Good Soil: The Education Of An Accidental Farmhand - A Book Review

What if I decided to embody the theology of the compost, trusting death would never win and all things would be made new, with the help of forces I couldn't even see? - Jeff Chu, Good Soil

Have you ever gotten to the end of a non-fiction book that you really enjoyed and asked yourself, “What was the thesis or theme of that book? What was the main point and the subject?” That was my reaction after reading Good Soil: The Education Of An Accidental Farmhand. I could not discern, precisely, what this book was about!

I sat with the book a while. I pondered the question about thesis. I went back and reread the sections that I had highlighted. Blank slate! Then, fortuitously, I happened to re-read the author’s note that precedes the book and welcomes the reader in. The mystery was explained! The problem was that I did not understand the genre of the book. Properly identifying genre makes all the difference in the world for clear interpretation.

In western culture we are accustomed to non-fiction having a thesis statement followed by evidence that develops the assertion(s). We read with a systematic and linear mindset. That is well and good…unless we fail to grasp the genre of writing. That mistake can result in catastrophic consequences! As an example, I am familiar with a theologian who read the book of Revelation as history and code. It is not. It is the apocalyptic genre. Consequently, the theologian made a significant mistake when he wrote a book in 1992 titled, “1994?” His thesis was that, based on a historical reading of Revelation (in concert with other parts of the Bible), Christ would return and the world would come to an end in the year 1994. Oops! Know the genre…or suffer the consequences!

In the author’s note, Jeff Chu explains that Good Soil is written as “Chinese storytelling.” In that genre of writing, the theme unfolds in a series of observations that orbit around the subject. Details may seem sketchy. Digressions are common. The storyteller can seem to meander around the subject. Chu explains, “You never get a thesis statement and then an array of proofs, because you’re imaging and discovering and putting the pieces together alongside the storyteller. Your conclusions will rarely be identical to theirs. But (one hopes) coherence builds.”

Ding! Ding! Ding! The author was giving me the freedom to listen to his meandering stories, to process his literal and metaphorical language, and to string the chapters together to unearth the truths woven throughout the book. Having this clarity and freedom to imagine, I was able to identify a variety of themes.

Each chapter of the book has a word as title. Naturally, the reader can expect the chapter to be a reflection (perhaps something like a post in a diary) about that word, but one never knows exactly how Chu will tease out the word; in an experience, a person, through history, theology, geography, culture, or an epiphany.

As I was reading the book, I thought to myself, “What if each of us were attentive to a “word” in our day and then, at the end of the day, we wrote a reflection about it?” It seems to me that a spiritual practice like that would add depth and meaning to our lives. Good Soil offers abundant examples that might teach us such a practice and the book provides examples of how we could do it ourselves. (A sample of chapter titles: fried rice, compost, dog, plum blossom, body, seeds, grief, heron, and lemon basil.)

The book has many entry points, and therefore will be of interest to a wide variety of readers. Among the themes woven throughout the book, I found that it might be of interest to the following kinds of readers: It is for those who like to garden or who are interested in farming. It is about the spirituality of place and the majesty of Creation. It is for “foodies” - lots of cooking stories, ingredients, and recipes, including an appendix on Grandma’s Fried Rice that left my mouth watering! It is about culture. It is about the experience of seminary; theology and some interesting, creative biblical commentary and interpretation from the author. It is about family systems and gender identity; particularly dysfunctional family systems, because the author’s family cannot come to terms that he is gay and married to a man. It is about relationships and love. It is about attentiveness to life and the meaning of life. It is about the journey from being an object of judgment to a recipient of grace. It is about story; words and vocabulary. Surely, you are hooked by at least one of those themes!

Jeff Chu is a Chinese American. He was raised in the Chinese Baptist Church. He is diminutive in stature, an extreme introvert, and was the object of much shame and bullying as a young person. When he came out as gay, his parents and his church shunned him. Chu explains the pain of his childhood through the familiar Parable of the Sower - Matthew 13:3-8, “A farmer went out to scatter seed…some fell on good soil…” Therein lies the “seed” of the title of the book.

In the churches and Bible classes of my childhood, this parable was taught as a warning and a threat: You have to be the good soil - or else. God knows I tried. Tried to be the obedient son. Tried to kiss a girl and not hate it. Tried to pass off not kissing a girl as evidence of purity. Tried to be the tireless worker. Tried to pray and earn and prove and claw and strive and serve and confess and repent my way to goodness. After I grew up and came out, I kept sinning and I kept struggling, and I was reminded again and again that I wasn’t good soil. Then I stopped going to church, and I felt as if there were no hope of ever becoming the good and godly man of my family’s - and my own - imagination.

Chu graduated college and became a magazine writer. He married his husband, Tristan, and they lived in Brooklyn, New York. Tristan, a Roman Catholic, encouraged Chu to become active in his faith life again. Eventually Chu’s work lost meaning and at the age of 39, he enrolled in Princeton Theological Seminary with hope that he could become a better writer, more spiritual, and find answers to some of his faith questions.

I’d imagined seminary would bring me closer to God; I was studying for a master’s in divinity, so it doesn’t seem wild to think the divine might be present in the process. What I hadn’t considered was that reading books about God did not necessarily engender encounters with God.

(As an aside, that experience of seminary is common! Seminary can teach about spirituality but spirituality comes from within and from experiences with God, the Spirit, and other people. Many seminarians - personal confession - leave seminary with more new and unanswered questions than with questions that were answered.)

Jeff Chu is a classic example of a “recovering evangelical.” He was raised in what I refer to as “the Church of the angry god.” Many of my favorite, and some of the best-known theologians and writers today, are recovering evangelicals - by their own admission. Evangelicals tend to be biblical literalists, understand matters as black-and-white or dualistically, tend to focus on law and morals, and understand the Bible principally as a rule book. Evangelicals tend to be low on grace. Many of the evangelicals of the 1960’s, 1970’s, and 1980’s were focused on works of justice (e.g., Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo, Brian McLaren, and later, Rob Bell and Nadia Bolz-Weber) but the evangelical movement got co-opted and politicized. It became obsessed with the subjects of abortion and gender identity, and partnered with the Republican party. Today, progressive evangelicals call themselves “new evangelicals or exvangelicals.” They are progressive in their biblical interpretation regarding social issues and very concerned with issues of justice. I would classify Jeff Chu as a new evangelical.

Chu writes with deep emotion about his effort to find peace in his relationship with his parents. His mother, lovingly, tries to “fix” him. His father seems to be in denial about his gender identity. Chu shares the tension that he feels in these complicated relationships:

Ove the years, friends have told me they think I have chosen poorly. In their view, my parents are oppressive, even abusive. I should stop seeing them until they affirm my sexuality and my marriage.

Those friends are still welcome at my table - just as my mother his (his father won’t accept his invitations). My mom’s example reminds me that I believe in a difficult love. This kind of love doesn’t shy away from discomfort, and it doesn’t mistake discomfort for danger. It subordinates our theological disagreements to the clear call to feed the hungry and clothe the needy. It shows up, as courageous as it can, even in the midst of confusion.

One theme of Good Soil is Chu’s journey from being an object of judgment to discovering God’s grace. As a lifelong Lutheran, bathed in God’s grace, it is important for me to realize that many Christians had a far more difficult journey to developing a relationship with God than I did. Like Jeff Chu, they fled the Church of the angry god, perhaps spent time in the wilderness, and then found the God of grace. Journeying through that experience and difficult journey contributes to them being profound writers and theologians.

Chu’s education at Princeton Theological Seminary was made unique by a class titled, “Ecologies of Faith Formation.” The seminary owned a 21 acre property called the Farminary (farm + seminary = Farminary). It was a semester-long class that met on the farm. While this seminary class may seem surprising, on second thought, it should not. The Bible is written in substantially agrarian cultures. Biblical metaphors often refer to aspects of Creation. Jesus’ parables and teachings often have agrarian underpinnings.

Students in the Farminary were encouraged to carefully examine “the soils of their lives, identifying where they had flourished and where they had struggled. What characteristics fostered their growth? What characteristics could they recognize as poor spiritual soil?” Chu ended up spending all three years of his seminary experience on the Farminary. In the book, he narrates his development in that context.

Theological education plus sustainable agriculture - genius!

“What soil(s) do you come from?”… Literally, metaphorically, and spiritually, that is a great question to ponder! Many of the chapters in the book relate to soil, and relatedly, to compost. This was where I really resonated with Chu’s storytelling. The soil I came from was, literally and metaphorically, compost. It was grace. I am thankful for that!

Many people are troubled when they find out that I have no affinity, love, or interest for cats and dogs. They have said, “How can you be a pastor and not love pets?” If you do, God bless you. I honor you and I understand how your pets are part of your family. As for me, I’m allergic to cats and I was not raised in a home with dogs. Rather, we had rabbits, chickens…and a very sizable compost pile!

I fondly remember turning over the compost pile, watering it, adding rabbit manure, and plowing (by backbreaking labor, not with a horse!) the compost into the soil each autumn with my dad. Hard work! (Well, the memories are mostly fond. There were some days when I was cursing under my breath at that work. Pharaoh had nothing on my dad!)

I love compost! I have had a compost pile in every home that I have owned. Compost piles contribute to great homegrown vegetables. I love fresh vegetables! Now, we live in a home that has an HOA. They don’t take kindly to compost piles! So, Cindy and I have a composter discreetly placed outside of our back door. Thankfully, the neighbors and the HOA have not cited us for a violation…yet! Nothing organic leaves our property. Literally speaking, compost is a gift from God! But there is more. Compost has a deeply theological meaning too. Listen to Chu explain it:

The more time I spend at the compost pile, the more I wonder whether one thing we might need is a robust theology of compost. Isn’t the story of compost really just the story of God? Turning fear to courage, sorrow to joy, death to life…A robust theology of the compost reminds us that death and the things of death, our sin, our suffering, the ways we hurt one another, the ways we harm ourselves: These things are never the end of God’s story.

On a sunny day, I could drone ad nauseam about the compost pile and its beautiful spiritual lessons: that nothing was wasted, that nothing was beyond redemption, that death was not the end of the story. Did I really believe that?

It’s a running half joke among pastors and seminarians that each of us has just one sermon that we keep preaching for our entire lives. Mine seemed to be about the compost. “I believe in a God of second and third and fourth chances. The compost pile tells the story of life and death and resurrection, testifying to divine grace.”

While I understand Chu’s point and have often heard pastors quote it, I would like to think that I had more than one sermon. Nevertheless, at Lutheran Church of the Resurrection, I was sure to preach one sermon every summer on compost, soil, tomatoes, or some other gardening subject. Some years, we had a Rogation worship service to bless our community garden each spring - incorporating prayers for the soil, the rain, and the sun.

Did you note the word “grace” at the end of that quoted sentence above? At the Farminary, Chu managed to compost the Church and theology of his childhood and in that death, the weight of his childhood and adolescence were transformed and resurrected as grace in a loving God. In his reinterpretation of the Parable of the Sower, Chu was not bad soil - the path, the rocky ground, or the thorns…he was not even the good soil, but rather he realized that he was planted in the good soil that is Christ. Yes, Christ is the prodigal and generous Sower, but Christ is also the good soil! I deeply appreciate that fresh and exciting interpretation of the well-known parable! Again, the question for your reflection, “What soil do you come from?”

For his final exam, Chu prepared a gourmet meal for his professors and friends. He writes this heartwarming narrative of the meal:

It was humbling to look over the list of things the garden (Farminary) had given us: sage, rosemary, rye, baby leek, Chicken, peppers, daikon radish, scallion, spinach, carrot, nasturtium, edible flowers, onion, horseradish, chive, tatsoi, bok choy, pea shoots, garlic, thyme, marigold, lavender.

Yes, we had sowed and tended, weeded and harvested. But so much of the work was done by others - the bees and butterflies that provided pollination services, the sunshine and the rain, the inexplicable forces that rearranged cells and sent up shoots, and delivered sugars to protect the tender plants from the elements, and of course the God who creates all things.

Chu and four other our students received, in addition to their master’s degrees, a certificate in “theology, ecology, and faith formation.” For Chu, it was quite the transformational journey and accomplishment. He narrated that when he was in his writing profession, Tristan had sent an orchid to him in the office. Chu tended it dutifully for three months until one day he touched the petal and discovered… it was plastic! Another time, to enhance growth of the tomatoes at the Farminary, he surrounded them with cages… that he put in the ground upside down! At Farminary, he had been composted into an “accidental farmhand.”

So, in the genre of Chinese storytelling, these are some of the orbits I found circling around the subject: the fecundity (prolific nature) of Creation; the primacy of love as transformative; personal evolution - of faith, knowledge, and acceptance; community; the compost of life and the journey to grace.

Jeff Chu graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary with a Master’s of Divinity degree. He did not pursue a church vocation. He is back to his work as a journalist, writing for Travel + Leisure magazine. He is a sometimes preacher, blogger, teacher, and pretend farmer. (https://byjeffchu.com/)

In Chu’s reflection on his final-exam meal for his professors and friends, I found the most significant sentences of the entire book. These were the “mother lode” of compost that offered proof that this recovering evangelical had truly discovered God’s grace, the grace that I have often taken for granted as a Lutheran who was planted in good soil:

I’d always told myself I’d be a success in the kitchen if I could cook like my mother. As I stood at the stove that night, though, I realized that wasn’t really true….The real win, I realized, was that I had learned to cook like me.

Wow!

I suspect that some of my blog subscribers may be more familiar with the very popular Rachel Held Evans than with Jeff Chu. Interestingly, Rachel and Jeff had a very close friendship in the years before Rachel’s very untimely death. Jeff completed Rachel’s book that subsequently appeared on the NYT bestseller list, Wholehearted Faith. (I have added it to my reading list!) Reading between the lines in the book, I understood that Jeff was present for a service of Last Rites for Rachel, and that it was officiated by another well-known ELCA pastor and writer, Nadia Bolz-Weber (also a recovering evangelical).

I noted above, that there were many entry points into Good Soil for me. Most profoundly, on a personal level, I want to share that this book was a spiritual mystery to me. Somehow, God’s hand was in this book, speaking to me in the way of an epiphany. Our middle daughter, Ashlee, is a person of faith, a gardener and foodie. She has a great garden growing at her house and cooks us meals with interesting ingredients whenever we visit. Years ago, she maintained a blog about cooking. Ashlee is engaged to Nicole. They will be married on August 1, this summer. Nicole is enrolled in seminary (but not Farminary!). She is a recovering evangelical who has also had a strained relationship with her parents. Ashlee and Nicole are finding grace at Cathedral of the Rockies, the largest United Methodist church west of the Mississippi River, in Boise, Idaho. They are both “planted” on the staff of the church and hold important roles in the church’s mission; seemingly good soil for them.

Each of them (really, like all of us) have experienced struggle, loss, pain, and “death” in their past lives. Those components of their lives are currently decomposing in their compost pile. We anticipate that “new life” for them will be resurrected from that compost pile on August 1. By some mystery (Chinese storytelling?), Ashlee and Nicole’s stories come together in the story of Jeff and Tristan…and good soil.

And you wonder why I love compost!