It Started With A Worm

I seem to recall from my high school English classes that Inherit the Wind, a powerful drama about the Scopes Monkey Trial, began with a worm. A child, I believe, taunts the defiant teacher of evolution with an earthworm, remarking how silly it was that Mr. Scopes believed all humans have come from that slimy little creature. Though the child is little more than a literary personification of ignorance, there is significance to the power of worms and their role as creators. My family’s dreams, all of them, have come true. And they all began with worms.

There is nothing out of the ordinary about our family, apart from our exceptional ability to imagine great things and then turn those imaginary things into reality. My oldest daughter wanted horses, my youngest daughter wanted kittens. My oldest boy wanted a farm, my youngest boy wanted an ATV. My husband and I wanted all these spoils for them. So, collectively, our unit began to work. No, we didn’t have horses or kittens or ATVs yet, but we did have worms. One thousand worms to be exact, all happily nestled in a large can with thick, lush dirt. We declared ourselves “Worm Farmers,” the only such family on our suburban block. We took pride in scraping our table waste into the dirt, fattening up our worms for the production of rich soil and good fishing. It didn’t take much to keep the worms happy. They were, after all, just worms. But our family knew that these were baby steps; just one rung on the ladder to bigger animals, greater production, and more efficient sustainability.

Shortly after our excursion into the profession of worm farming, the miracles began to happen. An ad on the seemingly pedestrian website of Craigslist led us to sixteen acres of prelapsarian paradise. That paradise consisted of rolling pastureland, thick-wooded hills, an acre-wide lake, and a view of the Milky Way that would have a nonbeliever swearing he sees angels. We named that paradise Emotive Acres, a tribute of land’s ability to stir us to our very core. Craigslist also led us to a beautiful sorrel filly for one hundred fifty dollars, and a gelding, a mare, a stallion and another filly were soon to follow. Immediately thereafter another Craigslist ad for an ATV fell into our laps, and kittens, cows, sheep and more are soon to come.

We found our Emotive Acres in the midst of an economic recession, during which old ways of thinking were being forced into revision as jobs were lost, homes were seized, and simple comforts like food and heat were becoming unaffordable. Our pockets felt same blow that everyone else’s did, and our family clung together in a community fear of the unknown. As a kid, I watched my post-Depression grandparents hide cans of food in every nook and cranny of their household, terrified of another national economic disaster. My generation endured a similar disaster, but could no longer afford the cans of food. But we could afford seeds, and we could afford worms. We were willing to get our hands dirty, to do what we had to for the security of our children.

This is the true “grass roots movement,” for which I believe our generation will be remembered. City people and suburbanites like my family are moving outward, returning to our divinely-declared role as stewards of the earth. In doing so, we bring new green – the green of the city dollar – to those who need it most. We have been humbled; our ironclad capitalism has exposed its chinks. It is now the people, those who make things with their hands and provide services with their skill, who are stepping back from the brink of economic disaster. The entrepreneurs, the altruists, the hard workin’ men and women are reaching out to one another and creating a community safety net. We don’t recover from disaster by having a fortune showered upon us; we do it dollar by dollar, classified ad by classified ad. Anything else would allow us to avoid the lesson the disaster was meant to teach. Because my family dedicated our energy to the nurturing of worms, we created a reality of delicious fish dinners and juicy organic produce. Having secured our endless supply of loaves and fishes, we opened ourselves up to the miracles that were bestowed upon us. The human race may not have evolved from the earthworm, but the earthworm may indeed be what saves us.