Appreciating Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry is willing to risk being called a curmudgeon to name something that we should be angry about. But his frustration and anger arise from affection because something beautiful and wonderful has been defaced. Berry’s thought reminds me of something I read by Cornelius Plantinga,  who wrote of the “vandalism of shalom.” Shalom is a term for the harmony and cooperation of humans, their land, and God, a local flourishing strengthened cooperation and embracing limits. Planting said that God is against sin because he for shalom

I admire Berry’s courage and non-conformity. Unlike so many politicians, Berry calls out the big corporations for destroying the environment and the local way of life. He is not afraid to embrace beauty, goodness, and truth out of fear of been called religious. Unlike so many preachers, Berry values the physical and doesn’t separate the Word from flesh. His character Jayber Crow, the seminarian-turned-barber of Port William, was frustrated by this tendency to hold “a very high opinion of God and a very low opinion of His works… They knew that the world would sooner or later deprive them of all it had given them, but still, they liked it.”

Read all of  "A Curmudgeon with a Sweet Song" by Mark J. Bair.