{"id":217,"date":"2009-09-22T12:30:00","date_gmt":"2009-09-22T12:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2009\/09\/going-organic.html"},"modified":"2009-09-22T12:30:00","modified_gmt":"2009-09-22T12:30:00","slug":"going-organic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/09\/going-organic.html","title":{"rendered":"Going Organic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Organic is all the rage these days. Organic food, organic clothing, organic coffee. I make a point of buying organic milk and chicken. I try for organic veggies too. <\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Perhaps it&#8217;s because of the popularity of organic farming that I have been applying the word &#8220;organic&#8221; to other aspects of my life as well. For example, I was thinking yesterday that I want my writing career to develop organically. Naturally. And at first, I thought that I should &#8220;just write&#8221; and not think about who was reading it or how to get more people to read it, that I should just wait for connections to come my way, wait to be discovered, so to speak. But then I realized that if farmers left their crops in the ground without any cultivation, they wouldn&#8217;t grow. Even if tended without chemicals, they must be tended. Natural growth, and organic growth, in other words, are not the same thing. Left to nature, the crops would get choked, or eaten, or wither up. <\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>I think about raising my children. To raise them naturally would be to allow their natural instincts to drive their decisions. Which means Penny would hit William. A lot. Which means William would soon enough sit on her and pound her. Which means they would harm each other and themselves, over and over again. Natural parenting.  Not a good idea. <\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>On the other hand, when it comes to writing or parenting or food, manipulation is not a good idea either. It&#8217;s tempting. If I manipulate the market for potential readers (by writing what I think people want to hear, whether or not it is true, for instance) or if I manipulate my children (&#8220;If you stop hitting William, you&#8217;ll get a special treat&#8221;) or when farmers manipulate food with pesticides and other chemicals, the rewards on the front end are great. But the long term harm is obvious as well.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>So I don&#8217;t want natural growth, and I don&#8217;t want manipulative growth. I&#8217;m going organic. Thoughtful cultivation of an audience for writing. Thoughtful cultivation of my children&#8217;s attitudes and interactions. Thoughtful cultivation of this life. <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Organic is all the rage these days. Organic food, organic clothing, organic coffee. I make a point of buying organic milk and chicken. I try for organic veggies too. Perhaps it&#8217;s because of the popularity of organic farming that I have been applying the word &#8220;organic&#8221; to other aspects of my life as well. For&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-down-syndrome"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Going Organic - Thin Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/09\/going-organic.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Going Organic - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Organic is all the rage these days. Organic food, organic clothing, organic coffee. I make a point of buying organic milk and chicken. I try for organic veggies too. Perhaps it&#8217;s because of the popularity of organic farming that I have been applying the word &#8220;organic&#8221; to other aspects of my life as well. For&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/09\/going-organic.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-09-22T12:30:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"amyjuliabecker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Going Organic - Thin Places","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/09\/going-organic.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Going Organic - Thin Places","og_description":"Organic is all the rage these days. Organic food, organic clothing, organic coffee. I make a point of buying organic milk and chicken. I try for organic veggies too. Perhaps it&#8217;s because of the popularity of organic farming that I have been applying the word &#8220;organic&#8221; to other aspects of my life as well. For&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/09\/going-organic.html","og_site_name":"Thin Places","article_published_time":"2009-09-22T12:30:00+00:00","author":"amyjuliabecker","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/09\/going-organic.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/09\/going-organic.html","name":"Going Organic - Thin Places","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-09-22T12:30:00+00:00","dateModified":"2009-09-22T12:30:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/09\/going-organic.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/09\/going-organic.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/09\/going-organic.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Going Organic"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/","name":"Thin Places","description":"Amy Julia Becker on Faith, Family, and Disability","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b","name":"amyjuliabecker","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","caption":"amyjuliabecker"},"description":"Amy Julia Becker writes about theology, disability, family, and culture. Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}