I am reading a collection of Wendell Berry’s work and I am constantly in awe of how his words connect with the idea that we are trapped in a world with certain inescapable realities, like technological progress and money, and how we need to get back to nature. And he was writing about these themes 50 years ago and they still resonate today, perhaps even more so.
The poems are melancholic but also full of hope, infused with faith and nature connection. He appears to be a man lost in time, mourning a world that is already gone, but someone who has so much love and respect for all sacred life, a person who appreciates how nature can give us the ultimate perspective.
“It has gathered all accidents into its purpose.” Wendell Berry
There is also great life advice within the pages, these words remind us of the power of just being, offer us guidance that many things are out of our control, and her reminds me that we can learn so much by considering the lilies and listening to the larks singing.
The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives might be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief.
I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
The World Outside the Window 