Practice Resurrection: Photographs to Wendell Berry’s Manifesto

All text excerpted from “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front” by Wendell Berry.

Before I began my retreat, a friend who happens to be one of my favorite photographers, Bo Mackinson, invited me to participate in the start of a movement.  Bo published a post on Easter titled Practice Resurrection, putting her images to Wendell Berry’s “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front.”  The following is my answer to her invitation, and to Wendell Berry’s call.  It’s also my way of honoring Earth Day.

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more

of everything ready-made.  Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

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.

Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.

Baby sequoia

Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.

Listen to the carrion– put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.

Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade.  Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.

Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.

Practice resurrection.

Excerpts from “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front” by Wendell Berry.

Note:  This is a scheduled post.  I’ll be back on Sunday.

Be good, be kind, be loving.  Just Be.  🙂