Get Sheep or Goats and Live in a City

I am tempted by the thought that if a college is not urban with a farm and stock animals, then the eduction is not fit for purpose.

This is not (quite) as quirky as it sounds! I have experience and an argument to back up this thought.

Here is the experience.

Our College and School have sheep at long last. Heidi and Gretchen have joined us and are, slowly, learning to frolic as good sheep should. Stock animals are not toys or pets. They live their lives and their lives in an urban environment depend on our doing our duty to our fellow creatures. They are a delight, but more than a delight they are helping make our not-so-great soil better. The packed down field of five years ago now has a flourishing garden. The packed down clay that would reveal garbage after every rain is becoming fertile earth. The monarch butterflies and bees have returned as our gardening students restore plants that are natural to our climate.

The experience, sometimes hard work, sometimes purest pleasure, may be reason enough to care for animals and garden in the City. While civilization and her contents surround us, air conditioning is not so bad in Houston, there is also a reminder of other goods. We experience where eggs come from with the chickens. Our sheep will need sheering, the wool using, with the reminder that when “Adam delved and Eve span, who then was the gentleman?”

Work with the hands, eating the fruit of our bit of earth, is good. Kale grows quickly, is large, so younglings love it. Made correctly it is edible. I promise.

Why then do this in a city? Why not go to a place where farming, ranching, all this labor, is natural?

Here is the argument.

We are going to a city kept in safety for all time. Humans were expelled from a garden, but redeemed to live in the City of God, the New Jerusalem, true Rome, blessed Constantinople. We must not, dare not, flee the city in fear, because the City is our destination. Some are, naturally, called to the country, but the home of civilized men is the city: Athens, Alexandria, Antioch, Aksum.

If we are urban by destiny, then we remain men: born to create. The farmer, the rancher, is one of the most fundamentally creative humans. They are the base of the urban pyramid: kill our ranches and farms and the city would wither. Forget our roots and we might crucify ourselves on a cross of proper coffee shops and high speed internet. There is a basic creativity to weaving wool, honey from our own hives, and making delicious feasts from our own food that cannot be forgotten. The College at Saint Constantine will be complete when we can drink our own mead, feast on our own food, wearing clothes we have made.

When I read those who despair in this time, I laugh. We live in an age where Houston gives us energy that is cheap, museums that are magnificent, opera, theater, and enough affordable land for sheep. If we should create, then we should create all we can: make music, high art, clothing, food. . . God help us what a joyous time!

Go to a college where you can report that you studied in a world class city and worked as a shepherd.