Wendell Berry died last week and I’ve thought about him every day since.  He was a writer of essays, poetry, and fiction.  For a while, he was also a teacher of writers.  He was also a farmer, having moved back to his family’s home area in Henry County, Kentucky.   

He ended one poem, “Below” with these words:

“What I stand for
is what I stand on.”

And that was true.  His relationship with the land, the particularities of place and people, informed everything he believed and wrote about.

I was most immersed in his writings about 15 years ago.  I was pondering my own relationship with land and place and people and vocation.  Having grown up on a farm myself, having loved the labor but never seriously considered the occupation, his words never failed, never fail, to evoke a deep longing.  For me, that might be the longing for the integration of the child I was and the adult I’ve become.  Or the integration of all that matters most about which he wrote so well – place and family and work and community.  I want to love how he loved, where I am, and speak honestly of the joyful struggles to do so.

I think this is a lifelong task, and I think Wendell Berry was a faithful guide.  I think, I hope, his words will haunt me and many, in the best sense, for many years to come.     

Joel