As a beloved American poet, novelist, essayist, environmental activist, farmer, and cultural critic, Wendell Barry gives voice to a way of being in the world but not of the world. If you’re looking for something to read during this time, I highly recommend checking out his writings in whatever form best appeals to you.
One of his most well-known poems ends with the powerful directive to “Practice resurrection.” It’s the last line in a litany of how to take a stand against the worldly forces that value “a quick profit” over human life or creation care. Other lines I find moving encourage readers to
Every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
…
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
None of these things make sense to a world concerned with power and profits. These actions, including the call to practice resurrection, are quiet rebellions against the dehumanizing forces of worldly power systems.
Having celebrated Easter on Sunday, we’re now in the season of Eastertide. A season that lasts for fifty days taking us all the way to Pentecost. In this season we’re invited to practice resurrection—to proclaim the good news that death doesn’t have the last word; that new life is possible through the radical reality of God’s love made real in Christ.
As we continue to make our way through these unsettling times, as we continue to figure out how to navigate this new reality, it’s more important than ever that we turn our hearts and minds and hands to the work of cultivating life, protecting justice, promoting peace, and practicing resurrection. The world will be reborn from this crisis in one way or another. Let us work and pray that it may be a more just and peaceable place to call home for all God’s creatures.
In Love,
Pastor Annette