Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
... Practice Resurrection.
Resurrection. Recession. Reset.
That excerpt from Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front by Wendell Berry is framed in our Talkeetna outhouse; it's part of the decor in homage to nature, spirituality, and right living. When I read it this afternoon, I immediately connected it to two conversations we had with our friend Ellen this weekend. This morning she said she'd heard that our economy routinely needs a reset, and that's a less depressing word than depression. Last evening she was debunking the whole capitalist theory of the stock market and making money that you don't work for. She is a radical.
I looked up the entire poem and saw that Ellen and Wendell have thoughts in common.
I looked up the entire poem and saw that Ellen and Wendell have thoughts in common.
So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
I wonder what would happen if our economy reflected the values that Wendell Berry espouses in this poem: long-term thinking, care for the Earth, care for each other, .... Would the world economy be plummeting now, would my co-workers be losing their jobs, would I worry about whether or not my 401k is going to fund my retirement ... if our society wasn't based on buying, buying, and making money?
If you're ready to become a radical resurrectionist, read Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front by Wendell Berry in its entirety.
1 comment:
Nice photos on Laos........doesn't it make you want to go out traveling again and see? I get the travel bug too easily around here.... (and it is only Feb!) though, am taking off to Kodiak Island this Friday for some new sights and experiences, yahoo!
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