What are you looking for in the new year?

What's on your horizon?

Happy New Year!!

Some may be excited to have 2024 in the past and others may be reluctant to let it go. I heard a quote recently that said "Yesterday is history, today is a present, and tomorrow is a mystery". If we're honest, we probably live more in the mystery and less in the present. On New Year's Eve, I asked several people if they had anything they wanted to accomplish over the next year. Less like a resolution, more like a goal.

Responses varied but there were some trends I could identify. Most answered with "I haven't really thought about it" or "I'm going to keep on doing what I've been doing". This is not surprising because most of us are fine with letting life happen to us, me included at times. It's a bit easier to just take life as it comes and react or respond as circumstances change. Heck keeping up with the changing circumstances of a life on overdrive is quite enough most of the time. Especially if we're participating in all that current society thinks we should be doing.

Recently listening to a podcast, the question was asked if the speaker qualified as a "Homesteader". Homeschooling the kids, shopping at the farmer's market and cooking within the home may be stretching it according to Joel Salatin, but his answer for what qualifies a homesteader was interesting to me. He said something like, someone who is becoming less dependent on the provisions of society and more dependent on what they've got to work with on their own property. It's a mentality that goes against the grain of what we've been taught to be dependent on. Many of us can remember grandparents that embraced this mentality. We've grown in a society of "if we want something, we can go to some place of business and get it". Some have identified how to meet their own needs by meeting the needs of others and be profitable. Many of those same people have also figured out how much they can dilute the integrity of the product, increase efficiency, and become more profitable. I'm not saying that this wrong, UNLESS it compromises integrity.

Integrity is defined as 1 the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness: he is known to be a man of integrity. 2 the state of being whole and undivided: upholding territorial integrity and national sovereignty. That leads me to define Moral:(morals) a person's standards of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for them to do; concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character.

Looking at the definitions above, I think that integrity is the practice of being whole and undivided concerning what is and is not acceptable for a person to accept as right or wrong behavior.

We have replaced integrity with convenience in our culture. Employers often tolerate sub-par employees because it's easier to turn a blind eye than it is invest in the employee. To clearly spell out what they expect. To forego training because they need employees producing product. It's easier to have someone or something at 50% than to invest the effort to get it to 100%. You see it at McDonalds all the way to our governing officials. We also see this in our food system. This is motivated by convenience, yet Americans like to pride themselves on excellence. Excellence in being profitable maybe.

What's the solution? The problem is a collective lack of integrity, the lack of accountability. We must first resolve to stop compromising within ourselves. Put down the device and think critically about where you are and where you want to be, where you want your family to be, where you want your community to be, your county, state, and nation. There is no administration, employer, nor club that is more concerned for you than you are.

It takes us to first begin the journey within ourselves and when we are united on what the goal is, we may each journey in our own way, but we will reach the same destination. One place we can start is being present in the present and refuse to get caught up in the mystery of tomorrow. Learn from the history of yesterday and apply those lessons to the present, not the mystery. My hope is that this is an encouragement to you, whether it is wake-up call or letting you know there are others in the same trench, fighting the same battle. Let us honor our Creator, ourselves and fellow man by having integrity and see where that takes us TODAY. For TODAY is all we're sure we have.

Embrace Farm prays this year provides a bounty of blessings, exponential growth, and satisfaction within your heart.