In one of his mad farmer poems, Wendell Berry writes, “So, friends, every day do something that won’t compute. Love the Lord. Love the world.” Some lines later he says, “Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.” And he ends the poem with these two words: “Practice resurrection.”1 I am not sure how to describe the madness of Berry’s farmer. It is not angry-mad or crazy-mad, though it borders on the latter. Nevertheless, it is something I like. It captures my imagination. It revels in contradiction. And it recommends resurrection. Loving the World Last year, Ann, who graduated from the college in 2004, texted me a quote from Mary Oliver’s poem, “The Sweetness of Dogs (Fifteen),” one of my favorite poets: “Oh! How rich it is to love the world!” I texted back, “Yes!!!” (I have three exclamation marks in my Insert Auto Text for such occasions.) I put the quote on the board a couple of days later in my Love and Friendship class. The subject for the day was Plato’s conception of eros—love. Plato thought that the best love was of pure beauty, which one gradually ascends to after first loving the beauty of individual persons. This ascent was designed by Plato to remove one from the changing realm of particular things, where there is messiness and decay, mortality and corruption. An old gospel song exhibits a similar sentiment: “This world is not my home, I’m just a passin’ through.” I, however, side with Mary Oliver. Or, rather, I think one can love this world as well as live for the next. In fact, it seems impossible to live for the next world without loving this one. If I did not treasure the flowers in my backyard or 20 | TRINITY MAGAZINE
the smiles on my coworkers’ faces, I would not treasure what I find when I open the door to my home beyond the grave. The God whom I expect to meet when I am hiking in the mountains is one whom I expect relishes mountains. So why cannot I relish them, too? I am far richer when I do. The class was divided. Some wanted to gaze on the great sea of beauty and some wanted individual bodies to love. That night I texted Ann to tell her I used the quote in class. She texted back with a smile face.
Extracurricular Teaching A year ago I was lying on a physical therapist’s table getting my injured feet worked on. “You are 67 and still teaching?” the therapist asked. “Yes,” I replied. “Last Sunday evening, several students and I got together and read Anne of Green Gables to each other. You can’t do that very many places.” It was just Sara, Jaime, and me. We met in the new lower level of the student center on campus, then found a quiet 1.
“Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front,” in Wendell Berry, Collected Poems: 1957–1982, New York: North Point Press, 1984, pp. 151–52.