Listen and look: Wendell Berry reading his The Peace of Wild Things . . . just beautiful. And there is more where that came from.
Listening to one of my favorite podcasts, Speaking of Faith, while taking a long walk yesterday
morning, I was struck again by how coherent the voices are if we have the ears
for them. Ellen Davis, professor of “Bible and Practical Theology at Duke
University, talks about the theological underpinnings of caring for the land.
She recalls the repetition of the phrase “God saw that it was good” as creation
unfolded and said it could be translated as “God saw how beautiful it was.” Embedded
in the interview are recordings of Wendell Berry reading his poetry in that
slow, careful manner in which poetry must be read. The poet’s voice, and the word arrangement
on the page, are created things – things
that take their time and must be taken in slowly to actually receive them. Davis
remarks that Wendell Berry has said that “poetry cannot be read in
distraction” and that whatever slows us down must be valued “and maybe is a
gift and even a calling from God.”
Don’t all
wise people say something like this? That we must be present to the place we inhabit in order to remember the place we hold in the order of things? Who do we
think we are? That’s the question that comes to mind – often in my own mother’s
chiding voice. That persistent question,
gentled by poetry and the beauty of created things, asked by philosophers and
the God-bothered since the beginning of time apparently, only becomes more
urgent - in our own personal, ever-dwindling lives, but also in the lives of
all created things at a time like this. What is our place here in the order of
things, one of many creatures, lost in creation? How do we live what we learn in life – that what we do matters, that what we need is here, that we are all
in this together – in our concrete and particular lives now?
I survey my
little place here , striolling past the parking lot garden of sunflowers and
pepper struggling to stay alive in sterile, formerly “Rounded-Up” soil, past
the bees that have built a hive beneath the sidewalk near the underground water
meter, the mockingbird on the sign, the squirrel racing recklessly across the
street. I am the one cursed and gifted with the realization of the need for
clean water and air and healthy food and a place to live for all of us, and for
those that come after us. Even here in a little urban corner of a minor southern city, I must ask myself where I belong in this and what my role is in
caring for it. “The possession of land was never as important as the care of
land in ancient Israel,” Davies tells us.
“We have put our priorities on physical possession and somehow thought
that the questions of care would take care of themselves or someone else would
take care of that . . . Now we’ve sort of come up against the wall and maybe
the best thing we can say about ourselves at this point is we’re reaching the
end of that delusion.”
To let go of
our delusions, especially that delusion of separateness which manifests itself
in abnegation of responsibility and in finger-pointing at times, but also in a sad and
resigned aloneness. We are to wake up,
open our eyes, take this in slowly, see that we belong to it and it to us. To love it.
It’s what they all say.
I heard that same podcast, and adored it, too!
Posted by: Jessica Zolondek | June 15, 2010 at 09:15 PM