Cumin

“When a farmer plows for planting, does he plow continually? Does he keep on breaking up and working the soil? When he has leveled the surface, does he not sow caraway and scatter cumin? His God instructs him and teaches him the right way. Caraway is not threshed with a sledge, nor is the wheel of a cart rolled over cumin; caraway is beaten out with a staff, and cumin with a stick. Grain must be ground to make break; so one does not go on threshing it forever. The wheels of a threshing cart may be rolled over it, but one does not use horses to grind grain.”  Isaiah 28:24-28

This passage is easy to gloss over unless you apply the context of the metaphor. Growing up in the Midwest, my farming father knew when to plow the field, when to plant the corn, when to harvest the corn, and how to harvest the corn. “Knee-high by Fourth of July” was the adage I learned, which meant the corn was getting an adequate amount of rain; there’s been rain and sun, and things are going—or growing—as scheduled. As a child, I grew to expect to see the massive combines working late into the night, their lights shining down rows of cornstalks yet to be harvested, the cool October nights descending with dark. Many years later, as a mom with children of my own, it was a neat experience to be able to send my children out to ride with Papa for a couple rounds in the combine. During a fall visit, it was natural to expect one might get a combine ride. How would Dad know when to harvest the corn? A good farmer knows.

Hay, on the other hand, would be harvested by first mowing the field with the haybine. Windrows would be make with the rake, making it easier to fit into the baler. If Dad was chopping the hay, he would make narrower swaths and then sometimes invert the swath to help it dry. How would he know which method to use? A farmer knows.

In this passage, the cumin seeds would have been harvested with a stick sturdy enough to bat the dried pods. Likewise, one wouldn’t have to work hard or use heavy machinery to harvest caraway; when the season was right and the caraway had dried enough, a rod would  be an appropriate tool with which to shake the seeds off. How would he know which method to use? A farmer knows.

The point is, like the farmer who knows the crop they are planting and when to harvest their crop, I too want to position myself in such a way as to hear from God, so that I am bearing fruit “in season” and allowing Him to mentor my growth during rest seasons, as well. We don’t need to grow restless, wondering if He is harvesting our efforts; if our intentions are fixed on Him, we can trust Him for the process. He is a farmer that knows.

The cumin most of us are familiar with resembles a dill plant, with its delicate umbelled flowers trouncing on top a swooping stalk. A friend of my son’s walked in our home one day, side door coming into my kitchen, saying “Ah, it smells like the Custers!” I can think of no finer a compliment than smelling like cumin, which I had been cooking with! Its earthy, wholesome aroma is grounding, and I use it to lend flavor to avocados, rice, quinoa, and many such things! Where black cumin seed from Nigella Sativa (in some translations noted as caraway)is touted to be a panacea of health wonders, it is a similar to our traditional cumin of Indian cuisine only in name.           

“Being a farmer means beings willing to learn. For example, we started to cut hay earlier because the earlier hay was more palatable and more nutritious than mature hay. With the advancement of hybrid seeds, crops were planted earlier. Being a farmer, you learned from your mistakes. Kind of like being a Christian; you never stop growing and learning.”

~Jerry Huset, from a Midwest Century Farm