uses, and loves women -- from prostitutes to princesses. But that's not really the point of this post.

Okay, back to topic. After the story of of how Jael killed Sisera by driving a tent stake through his head, one of the questions the book asked was along the lines of, "how was Jael able to do what she did?" One of my first thoughts was, "she did what had to be done." And that thought led me down a rabbit trail, as thoughts often do.

Doing what has to be done has become a lost art in our society. We don't really have a need to do what has to be done, because there are others who do most of the hard work for us. It's so easy to step away from the hard reality of responsibility and pretend that it doesn't exist. We don't have to butcher our own meat, because other people do that for us. We don't have to harvest our own food, because it comes in nice little packages in the grocery store. We don't have to do so many things anymore, because there are handfuls of people in each community that do it for everyone else. It's so easy to turn a blind eye to the facts of life...and death.

But when we homestead, we pull back the curtain. We come face to face with our food, with our responsibilities, and with the really difficult stuff that most other people ignore. Homesteading is a resuscitation of the lost art of doing what has to be done. Homesteaders and small farmers are reintroducing the real-life knowledge and skills of where and how we get our food. Homesteading is learning how to do what has to be done...whether that means breaking ice in the middle of winter, selling an animal you had planned to keep, or butchering your own meat. "As needs, must."

Sometimes, it's easy peasy and fun, other times it's hard. But I think it's a good thing. I think we, as a society, need to re-learn what it means to be truly responsible and intentional. We need to stop letting the man behind the curtain make all the tough calls and do all the grunt work. It's better for us as individuals and for the earth when we step up and mindfully play a part in the production of our own food.

So let's learn to do what has to be done.

Cheers.