The Spirit of a Piece of Land: Nearer My God to Thee

Sue and I own a sloping patch of land in central Missouri where we have a small, 50-year-old weekend cabin on the shore of the Lake of the Ozarks, a sprawling, man-made, spider of a body of water, created by the damming of the Osage River back in 1931 and dotted now with houses and jet skis. But it’s a nice quiet getaway, especially this time of year, when the crowds and most of the loud boats have disappeared for the season. It’s our favorite time of year.

The dam created one of the Midwest’s favorite (and most beautiful!) summer playgrounds, but it no doubt took with it the history and culture of those who lived here before, and I do think of that often. What exactly was right here on our little plot before the dam I cannot say. Maybe just a shady corner of a majestic and ancient forest akin to that which still exists as you move in all directions away from the lake, but perhaps more. Maybe someone’s home, someone’s church, someone’s grave.

And before then? Before the coming of the white man? Perhaps where I sit right now typing on my laptop a young tough-skinned Osage Indian crouched in his very first hunt, his bow drawn and his eyes locked on a 16-point buck making its way gingerly through the trees to drink from a sliver of a stream.

The point is this: We don’t really own the land. We are given the blessing of calling bits and pieces of it “home” for a while, but it belongs to the creator and to the lives of all who have touched it and worked it and walked it over the years.

When Indiana singer-songwriter (and actor and hay farmer) Tim Grimm and his wife, Jan Lucas, bought their 80-acre farm just outside of Columbus, Indiana, they became fascinated with the deed to the land, a leather-bound document with the names of all the landowners who’d ever called the piece of ground “home.”

Tim, a gifted writer and storyteller, began to imagine the lives of those who held the deed before him, beginning with the first owner in the mid-1800s, a man named Bailey Needham. As the woman who sold the land to Tim and Jan handed them the keys, she told them that what she would miss most was walking the boundary line (that’s a quarter mile by a half mile). That’s all Tim needed to finish the song, which he gave me permission to reprint here.

But you really need to hear Tim sing it, so after you read this, please visit Tim’s website and treat yourself to his new CD, “Farm Songs,” which includes this song and about a dozen others that celebrate the connection we all need to find with the land, its history and its creator.

80 Acres

Words & music by Tim Grimm

It’s been five hundred seasons since the feet of Bailey Needham
walked this ground and deemed it a place to settle down
and in his eyes was purpose and in his hands was fire
and in his heart he knew somehow that this was hallowed ground.

So with some determination and a one-man crosscut saw
Bailey cleared a cabin site early in the fall.
He felt a peace within him as he came to work and toil
with care and understanding growing values in the soil.

And everyday at sunrise, he’d walk the boundary line
and on little bits of paper, he’d make notes from time to time
and he came to know the seasons as he came to know the land
and he swore no place that he would rather be
than walkin’ through the tall grass
nearer my God to thee.

William Gresham had a daughter, her name was Cora Logan
a wide-eyed girl of wonder and recent wife of James.
When William died he left her the deed to 80 acres
and the wisdom of tradition to survive the Depression’s pains.

So with 10 fine cows, a flock of hens and buildings straight and true
her sons would hoe the corn with her and pick blackberries, too.
The water in their springs would run the whole year ‘round
and her husband’s handmade hickory chairs were favorites in the town.

And everyday at sunrise, she’d walk the boundary line
and on little bits of paper, she’d make notes from time to time
and she came to know the seasons as she came to know the land
and she swore no place that she would rather be
than walkin’ through the tall grass
nearer my God to thee.

Well I don’t pretend to own it, but this paper says it’s mine
this farm is a long memory walkin’ back in time
through the generations, whose hopes were not in vain
to live a life in harmony, well I hope to do the same.

With history in our favor, we’ve set out on a course
the ghost of Bailey Needham is a gentle guiding force.
Though what we do and how we live might seem against the grain
freedom is finding beauty in the simple and the plain

And everyday at sunrise, we walk the boundary line
and on little bits of paper, we make notes from time to time
and we’ve come to know the seasons as we’ve come to know the land
and we swear no place that we would rather be
than walkin’ through the tall grass
nearer my God to thee.

© 2000 Steel Cabinet Publishing BMI