“We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. ... We have been wrong. We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us. . . We must recover the sense of the majesty of the creation and the ability to be worshipful in its presence. For it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it.”
“As I have read the Gospels over the years, the belief has grown in me that Christ did not come to found an organized religion but came instead to found an unorganized one. He seems to have come to carry religion out of the temples into the fields and sheep pastures, onto the roadsides and the banks of the rivers, into the houses of sinners and publicans, into the town and the wilderness, toward the membership of all that is here. Well, you can read and see what you think.”
“Some of the best things I have ever thought of I have thought of during bad sermons.”
“As I have read the Gospels over the years, the belief has grown in me that Christ did not come to found an organized religion but came instead to found an unorganized one. He seems to have come to carry religion out of the temples into the fields and sheep pastures, onto the roadsides and the banks of the rivers, into the houses of sinners and publicans, into the town and the wilderness, toward the membership of all that is here. Well, you can read and see what you think.”
“Some of the best things I have ever thought of I have thought of during bad sermons.”
“It may be that when we no longer know what to do,
we have come to our real work
and when we no longer know which way to go,
we have begun our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.”
“Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy.”
“Healing is impossible in loneliness; it is the opposite of loneliness. Conviviality is healing. To be healed we must come with all the other creatures to the feast of Creation."
“I take literally the statement in the Gospel of John that God loves the world. I believe that the world was created and approved by love, that it subsists, coheres, and endures by love, and that, insofar as it is redeemable, it can be redeemed only by love. I believe that divine love, incarnate and indwelling in the world, summons the world always toward wholeness, which ultimately is reconciliation and atonement with God.”
“Especially among Christians in positions of wealth and power, the
idea of reading the Gospels and keeping Jesus' commandments as stated
therein has been replaced by a curious process of logic. According to
this process, people first declare themselves to be followers of Christ,
and then they assume that whatever they say or do merits the adjective
"Christian".”
"When despair for the world grows in me...
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."
Read more (and more, and more...)
https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2012/mayjune/feature/excerpts-the-writings-wendell-berry
https://www.neh.gov/about/awards/jefferson-lecture/wendell-e-berry-biography
etc, etc.
"When despair for the world grows in me...
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."
Read more (and more, and more...)
https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2012/mayjune/feature/excerpts-the-writings-wendell-berry
https://www.neh.gov/about/awards/jefferson-lecture/wendell-e-berry-biography
etc, etc.
