Thinking Out LoudWendell Berry was a poet, novelist and farmer. He died at 92 this week and wrote over 50 books by hand, and preferably with a pencil. He chose to live simply, where generations of his family lived, and attended his local Baptist Church in Kentucky. He was essentially a subsistence farmer, supplying 85% of his family’s needs from permaculture agriculture and livestock.
He took seriously that God loved the world (including nature) and taught a slow faith that celebrated local place, neighbourliness, and hospitality.
My favourite Berry quote was: ‘Rats and roaches live by competition under the law of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy.’
His death coincided with the terrible disaster in Nepal. And with that terrible tragedy still in the news, I watched our PM confronted at the Pacific Island leaders’ forum about the links between Australian policies and what Pacific leaders experienced as a looming existential crisis.
They asked: In Nepal, 30% of the glaciers have melted over the last 30 years. So why is Australia still subsidising and opening fossil fuel plants that Pacific Islands see as dooming them?
As I saw the PM squirm about our neighbourliness, I thought of another Wendell Berry quote: ‘Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is a party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.’
I shake my head after bushfires and heat waves this summer in Europe, a predicted El Niño headed for us this summer, and the Nepal glaciers melting and washing away lives.
We’ve lost a prophet in Wendell Berry. We’re poorer for it.
This Thinking Out Loud was first published on Facebook.
Source Image: CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 / Festival of Faiths via Flickr
Illustration: Centre for Public Christianity