Mr. Wendell Berry of Kentucky

Wendell Berry and American Catholics

I am a long-time reader and admirer of the work of Wendell Berry.  On April 23, I was privileged to be among those in attendance at the Kennedy Center to hear his 2012 Jefferson Lecture.  With Berry nearing the end of his career, I had not expected to hear anything particularly new from him that evening.  His talk met these modest expectations, though I must concede that the lecture fell short of most of his published expressions of his commitment to the virtues of family farming and small-scale community life.  I must also confess that I was surprised by his decision to address these perennial themes through what appeared to be a very personal dual between his tobacco-farming grandfather and tobacco baron, James B. Duke, president of the American Tobacco Company (and major patron of Duke University). I was more surprised still by the venomous attack on Berry’s address by Matthew J. Franck on the website of First Things.  Berry clearly touched a raw nerve (or the guilty conscience) of a certain kind of Catholic and a certain kind of American.  Where one stands on Berry says a lot about where one stands on Catholicism and America, or more precisely on Catholicism in America.

via www.crisismagazine.com

"The Affections of Wendell Berry" at American Spectator

After 2012 Jefferson Lecturer Wendell Berry, of Port Royal, Kentucky, received a standing ovation, the chairman of the National Endowment for Humanities Jim Leach rose to remind the audience that Mr. Berry's words did not reflect the official policy of the U.S. government.

Like we needed to be reminded.

After all, Berry's is one of the wisest and sanest voices in America today. His more than 50 books of poetry, fiction, and essays are full of bitter medicine for what ails American society, and the only sweetener is his earthy prose. I challenge you to find one kind word about Washington in any of his works.

As the drawling spokesman for everything local and regional, Berry's affection thins as it widens. He cherishes first and foremost his family and family farm. The town of Port Royal and Henry County figure somewhere a little further down the list. But the entity known as the USA is about as significant to Berry as Timbuktu. As for our nation's capital: "[I]n my best moments I am not aware of the existence of the government."

via spectator.org

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: "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

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

Wendell Berry and Others Taken to the Woodshed in "Why eco-activists love His Royal Hystericalness"

As for oil, it is only of importance as a source of energy - and we have lots of different sources of energy at our disposal. After years of falling energy prices, the current relatively high prices have spurred a new round of exploration and innovation. In his foreword to Charles’s speech, the American author and activist Wendell Berry bizarrely claims that we face a shortage of fertiliser in the future as natural gas (one of the inputs used to make fertiliser) runs out. Perhaps Berry should get out more: the ‘shale gas revolution’ has turned the US from a gas importer to a gas exporter; in fact, America has just overtaken Russia to become the world’s No.1 producer of natural gas. It is becoming increasingly clear that there won’t be a problem with fossil fuels running out in the foreseeable future and no shortage of fertiliser, either.

via www.spiked-online.com

from "Three Reasons Christians Should Read and Enjoy Wendell Berry"

When you pick up a book by Wendell Berry, don’t be surprised if the Kentucky soil of his home state falls out from in between the pages.  He is a man who writes with a deep sense of reverence for all of God’s blessings, especially those which we seem to take for granted.

My first Berry book was not one of his collections of essays or novels, but a book of his poems.  I received it in the mail the day before I left to go vacation to the Rockies and I sat on the deck of my cabin reading his poems as I looked out across the majesty of God’s creation. Berry gave a voice to the mountains, the snowfall, and the fresh air.  Truly, Wendell Berry is an advocate for that which grows, creaks, breathes, and dies.

via thestrife.com

from "Eternal Beings Living in Time: On Wendell Berry’s “Jayber Crow”

The principles Berry argues for in his essays with the rigorous logic of a legal brief are tenderly brought to life in his novels and short stories, which are all set in and around the fictional village of Port William, Kentucky. The title character in Jayber Crow is not native to Port William. Jayber’s parents died when he was only three. Aging relatives in Squires Landing, a few miles from Port William, take him in, but several years later they die too. “I was a little past ten years old,” he says, “and I was the survivor already of two stories completely ended.” He is sent to an orphanage in central Kentucky, and doesn’t return to the area until he drops out of college and goes looking for “a loved life to live.”

via www.patheos.com

On reading Wendell Berry's Andy Catlett

Berry is interesting to me because he is so simple. He doesn't spend a thousand pages developing his characters like Dostoevsky. He doesn't overflow with witty banter like Austen and Wilde. He doesn't weave intricate, sometimes surprising plots like the Bronte sisters or Dickens. He doesn't create fantastical worlds like Tolkien, Lewis, or, more recently, Wilson.

And yet his simplicity is every bit a piece of perfection.

via thoughtsaftergod.blogspot.com