Tag: Wendell Berry

One might think that after forty-four years of writing these Sabbath poems, Berry would run out of things to say. But it seems that as long as the trees continue their silent conversion of light to soil, as long as the sun and the moon endure, as long as he has life and breath, Berry will continue his acts of Sabbath praise.

To rush AI into the classroom or into daily life is to put student well-being at stake. And as Kingsnorth reminds us, refusal to accept certain forms of technology can “enrich rather than impoverish.”

I mourn the storm. It’s far from over. But I also do not mourn without hope.

The Very Online Right might be riding high now, but I anticipate that the election jackpot of the moment will not last and that this victory will soon look more like Las Vegas at noon, beaten down and tawdry under the merciless exposure of the midday western sun.

I belong to this place—if not for the next thousand years, at least for the summer. In such a displaced age, even that has to mean something.

One of the novel’s achievements is the way that it unfolds this centuries-long story with both clarity and subtlety, establishing a clear feel for right and wrong while casting no irreproachable heroes and very few villains. 

Organized community events bring people together and are an integral part of forging strong communal bonds in a place. Like the law, they serve a purpose in a community’s ecosystem of relationships.

These questions would cause little debate or consternation without the importance of place tethering them. And, despite the erasure of communitarian mindsets and regional identity, place still matters.

The way of the puzzler is not about reaching a certain goal. If it were, the perfectly fine image would never have been broken up to begin with. The way of the puzzler is about the puzzling itself.

Do we love the soil and the creatures put in our stead, or do we prefer the images our devices project at us? While the choice is not always so cut and dry, Mannon’s book can help us begin to retool our imaginations and ennoble common labor again.