The Wendell Berry Option
Thus it is that a voice resolutely parochial and mundane has inspired so many readers.
The voice that the culture has needed to hear is "resolutely parochial and mundane".
It is the parochial which delivers us from the deceitful, unhappy illusion that we are autonomous, disembodied entities, for the parochial roots us in flesh-and-blood communion, in the stability and physicality of place.
It is the mundane which opens us to the life-giving, grace-filled rhythms of day and night, seasons and years, feast and fast, labour and rest, work and prayer, delivering us from the grim, joyless tyranny of homogenized time, dominated by soulless work and entertainment.
Amidst a contemporary Anglicanism in which 'parochial' and 'mundane' are often words of criticism levelled at 'inherited church', we might propose the Wendell Berry Option - a joyful, confident, resonant living out of the parochial and the mundane.
Resolutely parochial and mundane: the Anglicanism of parish and Prayer Book.
I appreciate this so much. For us, Anglicanism has been gloriously, refreshingly "parochial and mundane." Instead of the rhetoric at our Southern Baptist seminary (i.e. "The question of missions shouldn't be, "Why should I go?' but 'Why should I stay?'" I can't tell you how many times we heard that), we find the commitment to stability in parish life to be "countercultural," "missional," "radical" (to use the lingo). In one of my favorite Berry poems, he speaks of the "art of being here" and how "by it, I should instruct my wants." The "Wendell Berry Option" applies alike to family farms in Kentucky, city parishes, rural parishes... All of us seeking to live quietly, reverently. Thank you for these thoughts!
ReplyDeleteAmanda many thanks for your comment and the encouragement. I love that final comment: "seeking to live quietly, reverently". A wonderful summary of the vision embodied in the BCP.
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