ORIGIN STORY: The Sunshine Farm

Garden of Sustenance

The vision came on a dark October night in 2003. I was driving past Rocky Reach dam. I was to move back home to our family apple orchard. For the next ten years I toiled. Ultimately the vision died, but something far better grew up instead.

From filmmaking to farming

I remember the moment even now. I had just finished presenting my documentary, Broken Limbs, in Wenatchee. As I passed the twinkling lights of the dam, a flash of insight. I was to return home to our family orchard and create:

A sustainable, multi-crop farm
A cohousing community, and
An institute and learning center.

The vision for the Sunshine Farm and the Sunshine Institute was born.

Initiation:

In 2004, I planted the first organic vegetable patch. We sold basil and tomatoes at the fruit stand. The next year we doubled the production. The following year we quadrupled. By 2006, we had a vegetable CSA. A small group had formed to begin planning the co-housing community. I started initial fundraising for the Sunshine Institute. We had begun.

Today, it’s easy to see the train wreck my younger self was approaching. I was blind to my own strength of persuasion. This ability to communicate (which serves me well now) was a barreling locomotive. A whole slew of people were hooked up behind, following my lead. But the tracks eventually ended.

Wreckage:

The vision didn’t come to pass. It was Herculean in size. My ability to build a team sufficient to the task, minuscule. No matter how eloquent the expression, no matter how dedicated the effort, it wasn’t enough.

The harm inflicted by the wreckage extended into my personal life as well. Strained relationships.Broken relationships. A decade after arriving back at the farm, I admitted defeat.

Restart:

I’m happy to report those dark days have passed. And I want to say these next words with care. There comes a moment in a person’s life when they realize their inadequacy – their dependency. Some learn it quickly. Some suffer along a good while under other illusions.

The grand vision of the farm failed. But in its failure, I learned my dependency.

This next confession will need to wait for another post, or maybe a book someday, to be explained. I’ve come to lean on a Jewish carpenter. From the ashes of my destruction, a new life emerged. Two words now form the tilth of my soil – Jesus Christ – and from them a garden of sustenance I could have never imagined.