Fall semester was very busy, yet very fulfilling. School demands this spring semester should be less, but I still have lots of writing and editing to do on journal articles. In January, however, I was able to get back in touch with one of my favorite poets, Wendell Berry. I re-read my favorite book of his poetry, read another book about him, and found another article in the seminary library, just by luck. I would like to share this amazing person with whoever reads this stuff, because he is just as touching and relevant today as he was decades ago:
Born in Henry County, Kentucky, in 1934, Wendell Berry's grandparents were depression-era farmers. He witnessed the “old farming” to the tractor-driven “new farming,” with all the promises of mechanization. He attended the University of Kentucky and received a BA in 1956 and an MA in 1957, which opened his literary career. He started writing about Henry County from a distance. He then studied at Stanford with novelist Wallace Stegner, a “formative figure for writing about rural roots.” Berry lived in Italy, and then lived and taught in New York at NY University. Thus, his journey was toward “urban America,” from the west coast to the east coast, away from the heartland.
Yet, about the age of 30, Berry returned to the farm. At first, it was for weekend retreats with his wife and children; then the farm became a “whole-hearted investment,” a complete change in his life. He decided to dwell “in the farm,” not just “on it” or “at it.” He began new thinking about what human beings are really called to. His move “back home” was not a romantic endeavor; it was a rediscovery of life itself. Going “back home” brought several concerns to the forefront which began to reveal themselves in his essays, speeches, in his fiction. His main concern was the “unsustainability of our culture’s casual relationship to the land, to the community and to the past.” His rich poetry began in the 1970’s where he celebrates the basic elements of the local community: marriage, household and place. His cultural observations began to take shape as more than just social criticism.
Wendell Berry is never simplistic; he does not call for us to leave technology and join a rural community. He stresses the integrity between the values we confess and the life we lead. His ideas are like a patchwork quilt, an old quilt, still pleasing to the senses and also still surprisingly useful. Berry’s triad of health-disease-healing resonates strongly with the familiar Reformed world view of creation-fall-redemption. “Health” is Berry’s aspiration for the world “as it should be,” the wholeness and the abiding goodness that is the object of all true longing. With “disease,” Berry points to the displacement, disconnection, and disorientation that we must struggle against at every juncture, lest we be moved away from God, the earth, and ourselves. “Healing” involves recounting what has been lost and reconciling our fragmented selves to both Creator and creation. Healing is a progression toward the desired end: wholeness.
Berry's words are consistent with the call of the gospel, and the commands of Jesus. His words of life are not unlike John 15:9-13 ("My command is this, love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends”). Were we to love all of God's creation more, love each other more, and even ourselves more (as creatures of God), this world would be a better place. Berry calls us to bring healing into a "diseased" world, to “practice resurrection” (never thought of it as a verb before).
Sit back, rest. Think about a green meadow and a "timbered choir" of trees, their long shadows casting coolness in the bright sun (what a picture on a day like this):
Slowly, slowly, they return,
To the small woodland let alone:
Great trees, outspreading and upright,
Apostles of the living light.
Patient as stars, they build in air
Tier after tier a timbered choir,
Stout beams upholding weightless grace
Of song, a blessing on this place.
They stand in waiting all around,
Uprisings of their native ground,
Downcomings of a distant light;
They are the advent they await.
Receiving sun and giving shade,
Their life's a benediction said
Over the living and the dead.
In fall their brightened leaves, released,
Fly down the wind, and we are pleased
To walk on radiance, amazed.
O light come down to earth, be praised!
