Reading
“For as in one body we have many members and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.”
Romans 12:4-5
Reflection
In seminary, I kept coming across the name Wendell Berry in books and in conversation with friends, and I finally decided to pick up a copy. His work changed the way I see the world.
Wendell Berry died this week at age 92. He was a farmer, poet, novelist, essayist, and cultural critic. He is often described as an agrarian thinker, seeing deep connections between the way we relate to the natural world and the way we relate to other people. He was a rising star in the literary world, but after teaching two years at New York University, he decided to move back to Kentucky to work on his small family farm.
Thankfully, he continued writing on his typewriter, publishing dozens of books of poetry, essays, and fiction. His fiction tells the stories of the community of Port William, Kentucky. He referred to the community—the people, town, land, flora, and fauna—as the “Port William membership,” recognizing that the various members of the community are part of a larger whole.
The choice of the word membership demonstrates something of Berry’s concept of what it means to be human, part of a community and part of the earth. As Paul writes in Romans 12, “we are members of one another.”
As we reflect this week on making loving decisions, I invite you to reflect on one of Berry’s poems, “How to Be a Poet.” While few of us, I assume, consider ourselves poets, we can all learn from the way he invites us to be stewards of our attention. Attention, after all, is at the forefront of what it means to love.
How to Be a Poet
(To remind myself)Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill – more of each
than you have – inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your poems,
doubt their judgment.Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.
Prayer
Lord of Creation,
You created the world and all that is in it,
And you have made us all members of one another.
Help us to love all we share membership with—
The earth, plants, creatures, and other humans—
So that we might live in love
With all your creation.
Amen.
