Wendell Berry, Modern Life, and the Search for Home
Nathan (00:00)
Hello and welcome to Thinking Out Loud. I'm your co host, Nathan Rittenhouse.
Cameron (00:04)
I'm your co host, Cameron McAllister.
Nathan (00:05)
And today we want to talk about the life and work of Wendell Berry. I somebody was asking me to reflect on it, and something that came to mind was there's been this barb traded back and forth between the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech, which is the University of Virginia says, we have culture and Virginia Tech has agriculture. And so there's sort
Cameron (00:28)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (00:28)
of this a little bit of a hoity toy.
you know, we're the more cultural elites here and you're the agricultural school. but Wendellberry's work would have been massively on the side of Virginia Tech in saying that you can't have a culture without having agriculture, and you can't have a healthy view of ecology without having a healthy view. Everything for Wendellberry basically comes back to agricultural. And Jefferson, the founder of UVA, also would have been on Barry's side here. But what Wendellberry did was
kind of the tr typical academic trictory, University of Kentucky, Stanford, then a teacher at NYU, and then at age thirty was like, forget this. The academic city life isn't worth living and off to the hills to you know, live on a little farm in the mountains of Kentucky, but then just be a massive heavyweight in
Cameron (01:19)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (01:19)
cultural analysis, ecological thinking, probably one of the forerunning deep prophetic voices on environmental issues
And I would say deep environmental issues, not just like politically silly ones. and so there's a lot going on in his life there, but it does all come back to the land and the soil and agriculture one way or the other for Wendellberry and his work.
Cameron (01:43)
Yeah. Let me say a few things just to kind of make sense of the man. So if you're there's a good chance many of you listening are Wendell Berry fans and have read him, but if you haven't, making sense of Wendell Berry right now is a bit daunting because there are some key aspects about his life and some ironies here. The first irony, I think, is that Wendell Berry is so cool right now. I
Nathan (02:05)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (02:05)
think that came as quite not only a surprise, but a shock to Wendell Berry. He had labored away labored away but
for years as as a writer and had some some respect and notoriety, but really not that much public recognition and I would say until some of his later years. So just to place him in a context
Nathan (02:27)
Well, I mean he was born in thirty four and won and Obama gave him the national medal in like two thousand eleven. So I mean that's
Cameron (02:34)
Mm-hmm. Right.
Nathan (02:34)
a that's a pretty good chunk of your life. Not being
Cameron (02:37)
So
Nathan (02:39)
a Nobel laureate in poet poetry or whatever it was.
Cameron (02:42)
Right. So I mean, was was born in Kentucky from Henry County and I think eventually ended up s settling in the Port Royal area. But yeah, so it went to I think University of Kentucky and then
Nathan (02:55)
Kentucky for starters.
Cameron (02:57)
went to Stanford on a on a s on a Wallace Stegner, the writer foundation or fellowship. It was a fellowship. He went there. Never I think he had never left the state at that time. So that was his first time out west, but really
First time I think out of Kentucky. So very much a fish out of water. Wallet, yes.
Nathan (03:14)
But let me
wal while that just to make that transition, there
Cameron (03:18)
Yeah.
Nathan (03:18)
there were some things like if you go back and read his book The Hidden Wound on ra ra race relations in the
Cameron (03:22)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Nathan (03:24)
sixties. So here you have a young man coming straight out of Kentucky, landing at Stanford, who his observations during that time are phenomenal just because it is so much of a
I think that's what he brings is just sort of a cultural a a eloquent cultural shock analysis of wow, there's some very different things happening here and what's at the root of it all. So so we we wanna remember that all of his life all of his work is connected to his life very much. And so I just threw that in as an example
Cameron (03:52)
Definitely.
Nathan (03:53)
to interrupt you there on the Kentucky to Stanford trajectory.
Cameron (03:58)
And Wallace Stegner is an interesting figure in his life. If you watch inter interviews with with Wendell Berry about Wallace Stegner, the big influence that he had was that Stegner was one of the first writers to consider the place he was from. I think Stegner was from the Pacific Northwest, not just as something that that gave him his bearings as a writer, but also as something that was very important to.
understand himself and understand the world. And so that was something that Wendell Berry ended up doing with Kentucky and Wallace Stegner and yeah influenced him in that way. So I thought that was an interesting little tidbit. But
Nathan (04:38)
Yeah.
So let's see. So then he goes from Stanford to NYU, teaches there, and then I mean, so it's a pretty good academic trajectory lineup there, but it just makes a weird figure in that he can write a I mean, his command of the English language, if you if if you've never read his fiction even is very poetic. but he Cameron, he had the ability to write a poem about killing hogs and sticking a knife in the jugular vein.
of a hog and the entire audience applauding, listening to it's just like stuff like that where you're
Cameron (05:15)
Yeah. In New York.
Nathan (05:18)
like, he would never get away. Like you're like, what are we watching happen here? 'cause 'cause it's it's the it's the high academic elite training and vernacular brought down into the soil of Kentucky. And the fact that people love that combination means something.
Cameron (05:38)
Well what's fascinating is so
you mentioned something that just needs to be said. He's a first rate writer. So Wendell Berry in eventually I think with him it's the quality of his work that won over an audience. He's just such a darn good writer.
Nathan (05:52)
Well, and people really thought that his writing came out of an actual lived experience. So even his fiction
Cameron (05:57)
Yes.
Nathan (05:59)
anyway, w well we can get into that later, but
Cameron (06:01)
Well
that that's but that's another piece of piece that makes sometimes understanding Wendell Berry a little difficult if you're just beginning. So there's Wendell Berry, the essayist. And as the essayist, he is always compassionate, but he can be quite harsh. He actually made a lot of enemies as an essayist because he's a very uncompromising critic of some of the key aspects of our modern society, especially as it involves farming and basically the what
What Paul Kingsnorth would call the machine. All of those big industrialization,
Nathan (06:33)
Yeah, industrialization, yeah.
Cameron (06:35)
yeah, writ large that. But then there is Wendell Berry, the novelist. And this is where at least he's gaining more recognition in certain sort sort of more theologically conservative Christian circles. This is where I think a lot of people, if they have encountered him, have encountered him in the Port William series of books. So Hannah Coulter, Nathan Coulter, I Jaber Crow might be the most most famous among those.
Nathan (06:56)
Jaber Crow would be the mm. The memory
Voljack, A Place on Earth. Yeah, there are a number in that series.
Cameron (07:00)
I mean, they're all
they're all wonderful, by the way. These are all worth reading. And then there's start with Jaber Crow.
Nathan (07:05)
Start with Javer Crow if you're an initiate here.
Cameron (07:07)
Yeah, that's the place to go. Then there there is there there's Wendell Berry the poet. And if you're gonna start start with Sabbath poems, probably those are those are lovely. And then there's Wendell Berry also just who was, as his ancestors were, a farmer and bought a certain piece of land with his wife Tanya.
Initially, Nathan, I thought you probably know this. I thought this was this was hilarious because I was listening to an interview with him on the Stairmaster yesterday because that's how fun my life is. But he was talking about him and Tanya when they got that piece of land, they thought it was gonna be a weekend getaway. And, you know, he thought, I'll divide my time, you know, I'll teach at the University of Kentucky and then I'll come away here on the weekend. And it had some considerable
Fixes that needed to happen, the foundation was sinking in the house, things like that. And then eventually he said, I don't know. He said, Tanya was always faster to catch on to these things than I was. Eventually we realized we're not help fixing up a summer, you know, getaway place. We're building a home. And then this, of course, ended up being where they spent their lives. And he wrote from that place, practiced what he preached. And in fact, Nathan, can you say a little bit more about how
How it was that Wendellberry practiced what he preached and what lent a special air of authenticity even to some of his harshest critiques of the way most of us live.
Nathan (08:34)
Mm.
Well, I think one of the what you're talking about, his idea. Well, so so he said one time, somebody asked him, like, what advice would you give to young people? And he's like, that's extremely dangerous. We don't have the right to do that, and kind of gave a dismissal, like you can't the future doesn't exist, you know. And then they're like pushed him a little more and he's like, Here's what I would do. He said, I would find a place and then I would learn the history of that place, and then I would learn how to live
And then I would learn how to live there and I would learn the names of the plants and the animals and the neighbors and see how I can contribute. And so w what he kind of does in his writing is tell the story of the adventure of going nowhere, which is counterintuitive to a modern high paced, we're gonna live in fifteen cities by the time we're forty, you know, kind of. And so he's like, No, there's there's more depth to be had communally in a small place if you can
Just pick a spot, be there, learn the history, know the people, and learn how it works. and so he, I think, pulled back into that. I think he to the point of his death, he hand wrote his I mean, he he never had a computer, wrote everything out by hand. His wife then typed his manuscripts on a nineteen fifty four typewriter that they bought in nineteen fifty four and never
Cameron (09:55)
Pew.
Nathan (09:55)
upgraded. in what is it, twenty twenty six when he died. and so there was there were ways in which he
was intentional about you couldn't email him, you had to handwrite letters to him. I mean he made
Cameron (10:07)
Do you have a
do you know anybody with letters from Wendellberry? 'cause I do. I actually have a friend who
Nathan (10:11)
Okay.
Cameron (10:12)
he wrote to him and he wrote back in a very gracious zaquick, but he he has the letter.
Nathan (10:18)
Yeah, and I know a few people who have yeah, visited him or have pictures with him or, you know, went through the went through the work
Cameron (10:23)
Sat on his porch or whatever. Yeah.
Nathan (10:25)
of writing the letter to yeah, set up an appointment to go visit. So he he became he yeah, it's again it's there's a bit of a paradox there. He became a a national name by by really
Cameron (10:36)
Sage of of sorts.
Nathan (10:38)
trying not to.
Cameron (10:41)
He beca yes, he became a national name a sage of sorts by really trying not to, going out of his way to be as obscure as possible. And I think one thing that you c you could say about his his fiction, I've mentioned before that a lot of if you look at a basic modern archetype of a story, it inv it it you take a person and they have to leave the village in order to find themselves.
In Wendell Berry's
Nathan (11:07)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (11:08)
fiction, the opposite is true. If you want to know who you are, you have to go back to the village and you have to understand the people, your people. And only then then and only then will you begin to make sense of your life. And that is I think a lot of people read his fiction and even if they don't even if they don't see how different that is, they find that refreshing on a kind of subconscious level.
Nathan (11:32)
That's a really insightful read on that, because somebody was asking me, and I said, I think Wendellberry writes things in a way that we sort of intuitively know are true but wish that they weren't. So he he points out things like that, where we all probably know or have some some yearning. I mean, I would say Wendellberry is read more deeply in urban areas than rural areas, because there is there is a longing, I think, for that type of rootedness and connectedness in this Simone Vay through Paul Kings North, the whole
gamut there of of a longing for I mean who hasn't sat in rush hour traffic on the four lane and thought there's got to be more to life than this. so I I think it it resonates with a frustration that we have in our modern era to get back to that that kind of thing. But we also know that that's highly improbable and unlikely for our lives. So it's kind of done as a it's like it's like
Well, I I think I could describe it as nostalgia for a thing that we've never experienced.
Cameron (12:34)
That's a good of putting it. And on that note, I think it would be fair to say that I am I myself, I so I I call Nathan affectionately the Wendell Berry of West Virginia, because Nathan actually, his whole life and manner of life brings him much closer to Wendell Berry than Wendell Berry's average reader. I would describe myself as Wendell Berry's average reader. I am in many ways the poster child of everything that Wendell Berry wrote against.
Part of it, not not all of it is my fault. So I was I was born in a foreign country, uprooted when I was fourteen, moved to the States. So in some significant ways, at least if you looked at Wendell Berry's manner of life, I'm from I'm a person from nowhere, which is very typical of a modern person. Kind of nomadic, kind of I'm not rooted, and now I live in the suburbs. I live in nowhere. W one of the one of the th the the marks of the suburbs is their
homogeneity. You know, I live in a bit of an older neighborhood, so the houses look somewhat different, but for most, you know, you know what most neighborhoods look like, especially in the south. It's just a bunch of McMansions. It looks like a hall of mirrors. And a lot of people aren't even in their yards. They've got lawn services and so there is a certain irony. Actually there's a fairly towering irony, I think, about people who live in homes such as that
As the lawn service people are out there servicing their yards, sitting in their neighbor in you know their living rooms reading Hannah Coulter or one of Wendell Berry's essays. I'm not saying
Nathan (14:09)
But so
Cameron (14:11)
it's wrong or anything. I'm just saying and I'm including myself in that by the way. So I'm I am picking on myself here, Nathan. So
Nathan (14:15)
Mm mm. No
so let's yeah, and and like you say, we have a different relationship. The other factor that I have that so Wendellberry was born in nineteen thirty four. I have a grandfather who was born in thirty one who lived a almost identical life to Wendellberry. I mean, like uncannily so in a lot of ways.
Cameron (14:34)
And it's still alive.
Nathan (14:35)
And is still alive, yeah. So so grandpa reads Wendellberry as like a buddy who he thinks like I mean, he th they
farmed with horses, you know, growing up and all that kind of like it's it's just like and so grandpa gets a chuckle out of it because for him, he reads it as actual nostalgia of like, I can remember this world actually existing. Now he's not stuck on trying to get back to that and thinks it's funny that Wendellberry's obsessions with horses and whatnot. But so I have that going on. And then it is true that, you know, before my workday started that I fed chickens and pigs and checked on the bees and harvested tomatoes and jalapenos and then
after work today we'll go Rey K. So it's kind of the the what I do outside of my work day in the in the margins on the ends. you know, my kids
Cameron (15:19)
I pull vines
off my home and f and feel that I'm I'm rustic.
Nathan (15:23)
Right, yeah. So last night the kids went
to soccer practice and planted a thousand heads of lettuce before they got ready for church. So we do kind of have that sort of stuff going on. We're we're connected to the soil in the margins of our lives, I guess we would say. So and so so some of that I can resonate with to a degree, but there's a there's a missing
modernize there ca cause so here's the critique of Wendellberry is that his vision of agriculture, the big ag world would say, you're not going to feed the world. Like this isn't realistically possible for the future of human society. And and he would say in response, and maybe this is where I'm a little bit too Yeah, but the modern system isn't working either. And it's not incumbent upon me to try to solve
The world's problems, just the community's problems. And I can't ask and this is where he would probably resonate with things that we would say in the more virtue side. He would say, I can't ask the question whether or not which form of agriculture works. I can only do what's right.
Cameron (16:34)
Yes.
Nathan (16:35)
and so that that's another kind of way in which I think we're we're building here a collective pattern of him being a little bit of a cog in the gears.
of actually you find yourself in the village, actually the virtue of the way in which you treat your neighbor in the soil there's an there's an ethics that's bound into the
Cameron (16:57)
Yeah.
Nathan (16:57)
actual physical living that maybe is counter to our pragmatic hyper industrialized society.
Cameron (17:04)
Well, the very easy way to dismiss Wendell Berry, you've already named it, is just to say he's an idealist and we can't turn the clocks back. This is the world we have. And Wendell Berry may be really eloquent and he may write lovely fiction, but it's a fantasy. I've I've actually seen a little bit more of a generous version of that very critique. There was one that came out a number of years ago in the York Review of Books. Basically
It was offering a a large critique of Wendellberry's whole whole work. But again, I'm almost tempted to say that Wendell Berry is one of those type of figures where if he if he didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent him kind of deal. He's
Nathan (17:48)
Yeah.
Cameron (17:49)
such an interesting Jeremiah in the wilderness here of our modern world. And aga again, I think you're right. He was he's
He's definitely got all of the the makings of a good virtue ethicist. He asks, not, is this going to work? He asks, is this the right thing to do? Nor was he particularly if you actually read Wendellberry, by the way, he's not idealistic at all. He's actually
Nathan (18:10)
Mm mm.
Cameron (18:10)
very pessimistic. And anytime anything modestly good happens, something that he influenced, there are a number of there there are a number of different movements that have been inspired.
And coalitions that have been inspired by Wendell Berry. I write for one of them. It's called Front Porch Republic. And the people behind the scenes of Front Porch Republic, one of them, you know, Jeffrey Bilbro, he's a professor at Grove City College now. He's he's a Wendell Berry scholar, did his PhD in Wendellberry, but very much wanted to put into action some of what Wendell Berry said. So when they ask him, Hey, are you encouraged about this? He said, Well, I'm very heartened that people are are doing this, taking the trouble.
But let's not get ourselves on. This is a drop in the bucket, and it's a really small drop in the bucket. So he knew he he he had the the realistic view in his mind. He knew that so much like so many other noble figures committed to noble causes, he knew that his efforts were largely doomed to failure, but that they were still worth doing.
Nathan (19:14)
Yeah, and let's let's bore into this in a minute because it's what you say you committed to a noble cause. So the environmental movement is going to co you know, celebrate certain aspects of him. Christians are going to celebrate certain aspects of him. you know, so so everybody can kind of like find their Yeah.
Cameron (19:39)
He is an equal opportunity offender, by the way. He managed to a make conservatives
and and liberals really angry at some point or another in his career.
Nathan (19:47)
But he defied cat but part of the reason that so many different groups can draw from him is that he did defy categories to some extent. S so so
Cameron (19:53)
yeah, and very contrarian, basically. Yeah.
Nathan (19:55)
you would hear but let me give you an example. So you would hear him maybe talking about protesting mountaintop removal in Appalachia.
Cameron (20:02)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (20:04)
And you think, okay, that's a democratic l you know, left leaning, coded,
And then in the same thing where he's talking about mountaintop removal, he's gonna start start talking about commitment and marriage and family and the gospels and fidelity and very Christ traditional. Well, because
Cameron (20:22)
Yep. Traditional quote traditional values. Yep.
Nathan (20:26)
but but for him, they're not linked together. So he would say there's no such thing, like what what's one of his great quotes, for example, like there's no such thing as sacred and non-sacred places. There are only sacred and desecrated places.
And so in a sent little sentence like that, you have a a vision of him saying, No, the world isn't neatly split into sacred and non-sacred spaces. It's all sacred. And you either can see and participate in the sacred or you can be part of desecrating part of creation, whether that's, you know, a mountain or your neighbor. And so he he he quickly went when you said about noble causes, he was going to things that were deeper.
than the political level on which we seem
Cameron (21:08)
Yes.
Nathan (21:09)
to try to attach everything of significance today. And I think that's so he somehow was operating with a a lower common denominator culturally speaking than so much of the chatter and clickbait that we see around us today.
Cameron (21:23)
Well, you've mentioned one item in that list, and I think it's probably the last theme we ought to press into, and that's that Wendell Berry was a committed Christian. And in many ways So how do I say this? This is a tough one to say. He was so he was a committed Christian. He was outspoken about it, and yet he's not really marketed as a Christian voice.
And if so if you went into, say, a Lifeway bookstore, you wouldn't really expect to go
Nathan (21:56)
No.
Cameron (21:57)
hunting down Wendell Berry in there. So I think that's interesting and we should talk about that a little bit. See, I've opened a can of war can of worms here.
Nathan (22:03)
Well, because he s well, so you have the Yeah. So 'cause
'cause I don't think he fit neatly within evangelicalism for sure. Or any so I mean, so Tanya I think
Cameron (22:13)
definitely not within evangelicalism. Yeah.
Nathan (22:15)
was a church you know, his wife was a church pianist and he went to church in the winter, but then in the summer he went out and sat in the woods and wrote the Sabbath poems.
Cameron (22:24)
Yes.
Nathan (22:25)
you know, and and he would say things like, I take the gospels extremely seriously
And I'm trying to and I'm and I'm humbled by them and I'm confused by them and I'm recognizing that there's a lot here I don't understand, but the parts that I do understand I'm growing in deeply and I recognize that I'll have to receive who how does he say something like the price of admission is knowing that I fall short of this and have to receive it by grace. So so you have maybe somebody who would describe something like that, but it that
Cameron (22:56)
Yes.
Nathan (22:56)
doesn't really
tick the boxes. It doesn't say anything about ecclesiology or penal substitution. y y you know, it it just doesn't have the the right theological handles on it for
Cameron (23:09)
Well, it's
not ex it's not explicit enough. And part of and so Wendellberry is also an artist. And along with even as an essayist, he's an artist. He is one of the best American essayists, full stop. And I and I'm I'll I'll go out on a limb here. Well, not a limb. This is just my personal preference. I actually prefer Wendellberry's essays to his fiction and his poetry. I think he's I think he shines as an essayist.
Nathan (23:36)
So would you say for those listening, the unsettling of America I think is usually a starting point for essays. The Gift of Good
Cameron (23:40)
Yep. I would start there. Yep.
Nathan (23:44)
Land is a good collection. There's another one that's the one you like. Yeah.
Cameron (23:47)
What are people f what what are persons for is is is
fantastic place to go to. life is a miracle. I mean, she's there the problem is he wrote so voluminously. I mean, even I don't when did the Need to Be Whole come out? That was
Nathan (24:02)
that's just two or three years ago.
Cameron (24:04)
two or three years ago. That's about a f four hundred, five hundred page book on
Nathan (24:07)
I can look this up for you.
Cameron (24:08)
yeah, I mine mine's not in reach. It's on racism. That was the final so that's his final book.
Nathan (24:15)
Patriotism
in the history of prejudice.
Cameron (24:18)
So it's it's it's a very good book. I sor I I'm always a snippy kind of guy. I think it could have been a wee bit sh it could have been a wee bit shorter, I think, but but it was
Nathan (24:24)
Twenty twenty two. Yeah, probably.
Cameron (24:28)
but it's it's worth your time. I would say, yeah, I would s the unsettling of America start there, if you're gonna start with Wendellberry. But part of what I wanna also say here is that see, a lot of Christians love they they love everything real explicit, spelled out really, really clearly. And
Wendell Berry, like many artists, won't won't do that. So I often hear something, maybe this is unfair and you know, it's thinking out loud. I am thinking out loud. I'm open to correction here, but people often say, Where are the Lewises of our day? Where are the C. S. Lewis's? Where are the Tolkien's? Well, I'm not say Wendell Berry is in is not like C. S. Lewis at all, other than he's comp he's comparable in terms of the quality of his thought and his writing. So when people say things like that, where are
They I take them to mean actually it if I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt, you don't want a carbon copy of Lewis. You want somebody of that caliber. Those people are around and Wendell Berry was one of them. So if you read his writing, but it's not going to fit neatly into all of your categories. If you're looking for for somebody who is just a who's just gonna give you catechesis, he's not your guy. If you're looking for somebody who is deeply humane, thoughtful, practiced what he preached.
and vigorously th practically theological, Wendell Berry's your guy. So read him and expect to be challenged.
Nathan (25:54)
Okay, so let's turn the corner here just a s a second on what w which is maybe s there's a there's a difference here between I think a lot of people love to read Jane Austen and participate in that imaginative world. So great writer, the the the the phrasing this yeah. Woody
Cameron (26:08)
Yes. I do too. I like I love Jane Austen. Yeah. Yep. Funny, witty. Yep.
Nathan (26:15)
yeah. so there's that whole world. Nobody reading well, okay, a lot of people reading Jane Austen would love to
marry a rich dude with a massive mansion. So I'm sure like that that that fantasy is there, right?
Cameron (26:28)
Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure.
Nathan (26:29)
and that's been well monopolized or I well commercialized, I think. So that's there, but nobody really thinks, mm, wait a second. This this is an actual life goal.
Cameron (26:41)
Mr. Darcy will find me. Yeah.
Nathan (26:43)
Mr. Darcy Wolf.
However so but but Wendell Berry was writing with a vision that people would do stuff in response to his f fiction and to his essays. And to so th help me think through here. There there there's a difference in
Cameron (26:57)
Sure. huh.
Nathan (27:00)
it's not just fantasy and nostalgia and wishful thinking for him. He actually is trying to cast a participatory vision,
Cameron (27:06)
Okay. Yeah.
Nathan (27:08)
and that's where a little bit of the edge comes from because there is a
Th there's an intended call to action.
Cameron (27:14)
There is a call to action. This is he is and he is an activist and there's an urgency there. Let me so my friend has this sort of it's kind of a critique, but it's kind of a prey it's sort of a backhanded compliment. So hi Ethan. Ethan has some listeners at his church, by the way. So hi hi listeners. But my buddy Ethan said it well. He said, I I like I get frustrated with Wendell Berry's novels. I love them, of course, because they're deeply moving, but they're
They're they're kind of like essays in disguise. Not all the characters feel real to me. They feel like ideal ideals. So if if we're talking about Jaber Crow in particular, I think that the the Maddie Chaytham,
Nathan (27:57)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (27:57)
he would say she's more of a kind of ideal of berries than a real flesh and blood character. So I think I don't know. I think there's something to that. I think there's some truth to that. And part of that is because.
that urgency you mentioned, Wendell Berry wants us to do something with this. He wants he wants us to catch this vision and not just be inspired, but actually maybe change our habits. Maybe be less wasteful, less wasteful, maybe start growing something, even if something's small. I mean, Wendell Berry would certainly not disparage baby steps or a small start. And that comes through in
all in all of his writings. It's a thread that that's where that's why I think he really shines as the essayist because as as the essayist, all of that just gets to take the lead. And he's such he's such a fabulous writer that it works it works so well. If if Wendellberry weren't such a good writer, he would come across as a moralist and kind of preachy, but he doesn't. And that's that's Wendellberry the artist saving Wendellberry the activist.
Nathan (29:05)
Let me give let me
let me save a lot of headache and hassle for some of the listeners who are thinking, man, this sounds fantastic. I happen to live in one of those places where a lot of people move here out of urban areas with high ideals of we're gonna move to the country and buy a little piece of land and we're gonna get some chickens in a garden and it's gonna be splendid.
Cameron (29:24)
no. Nathan's gonna crush dreams here. I can feel it.
Nathan (29:27)
I yeah, well I don't have to go into the whole thing, but I can crush that dream for you.
Cameron (29:32)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (29:32)
and and the reason for that is
is is it's not that it can't be done, but it can't be done individually. And if you look at Wendellberry's vision, it's communal. It isn't individual. And so it is an agriculture, again, that is rooted in cult there's a symbiotic relationship with agriculture and culture. And you can't do his agricultural vision without the communal culture that is associated and goes with it. Self sufficiency is a total joke.
And it's not even something you should aspire to. And it yeah, I that's a whole nother rant for another
Cameron (30:09)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (30:09)
time that maybe I should flesh out for somebody sometime. But don't there's a lot more going on to his vision of wholeness that has to do with human relationships and and and a theology it's a theology and ecology and a sociology all wrapped into one thing.
And I see people trying to do one third of that all the time and failing because they're only trying to focus on thirty
Cameron (30:39)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (30:39)
three percent on the agricultural and the e ecological without the sociological and theological component to it. So there's there somehow is a is a wholeness here that Barry presents that people who get too hyper ambitious and watch too many YouTube videos miss out on the other two thirds of it that are really necessary components for it to be
Yeah, a life well lived.
Cameron (31:03)
I think Wendelberry might be more behind an effort of you instead of you uprooting and going and trying to individually carve out a life on the land, which Nathan has eloquently dispelled that myth, I think. Maybe doing some of that those same kind of activities where you are in your little village, even if it's not a traditional village, it's still you still have a tiny little ecosystem of which you're a part, a
Nathan (31:30)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (31:30)
little community. Pour into that community.
and start doing so with others where you are. Yes. Yeah.
Nathan (31:35)
Well, yeah, see, but this is what I yeah, this is what's important about this is you don't have to move to Kentucky
Cameron (31:42)
Right.
Nathan (31:42)
to learn from Wendell Berry, but you have to read him deep enough to see what are the other moving parts. And and I think and that might be part of the reason that the people who read him well can e can enjoy the critique that he offers.
Cameron (31:58)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (31:58)
because think about it. So I mean, he's such a realist.
So he does he's not a typical environmentalist. He's like, there's no degree of vegetarian or vegan that you can beat. He's like, we all live on the brokenness of the bodies and the destruction and the displacement of other creatures, no matter what.
Cameron (32:13)
Yeah.
Nathan (32:15)
So so he's not saying, wouldn't it be lovely if we could all just eat tofu all the time? And it he's not idealistic like that. He's saying, Okay, let's rec yeah, so
Cameron (32:23)
Go destroy this pipeline. Yeah.
Nathan (32:25)
let's let's recognize that we live at the expense of other humans and other creatures.
Now, what's the posture that you're going to do that with? Is that gratitude? Is it reverence? Is it do you have an you know So there's a there's a way in which he f he does force that back into all situations where we can be asking these questions and just and that's what I said. I think he points to things of saying, like, hey, here here's the here's what's behind the scenes of a late stage commercial capitalistic society and here's the degradation that's happening behind the scenes.
in the communities where these products are coming from that are then being shipped to your plate. So those are questions worth asking. But he isn't wagging his finger at people saying, you you're not living harmlessly enough. He's like, no, this is it all costs something. It's just what do we do with it?
Cameron (33:18)
It's very, very s very stimulating and exhilarating stuff. He is a thinker. If you're not familiar with him, he's he's well worth it's worth meeting Wendell Berry. I think it's it's also worth saying it's always gratifying to encounter somebody who achieved notoriety and s and a real level of celebrity and still lived a life worth celebrating and had what seems to be a good death as well.
So we're very I'm really grateful for Wendellberry. Yeah.
Nathan (33:48)
And he let me throw out two two thoughts here in closing. One is he said toward the end of his life, he was grateful for how and he said privileged he was to be able to live in one place for a long time, to be married to somebody that he loved for a very long time, to have his children as neighbors for a very long time. So he went through this list and you start thinking.
Those aren't explicit goals that I know people s set out for. and he said we're not he said to make a living is not to make a killing, it's to have enough.
And and I think that type of sentence is relevant to our time as ever before, is that to make a living is not trying to make a killing. It's recognizing when you have enough.
That's that's good for you whether you're on an airplane right now or out
Cameron (34:45)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Nathan (34:46)
in the middle of the woods or deep in an urban, you know, context. There there's wisdom to be had from those types of sentences that just slow us down, make us reflect about who we are, our place in the world, and what really matters in the end. And I think he'll for a long time be referred to as a a bit of a poet and a and a bit of a prophet, not in the future sense, but in the ability to describe reality to us.
in a way that calls us to live and think and work and act reflectively and responsibly.
Cameron (35:15)
yeah, I feel confident saying we're gonna be reading Wendell Berry for a long time. You've been listening to Thinking Out Loud, a podcast where we think out loud about current events and Christian hope. If you like what we do, then like it. Take it take a note take a leaf from Wendell Berry and be an activist about it. Tell people about it, like, share, and subscribe. And if you'd like to support us financially, if you want to get behind the efforts of what we're doing.
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