I started a new book recently. I’m really enjoying it. This is the point where most people ask “What’s it about?” I always think of the quote by the author,
J.R. Moehringer, “I hate when people ask what a book is about. People who read for plot, people who suck out the story like the cream filling in an Oreo, should stick to comic strips and soap operas. . . . Every book worth a damn is about emotions and love and death and pain. It’s about words.”

I don’t know the first thing about farming. I can barely name the machinery. But I do know about farmers — or at least one — my grandfather. I can tell you about a pipe in the top pocket of striped overalls (the stripes carrying each season like the rings of a mighty oak.) Walks from the house to the middle of the field. A foot in each furrow. Rocks picked with roughened hands (hands that we all reached for.) Words of wisdom, scattered like seeds. Faith, that keeps you planting, again and again. Red paint chipping. Hair lines receding. A love that never stops growing. As far as I know, that’s what farming is about. Beautiful!

For me, books, paintings, days, are all meant to be lived. Really lived. Not driven by plot, but by heart. And that heart is meant to be roughened, reached, scattered, and planted. Forever growing.

Today, set aside your daily planner, and really live — that’s when the beauty comes — and maybe, just maybe, that’s what it’s all about.