Mr. Wendell Berry of Kentucky

Blog Watch: Wendell Berry and Church

There’s been a bit of discussion around the absence of an ecclesiology in Berry’s writing.  It seems that the Church is often depicted as something negative. Pastors, especially those “professionals” who move from church to church, get the same treatment.  What are we to make of this?

First, I don’t think Berry’s biggest issue is with Christianity or the Church in general terms, but with a gnostic theology that has crept into the church – a theology that has disembodied and displaced its adherents.  The problem, first and foremost, is any church which has an ‘otherworldly’ focus and causes men and women to abscond from their responsibilities to this good earth.

via dougsikkema.wordpress.com

Blog Watch: "An afternoon with Wendell Berry"

I've written about Wendell Berry before. This past Saturday I was able to see him for the first time. There's something rather fascinating about stepping into a small town along the Ohio River, where the community has a yearly book club. Can you imagine walking to get the mail and asking your neighbor, "Have you read the book yet?" Or asking fellow parishioners, the grocery store clerk or the mailman?

So, this is the small town community I traveled to for this particular event -- a book club with the author.

Wendell Berry, with his sparkling blue eyes, incredible wisdom concerning the reality of our world and his dose of hope amidst the craziness of modernity addressed us all in the public library. (If they had more people than the room could hold, arrangements had already been made for all present to walk a few feet to the church, which could accommodate more.) And with his 77 years of experience of living, Mr. Berry proceeded to share some thoughts, many instigated by questions from the audience.

 

via unshakeablehope.blogspot.com

Click the via link to read more and several comments by Mr. Berry from this occasion.

Blog Watch: Anticipation builds for "Wendell Berry and Washington, DC"

So, you know April is National Poetry Month.  But did you also know April is the month Wendell Berry will give the Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities in DC?  And did you also know that I have tickets?  I'm working feverishly to make the schedule and the work stuff and the family and the money shake down because I am committed to getting myself to this monumental event in the life of one of my heroes.  If you live in DC, give me a shout!  I'll be there the 23rd of April.

via wordyevidenceofthefact.blogspot.com

I note that this is not me (Br. Tom). While I will be in DC in June, I won't be there in April and will have to experience Mr. Berry's talk through the lenses of other, more fortunate folk.

Blog Watch: "Wendell Berry: A New Language of Place"

Berry believes that this exodus from the countryside has been ideologically backed by “diseased thinking” (The Art of the Commonplace) which has encouraged people to abscond from their responsibilities to a place.  In his writings, Berry elucidates four elements of the diseased mind which alienate people from each other, themselves, and the earth: 1) a pernicious dualism between body and mind, where the mind is to be privileged over the body and subsequently the land; 2) an unwavering faith that technological progress will increase human happiness by freeing humans from the drudgery of physical work; 3) reductionist metaphors of humanity and nature as complex machinery; and 4) a hubristic notion that given enough time humanity can (and will) know everything.  Berry’s writing continually envisions the negative ramifications each idea has had for how we treat ourselves, each other, and our place.

via dougsikkema.wordpress.com

Blog Watch: Wendell Berry, Sanity, and Ministry

Wendell Berry reminds me that there is a life outside of strictly defined political lines. He maintains a commitment to a different set of criteria than what I am fed day in and day out through news outlets and ad campaigns. Wendell Berry preaches a message that is so different that he can’t be claimed by the forces of the political machine. He speaks too much truth to be condemned and yet remains far to dangerous to be claimed by either side. Wendell Berry offers a narrative that isn’t framed by issues of conservative vs liberal. He offers a narrative framed by community and location. In a world that seeks to solve the problems of society in broad strokes Wendell Berry insists on making small jots and tittles that he makes on each of his handwritten manuscripts that have managed to infect my life, my ministry, my convictions, and even my capacity to hope again.

via www.theorant.com

Of Interest: "Berea College-Local Foods Leader"

First you should understand that Berea is not your common college.  They are one of only seven colleges that are federally recognized as Work Colleges in the United States.  At a work college, students offset the cost of tuition by working on campus.  Student workers might serve food in the dining hall, maintain campus grounds, haul compost or participate in other forms of labor that varies from college to college but students gain valuable life lessons while reducing college debt.  Students take note!

via mysustainableadventures.wordpress.com

From "Sustainability, Wendell Berry and Confucius"

Wendell Berry, one of the original proponents of the principle of sustainability and a major social critic of 20th and now 21st century American society, has made surprisingly repeated references to Confucius and Confucian writings in his works. I say "surprisingly" because Berry, at first glance, might not seem like someone who would find a complement to his own ideas on American culture and community as well as his Christian faith in a source seemingly so far removed as the writings of the Confucian tradition

via www.huffingtonpost.com

Blog Watch: "Eating as as Spiritual Act (Part 1)

These are the first of my notes from a wonderful presentation I attended yesterday, entitled “The Spirituality of Stewardship, Sustainability, and Food”. It was held at the holy Rothko Chapel and featured Dr. Norman Wirzba of Duke (author of Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating) as well as some Texan farmers and one pastor who are advocates for sustainability. But it was Wirzba’s talk which garnered the bulk of my note-taking, since he & I are simpatico.

via foodievangelist.wordpress.com

The article reflects on a presentation in Houston on March 10 by Norman Wirzba.

Blog Watch: "Oral History, Wendell Berry, and Memory as Membership "

The many transformations reveal that this property is a product of hard work.  The beauty of this place bears the image of my parents as well as their parents.   Their long labour of love for gardening, coupled with their even longer love for labour, has made this place what it is today.   Berry would praise their ”wisdom” for “standing like slow-growing trees on a ruined place,” enriching it with the responsibility that is required to transform any place into a home.  

via davesikkema.wordpress.com

Blog Watch: Reflecting on "the power of thinking little'

Way back in the early 1970s, the US writer and farmer Wendell Berry wrote a prescient essay entitled ‘Think Little’. In it he argues that we have got so used to everything being done on a large scale – food production, government, protest movements – that we have lost sight of the fact that ‘there is no public crisis that is not also private’. He writes passionately about the importance of anyone who is concerned about the big problems of the day to start by ‘thinking little’.

via joannadobson.wordpress.com