Why God made farmers

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, September 4th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from member-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. On Friday we paid tribute to one of the all-time greats in radio history—Paul Harvey. You  know today would be his 100th birthday.

EICHER: Kent Covington did a terrific job, I thought, and so did a good number of you who wrote in to say so.

Paul Harvey had many memorable commentaries over the years, but one in particular has gained popularity over the decades. Harvey originally delivered it in a 1978 speech, then wrote about it a few years later.

More recently, the Chrysler Corporation introduced it to a new generation a 2013 Super Bowl commercial for its Dodge brand.

It’s called “So God Made a Farmer.”

PAUL HARVEY: And on the 8th day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, “I need a caretaker.” So God made a Farmer.

God said, “I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper, then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board.” So God made a Farmer.

“I need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle a calf and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild; somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to wait lunch until his wife’s done feeding visiting ladies, then tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon — and mean it.” So God made a Farmer.

God said, “I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt,  and watch it die, then dry his eyes and say, ‘Maybe next year.’ I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from a persimmon sprout, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire, who can make harness out of haywire, feed sacks and shoe scraps; who, planting time and harvest season, will finish his forty-hour week by Tuesday noon, and then pain’n from tractor back,’ put in another seventy-two hours.” So God made a Farmer.

God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain clouds, and yet stop in mid-field and race to help when he sees the first smoke from a neighbor’s place. So God made a Farmer.

God said, “I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bails, yet gentle enough to tame lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink-combed pullets, who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the broken leg of a meadowlark.”

It had to be somebody who’d plow deep and straight and not cut corners; somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk and replenish the self-feeder and finish a hard week’s work with a five-mile drive to church; somebody who would bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh, and then sigh, and then reply, with smiling eyes, when his son says that he wants to spend his life “doing what dad does.” So God made a Farmer.

(Jeff Horner/Walla Walla Union-Bulletin via AP, File) In this July 16, 2012, file photo, a rainbow shines over a sun-bathed wheat field east of Walla Walla, Wash. 

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.