By Michelle Laque Johnson
With a title like On Good Soil, you might expect EWTN鈥檚 new series on homesteading to feature a lot of talk about living off the land and learning to farm. What you probably wouldn鈥檛 expect is a deep dive into how people in our modern society connect 鈥 or don鈥檛 connect 鈥 and how the teachings of the Catholic Church, including St. Thomas Aquinas, can help all of us rethink how we live, even in a big city.
The five-part series airs 5:30 p.m. ET, Monday, July 7, through Friday, July 11, with an encore at 2:30 a.m. the following morning.
Each 30-minute episode explores such questions as: What is the difference between a suburban home and an intentional homestead that may or may not be in a rural setting? Why do many families today feel so disintegrated from society? Most importantly, why do so many of us, who live in a world that encourages us to be constantly on the move, find ourselves longing for community and rootedness?
Episode 5 challenges preconceptions about small-town living. Host Jason Craig says one of the benefits of living off the land is that people don鈥檛 just 鈥渓ike鈥 to be around others, they actually 鈥渘eed鈥 each other. Members of the community help each other out, and that creates a connectedness and a rootedness that isn鈥檛 often found in modern culture, where people tend to group themselves according to similar interests or social and financial status.
In another episode of this series, a family recounts how they spend more time together on their homestead.
Viewers will also meet Brian and Johanna Burke, whose former military family grew tired of moving every three years, so they relocated to a Catholic community in the country.
鈥淸W]e knew that if we were going to do this, we needed community, and we knew that if we were going to be successful in the long term, not burn out, our kids needed friends who had the same lifestyle as them, and that鈥檚 really where the Catholic farm group came in,鈥 said Johanna.
The Burke family says they met a couple at their parish who became their mentors, and they intentionally began to create community by gathering people for monthly get-togethers on neighboring farms. Brian says it鈥檚 now common for people to say: 鈥淗ey, I鈥檓 working on this thing. Does anybody know about this or have experience with this?鈥 Other members may even teach a class on a given subject.
鈥淲hen you鈥檙e really intentional about developing community, you鈥檙e also just naturally going to broaden outside of your group,鈥 explained Johanna, adding: 鈥淣ow we鈥檙e looking at connecting the farmers to those in town who are looking to source this food. We鈥檙e trying to educate [them] about the superiority of this food. 鈥e can promote interdependence on each other and not worry about supply-chain issues. We have a small, independent grocer downtown. 鈥 Local farms provide everything.鈥
Craig notes that people today talk about plugging into a community, explaining that 鈥渁 power cord just plugs in to get what it needs. It鈥檚 very different from being rooted in a community. Roots penetrate the soil and actually intertwine with other creatures, and they begin to need one another. 鈥 The reason Catholics very often want to return to the homestead, therefore, is because they want to 鈥 build community. 鈥H]omesteading can teach you to love a place.鈥
Michelle Laque Johnson is director of communications at the EWTN Global Catholic Network and author of Walking the Way of the Cross for Caregivers; this is a shortened adaptation from the 鈥淓WTN Wings鈥 weekly programming email. To have info about EWTN shows and specials sent directly to your inbox, sign up at EWTN.com/wings.