I’ve had several comments from people who read C&T while it was in print (see comment by Abigail on the intro post below) and who feel a regret bordering on guilt that they were not willing or able to live the kind of life that C&T tended to hold up as an ideal. That was a vision that could probably best be summed up as Catholic hippie: move to the country, raise children, animals, and gardens. Although it should go without saying, let me state explicitly that I am not including the drugs, sexual immorality, etc. that went along with the hippie thing. Some years ago I referred to a lay Catholic community in these terms ("Catholic hippie" or something to that effect) and they raised cain about it, feeling like I had slandered them, which was the last thing I had meant to do.
As a matter of fact there was not then, and has not been since, a single one of the original group that conceived and produced C&T who lived that kind of life. For my part I always felt slightly hypocritical on that score, because even at the time we began the magazine in 1990, my wife and I were pretty much past any possibility of actually doing such a thing. I was a middle-aged software developer with a bad back, for goodness sake. My wife actually might have made a pretty good farm wife, being more down-to-earth and practical than I, but I would have been a terrible farmer.
We did have one writer, Eric Brende, who spent some time trying to farm among the Amish, with, at least as far as his story was related in the magazine, a striking lack of success, although he was able to parlay the experience into a book, of which you can read an excerpt here. And there was the Fahey family, who were doing it seriously and successfully, but they weren’t that interested in writing about it (or were too busy). And I think Daniel (Nichols, the editor) had some friends who at least semi-farmed. But in general the sad fact is that most of the people who had anything to do with the magazine were bookish folk who were more interested in (and more suited for) discussing agrarianism as a philosophical and theological ideal than in actually taking up the plow.
To what extent should agrarian life even be held up as an ideal today? I’m not sure what the answer to that is. I still think there is a lot to be said for such a life, but the obstacles to it just seem to get bigger all the time, so that even families who have been in it for generations find it hard to keep on, and only heroic souls are going to take it up fresh. And heroic virtue doesn’t guarantee that they will be able to feed their families. And every time I think of this I think of my co-worker who actually grew up on a small family farm in Indiana and who tells me emphatically of how as a teenager she couldn’t wait to get away from the drudgery and the constant anxiety and uncertainty. (Actually my family lived on a farm when I was growing up, but it was a rather large one, and my father worked in town as an engineer, while one of his brothers ran the farm.)
Anyway, no one should feel guilty about not living up to some C&T ideal. Most of us have no choice but to lead a more or less typical American life, trying hard and with mixed success to cope with the spiritual dangers of all sorts that it puts in our way and which seem to get worse every year. But that leaves me with a question: what place is there for the specific thing that distinguished the outlook of C&T, which was a conviction that the separation from nature in modern life has grown to a point where it is unhealthy, fosters a hubristic illusion, and makes Christian virtue seem quaint and anachronistic? I confess I don’t have a good answer for that.
—Maclin Horton
“The Caelum et Terra guilt trip”? You mean the one my wife lays on me every time the inconsistency of my life these days compared to my idealism when she met me comes up?
Well, she met me at the tail end of my tenuous youthful idealism. What Maclin says of farming is true. I had some experience with back-to-the-land hippie farming as a youth, being the only editor or writer for the magazine, aside from Eric, to actually ever plow with horses or broadcast seed.
Nevertheless, returning to the land became a long-delayed destiny as I got sidetracked by life’s twisting path, and my drawn-out vocational search.
So I married late, and it only required a few more disillusionments to lose the goal forever.
Chief of these is economic reality. I came to suspect that those who have moved to the country and achieved some sort of success [a tiny percentage of those who attempted this] were in fact the beneficiaries of an inheritance, or a trust fund.
Anyway, all we could afford was a large lot in town, albeit one backing up to a small woods on one side and a cemetary in the back. I immediately began transforming this spot into a mini-farmstead, planting a garden and berry bushes and fruit trees.
And the groundhogs, at home in the city forest, with no predators to keep them in check, began annihilating everything I planted.
After a couple of years, and an attempt at mass murder of the groundhog population I admitted defeat.
Then a couple of serious health problems finally put that dream to rest. I must take medication these days which limits my energy level to work and the essential duties of home life. When younger I could work all day at my physically demanding job and come home and work harder around the house. No more.
So am I a failure by my own CT standards? Not at all. What we were articulating in the journal should not be seen as presenting only one model of living. Indeed we went out of our way to solicit writers from the city and to insist that we should not be seen so simplistically, though of course agrarian life will remain the ideal. But Caelum et Terra was really more of a poetic vision than a practical programme. It was about approaching God through Beauty, about the neglected faculty of the imagination.
To that end I, like Renee, and who was my classmate in iconography, have become a Byzantine Catholic and an iconographer.
To any who labor under the burden of guilt that I may have contributed to, I offer this confession of agrarian failure, and my absolution.
-Daniel
I have been giving this some thought, and here is what C&T did for me that I would have longed for but never found. True Friends. Over the course of the years I have miraculously run into fellow subscribers. We have pulled out our beloved back copies, and read, discussed, and recommitted ourselves to maintain whatever of the lifestyle proposed that we could. Searching out a beautiful liturgy, making room for the beautiful and sacred in our homes, teaching our children to observe and appreciate the beauty of nature, having solidarity with the less fortunate, attemting to limit consumerism as much as possible, adapt our lives around the liturgical cycle, and keep an essence of Holy Simplicity in our lives. These are all attainable no matter where we live. Now, I don’t always live up to these ideals, but I try and I think it is possible to do so. C&T put words to a secret longing in my heart, and I thank you for that. God really took care of my guilt trip regarding agrarianism. During my fourth pregnancy, in 1998, I was on the couch begging my husband to bring something, anything home for dinner, as the nausea and fatigue where grueling. As I was waiting for his arrival, trying to take care of 3 other kids 5 and under, all I could think of was “Thank God I don’t have livestock that need feeding. That would do me in.”
So, bottom line, thank you for having such a meaningful effect on my life. I thank you, my husband thanks you, and our 7 children thank you, or at least they will someday. Blessings, Renee
To see a family (not Catholic, though) that has succeeded in supporting itself with farming, see the website of our friends who lived in Huntsville when we did and moved to Ithica, NY to run a small dairy and sell yogurt, etc. They did, as Daniel says, purchase their NY farm with money from an inheritance. I don’t think it was a stupendous amount, but it did allow them to purchase a farm. Then they sold their farm near Huntsville (and surely made something from that, as people were beginning to move out in their direction) and purchased the equipment, livestock, etc. to begin their operation. They also purchased, I guess, a name… a yogurt (Meadowsweet) that had been successful and locally well-known and re-built and added to the business. The wife was always a stay-at-home mom but the dad was a physicist or something working for NASA, I think. It was a big change for him!
Check out their website. It’s a nice story.
“Chief of these is economic reality. I came to suspect that those who have moved to the country and achieved some sort of success [a tiny percentage of those who attempted this] were in fact the beneficiaries of an inheritance, or a trust fund.”
I wouldn’t be surprised. I’m not sure what the US figures are like, but in the UK, land is so expensive that you’re much better off financially to put the money in the bank and buy (organic, locally-prduced) food with the interest. I used to dream of a smallholding but I just can’t justify it economically – it could only be a very expensive hobby.
I was never a subscriber to C&T – I discovered Regina Schmiedicke’s “C&T Conversation” on the web several years ago and later on the C&T website – but I too have been inspired by the ideals and have made them part of my life as much as possible.
Even better, discovering the C&T Conversation (and from there, Distributivism, Chesterton, Tolkien’s Catholicism, etc) was a direct and major influence on my return to the Church! I had been developing ideas of that sort for a long time and discovering the Church was way ahead of me on that score was one of the first things that made me consider seriously that just perhaps the Church might know something about the Truth. ;)
I just discovered C&T – and, I don’t think Catholic Agrarianism is dead yet – you might have just been a little early. Agrarianism isn’t the only answer, of course: I believe it works best when partnered with Urbanism (the two need each other to survive.) Look up the New Urbanism (of which Notre Dame U.’s Architecture Dept. is an example) – it has some answers. One of the major commentators on the movement is James Howard Kunstler – if he is right about the direction we’re headed, we’ll need both Urbanism and Agrarianism in the years ahead (or, we may have no choice but those two or collapse.) My criticism of the New Urbanism has been that it makes the setting, but lacks what makes a true community or city – my argument being that Christendom is the missing essential component to make New Urbanism work as well.
Well one of the fruits of the magazine was seeing people make their way to the Church through its influence. I am delighted that it is still having this effect. Whatever else may be said, that makes the whole project a success.
It was also a success in another way. We started the journal mainly to find kindred spirits; it was born out of a sense of isolation by folks who did not fit into the clipped categories of the Church at the end of the last century. A large number of my friends these days were met through CT; it is hard to imagine what my life would be like without all the people who came into it through the magazine. And while marriage and a growing tribe of offspring mean I don’t get out much anymore, on occasion I do run into a subscriber. An instant bond is formed even now.
Delighted to find this blog. We just moved our family from the city to a small plot (2 acres) in the country. I took the occasion of losing my job to start a home-based business so that the all of the family could contribute economically to our well-being. Of course we are raising chickens, will get rabbits soon, and learning about gardening. We have no illusions about the ‘family farm’ making a comeback. But we see benefits to having more economic freedom and re-connecting the lines between the food on the table and our labor – not only for the kids but for us too. We have only been at it for six months – so time will tell how we do. Among other commentary, I try to comment on our efforts regularly at my blog: bethunecatholic.blogspot.com.
Will be checking back frequently.
Jim Curley
Just to echo Daniel: it’s a major thrill to hear that the magazine has had a good influence on people in large or small ways and remains highly regarded.
Jim, I’ll try to take a look at your blog this weekend.
Aristibule, did you misspell your blog name or something–I’m getting ‘not found’ at blogspot when I try to follow your link.
I have a number of friends who midwife among the Amish and other plain folk – they have some interesting tales to tell! I’m a city kid who is now living in a small town and finding it an interesting contrast. We have no pretensions to the agrarian lifestyle but I find the economic theories of Distributism strangely compelling. I am personally alarmed by the encroachment of globalism such that if we lose the transportation infrastructure, many millions of people will starve to death and many more will be unable to cope. I make an effort to support local farms by joining the CSA in my small city, but I also have the reality that I drive 46 miles one way to a job that in a sane society I could be doing much closer to home. We need both large and small industry in the proper balance to keep society sane.
So happy to see that y’all have a blog now!
My husband and I try and live as simply as possible and live as rural of a life as we possible can also. I just wanted to chime in that we are another family that has no illusions about America becoming medieval Europe and the return of the family farm. Yet we don’t allow that to prevent us from living a simple life, in tune with the natural and supernatural orders. Gardening, keeping chickens, buying second hand, and not owning superfluous technology are all things we do to live more simply. My husband is an illustrator and he works for himself at home.
I look forward to reading more of this blog. I can never say that I miss C&T because I discovered it after it was already out of print as a college student. But I would love to see the discussion that it inspired continue!
I was already guilty of hypocracy back in the early 90s when I was an avid reader and twice-time contributor to C & L. I do think, though, that even for C & L types there is a hierarchy of values. Some of the specific dreams (such as an organic farm) are applications of either primary or secondary values or a mix of both. What is important in the end, though, is if we have remained faithful to the primary or necessary values. I hope that I have, even though I spend my day at–gasp!–the computer.
I think it was Dominic Aquila (a Steubenville resident at the time) who pointed out that you need civitas (the city) for civilization, but that the city needs the country as well. You can’t do without either.
So there simply *has* to be a continuum from the heroic husbandman in the country all the way to the clerk (cleric) in the ivory tower, and each of those has to be sanctifiable. I.e., there’s a place for everyone. But in this idyllic balance, the city is supported by, and supports the surrounding countryside.
But, clearly, our society is horribly out of balance, with long-distance transportation of food and goods obliterating that delicate dance of city and country mutual support.
I was a C&T reader toward the end of its life-span. I made friends through the “Caelum et Terra Gatherings,” was on the list for the “Conversation” newsletter. Lastly, I was part of a very short-lived attempt to revive the C&T spirit in print, appropriately entitled “Heaven & Earth.” By the end of the 1990s, howver, the Catholic readership had already been saturated with periodicals, and with the Internet and the advent of the “weblog,” a small-scale print medium proved impractical. Not to mention unnecessary.
Besides, as someone back then once lamented, “everything had already been said,” and very few of us were prepared to leave behind the “American way of life” for that which was expounded upon in C&T.
Oh, there were those who did. I can hear them now: “I’m tired of waiting for the rest of you to stop talking about it. My wife and ten kids and I are doing it.” True. But an aspect of “community” is “doing it” with others. That was missing here.
There was a piece in the Washington Post early in 2000, talking about lifestyles in the next millenium. On the subject of “shelter,” the writer spoke of the rise of what he called the “co-village,” essentially a self-initiated collective effort at an intentional neighborhood, as a remedy for the alienation of suburbanism. Most people who study this sort of thing know it better as “co-housing.” Far from a pet theory, there are well over 100 such intentional neighborhoods completed in North America to date, with many more on the drawing boards.
One wonders what would stop a group of C&T-reading homeschooling families from founding a corporation dedicated to such an endeavor. Probably the same thing that stops anyone else. Cooperating with anyone, especially when a change of lifestyle is involved, takes a certain amount of dying unto oneself, of getting along, of giving up for the sake of another, of realizing that it’s not all about ME. Such an exercise is no easier for Catholics than anyone else. Another C&T reader put it all too well: “We don’t love each other enough.”
But until we decide to, and representatives of more than one household decide to sit at the same table and work in concert toward the same end (it could happen at anytime, most likely in God’s time), I am pleased that some of the original founders of Caelum et Terra have embraced this new medium. Observations can be reborn in the light of the present day; perhaps through a new light, with the changing of events around us. I’ll be referring to this site from time to time in my own weblog, now nearly three years old.
In the readings at Mass tomorrow, we will hear the words: “Now is the acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation.”
All in good time.
I was a C&T reader toward the end of its life-span. I made friends through the “Caelum et Terra Gatherings,” was on the list for the “Conversation” newsletter. Lastly, I was part of a very short-lived attempt to revive the C&T spirit in print, appropriately entitled “Heaven & Earth.” By the end of the 1990s, howver, the Catholic readership had already been saturated with periodicals, and with the Internet and the advent of the “weblog,” a small-scale print medium proved impractical. Not to mention unnecessary.
Besides, as someone back then once lamented, “everything had already been said,” and very few of us were prepared to leave behind the “American way of life” for that which was expounded upon in C&T.
Oh, there were those who did. I can hear them now: “I’m tired of waiting for the rest of you to stop talking about it. My wife and ten kids and I are doing it.” True. But an aspect of “community” is “doing it” with others. That was missing here.
There was a piece in the Washington Post early in 2000, talking about lifestyles in the next millenium. On the subject of “shelter,” the writer spoke of the rise of what he called the “co-village,” essentially a self-initiated collective effort at an intentional neighborhood, as a remedy for the alienation of suburbanism. Most people who study this sort of thing know it better as “co-housing.” Far from a pet theory, there are well over 100 such intentional neighborhoods completed in North America to date, with many more on the drawing boards.
One wonders what would stop a group of C&T-reading homeschooling families from founding a corporation dedicated to such an endeavor. Probably the same thing that stops anyone else. Cooperating with anyone, especially when a change of lifestyle is involved, takes a certain amount of dying unto oneself, of getting along, of giving up for the sake of another, of realizing that it’s not all about ME. Such an exercise is no easier for Catholics than anyone else. Another C&T reader put it all too well: “We don’t love each other enough.”
But until we decide to, and representatives of more than one household decide to sit at the same table and work in concert toward the same end (it could happen at anytime, most likely in God’s time), I am pleased that some of the original founders of Caelum et Terra have embraced this new medium. Observations can be reborn in the light of the present day; perhaps through a new light, with the changing of events around us. I’ll be referring to this site from time to time in my own weblog, now nearly three years old.
In the readings at Mass tomorrow, we will hear the words: “Now is the acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation.”
All in good time.