I have been associated with Glenmary as a volunteer for the past 20-plus years and was the Farm Manager from 1984 to 1985.  I remember my first “volunteer week” at the Farm—the summer after my sophomore year at Notre Dame—like it was yesterday. I can still hear Father Jerry Dorn reminding us: “Be still, and listen.” The peace Father Jerry spoke of did indeed come to me, and it has stayed with me ever since. 

In the years since I’ve left the Farm, I’ve returned often—sometimes in body, many more times in mind. I came to know God personally at the Farm and that has changed me.  At the Farm, I learned to do the “small things” in life with great love; to be present to others and really hear what they have to say; to see beyond the surface of others’ lives; and, most of all, to be still and allow God the time and space to speak to my spirit and move me. 

My life has taken many turns since my year as Farm manager, but whenever I feel that I’m “too busy” to listen to God and be still, I return to the Farm in my mind and I reconnect with the stillness of the Farm—and I am at peace again.  My time at the Farm helped me to see differently—to see others as worthy of respect and dignity (regardless of their education, material possessions or how “different” from me they might be) and to see myself as a channel for God to work through. When this vision gets clouded, I return to the Farm in my mind. 

The Farm still matters to me because it is a touchstone—of stillness, of seeing through different eyes, of giving God room to work through me.

If you would like to share why the Farm matters to you, e-mail your thoughts to farm@glenmary.org.