Practice Resurrection

Some days I get very excited about data and formulas, following that real fiction called Money around the hamster wheel, buying vowels and solving puzzles, hoping it matters to someone in greater need than the bureaucrats.

But, every day I like this...this poem...not necessarily because I agree with all it declares, but because I agree with all the questions it incites.

May we do more than we are told.
For it is said that Fortune favors the bold.

For the Anthony Handals, Brad Eliots, and Justin Joneses in my life and for lazy summer afternoons in the Merced with copies of Wendell Berry's essays on the riverbank.

"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 millenium. Plant sequoias.
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 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.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection."

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front by Wendell Berry

In the Stillness...

It's dusk. The mountains are peering through the smog just in time to take a bow for the curtain to close the day. A covey of quail is foraging on the back patio, and their other feathered friends are cavorting around the feeders that Jess and Felicia hung last week outside the picture window in the kitchen. They've refilled the things three times, and I'm almost positive birdseed levels have dropped a quarter since I was home for lunch. Andrea thinks we may have an epidemic of avian obesity on our hands any day. All I know is they've pooped all over my hammock. Good thing they're cute.

I'm catching my breath, letting the events of the day settle while I wait for the dryer to quit tumbling.
I'm remembering days before days and marveling at the sum of them.

A year ago, Renee and I were camped in a pasture falling asleep in the nicest part of the 23rd psalm. The sheep were bleating on the hillside. The ground was soft and dewy beneath my tent. (I can't believe I took a tent to Europe...and brought it back.) Renee pulled out her headlamp and Bible and read a few other psalms we couldn't recite by heart.

Be still my soul...there are miles to go before I sleep, but the frenzy is over until tomorrow.

Not enough time for all the words today has given me.