Dear Church Community,
The farmer poet Wendell Berry died last week, and I hope he’s enjoying the company of Dolly Parton and Gloria Steinem. I don’t know what happens after we die, but good people reveling in one another’s company is my idea of heaven.
Many of you are familiar with the poem, Wild Geese, by Mary Oliver (perhaps she’s hanging out with them as well). But did you know Wendell Berry also wrote a poem by that name?
This is especially meaningful to me, since I just returned from a long weekend at the Wild Goose Festival in North Carolina. “The Goose” is an incredible annual gathering of progressive Christians and other open-minded (and hearted) spiritual seekers, artists, musicians, and social justice warriors. Ever since it started in 2013, the festival has featured two large wooden boards painted with the words to both Wild Geese poems. This year, amidst all that’s happening in our country and world, these words from Berry’s poem touched my heart:
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear,
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye
clear. What we need is here.
What we need is here. Despite all the trauma and tragedy around us, “what we need is here.” We have each other. We know who we are. We know what matters to us. We know what we’re called to do. And in case we’re confused, Berry makes it plain in these words from another poem:
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.
“Practice resurrection,” he concludes.
May it be so.
Pastor Ellen