Just a few more thoughts on Wendell Berry

In 2005 an article appeared in Christian Century by Kyle Childress entitled "Good Work: Learning about Ministry from Wendell Berry." It was one of those pieces of writing that resonated with me in a deep heart centred way. It is a really lovely tribute to the insights of Wendell Berry and their application to ministry. But more than that it evoked for me everything I was coming to value about paying attention, learning to see in new ways, falling in love with what it is that I am truly seeing and not with my ideas of what I'm seeing.

Years ago my teacher Peter Erb opened up the world of Iris Murdoch, and through Murdoch Simone Weil, to me particularly their notion of the need to pay attention. Later I would read Danny Gregory's book Everyday Matters about how his return to drawing, particularly the drawing of his surroundings, helped him to find meaning and purpose and joy after an accident left his wife in a wheelchair.

It is hard work, paying attention. And it takes time. And it means learning to turn away from distractions. And it requires patience. In Thomas' teaching on prudence he talks about the need for docilitas, docility. Docility is a bad word in our culture but Thomas said that if you were going to make right judgements you couldn't prejudge a situation, you needed to allow the situation to inform you first. And that required being docile.

I taught for a year at a Catholic college where students were required to take a course in ethics and we read Josef Pieper's wonderful book, The Four Cardinal Virtues. One of the most delightful moments of the year for me came when I read a student's reflection paper on his experience volunteering in an after school programme for predominately African American children. He wrote that he had never thought of himself as prejudiced but that he really had never spent any time with people who were black. In spending time with these children he had come to realize that prejudice can also mean prejudging people even if those judgements aren't negative. He said that he had learned he needed to practice docilitas so that he might come to understand people different from himself.

This thanksgiving I give thanks for Kyle Childress, Simone Weil, Iris Murdoch, Peter Erb, Norman Wirzba and Rick for teaching me to practice a little more docilitas as I pay attention that I might understand and love my community truly.

Being Thankful

I like to spend Thanksgiving weekend doing a lot ot thinking about things I'm thankful for. I got encouragement in doing so last night at the Tagg-Yoshida lecture at the U of L. Norman Wirzba, formerly of Columbia College in Kentucky and now of Duke Divinity school, gave a delightful talk on giving thanks for the land. Norman is from here originally and came back two years ago to speak for the chaplaincy on sabbath rest. Last night he was addressing issues basic to how we see land, food, and place. He has done a lot of stuff with Wendell Berry and he quoted him often in his talk. I love Berry's poetry and have begun to read his essays. Challenging stuff.

More on that another time. Tonight, as I go to bed, I am reflecting on where Norman began his talk: "Gratitude is the heart of what it is to be a good person."

Learning to pay attention

Norman Wirzba spoke twice today, once at the university and once at the library and both talks were very interesting. I have a lot to process but just a couple of thoughts tonight.

One of the things he talked about at lunch was the way in which money insinuates itself into our social relations and because it is impersonal it creates distance between people. It made me think about how often faculty lament that students see education as a commodity they have purchased rather than an apprenticeship they have entered into.

It also seemed connected to a conversation I had a couple of days ago with another clergyperson about taking lottery/gambling money to do renovations on the church. Groups can apply for grants from the Wild Rose Foundation, money which comes from gambling in the province. A recent issue of Walrus magazine outlined the way in which Alberta is especially addicted to gambling revenues. From my pastoral experience I can say that gambling can be a blight on people's lives and I detest the way in which sports and community groups are encouraged to work casinos to raise money to fund their activities. I see absolutely no justification for churches to apply for money raised in this way. He thinks money can be used for good even if it comes from an evil source.

After listening to Norman today I occurred to me that this argument for taking money is essentially a reflection of this notion that because money is impersonal it isn't really connected to its source. I wonder if it wasn't money that we got if we wouldn't think differently about gambling revenues. Like, what if people gambled away their wedding rings and the government gave those rings to the soccer club or the church for them to hock. Maybe then we would be a little more appalled by this system. Maybe it is because I have known families devastated by gambling but I can't imagine ever seeing that money as clean.

Tonight he talked about what the monastics call stability. He suggested that professors often encourage their students to think that life is somewhere else rather than encouraging them to stay in the places they grew up. He said that when people go someplace new because they are bored where they are that they end up bored again because they take the boredom within them. He suggested that we learn the discipline of patient attention to the place where we are. It takes time and effort to really get to know a place and only then can we really delight in it.

The theme of paying attention came up a lot in all his talks. It is an idea that runs through Iris Murdoch's novels and one that has long intrigued me since I first discovered her in grad school. She talks about it a lot in terms of relationships. I suspect that when we get bored by our friends or lovers and go looking for new people that we also take our boredom with us.

And now on the theme of finding rest and delight or maybe delightful rest I'm going to bed. Tomorrow is another long day in a long week. Reading week is next week!

Carrying for soil

Norman Wirzba gave his first talk today and it was very stimulating. He spoke at some length about the second creation story and the significance of soil. I'd really like to read his book on creation now. At the end of the session he asked a question though that really set off all sorts of thoughts for me. He talked about particularity of culture and asked us what we thought the culture of agriculture is here. It occurred to me that I grew up in a city of a half million where there was much more attention paid to agriculture and the care of the land than I experience here in a city of only 75,000. This area is highly dependent on agriculture but it seems like it is all about agri-business and the focus of so many people is the financial. This isn't true of everyone of course but enough that I don't feel as connected here as I did in Winnipeg. Can't wait now until tomorrow's talks!