The post opens with two long passages from Wendell Berry’s “The Unsettling of America” (The Art of the Commonplace, ed. Norman Wirzba, Shoemaker & Hoard, 2002). They are Berry’s words, still in copyright, so they are not reprinted here — they can be read in the original post.
“Over and over again, spring after spring, the questing mind, idealist and visionary, must pass through the planting to become nurturer of the real.”
Berry, Wendell. “The Unsettling of America.” The Art of the Commonplace, edited by Norman Wirzba, Shoemaker & Hoard, 2002, p. 27.
7.
It has been my tendency
my habit and practice
to nurture what is not
real
in myself
and in others.
To extract possibilities
and potentials.
To make commodities
and products of
my neighbors and friends
my gifts and ideas
my plans.
But to see the world
otherwise.
To nurture the real
in people
in myself
in the world.
Yes, to nurture the real.
Is a project of
grass and trees.
Coffee cups and
slow conversations.
Listening and learning
names and languages
across the world
and around the block.
To walk with others
as they are.
Not as they could be
or want to be
or wish to be.
But to nurture
the real.
The glass is dimly
lit and so the
real is dimly seen.
So, give us eyes to
see the real, Lord.
Help us nurture the
world that
you have made.
8.
O Lord, nurturer of the real.
What a thing! For the real
to be nurtured by you.
My plastic heart melted
away. But the real.
Is that what you’re
interested in? In a world
of appearances? In
a world of lies?
The real?!
To see my son’s
dimples and you
are in it.
To watch this
tree stretching
skyward and
anonymous and
you are in
it.
To hear the
laughter of children
float across the valley
and you are in it.
The real.
You.
Nurturer of the real.
To nurture the real
by becoming the real
is beyond
distant affinities
or
mechanical cultivation.
The blood and the water
the wine and the bread
the grain of wheat
and the
lily of the valley.
O you,
Jesus,
nurturer of
the real.
9.
The pace of nurture
the cadence of love
is the pace of
this tree before me
beloved and lover
clothed in green
luxuriant hues
giver of shade
boughs of hospitality
I’ve heard tell that
not even Solomon
could compare to
this tree before me.
So I take in
this tree
beloved and lover
and learn
the pace of nurture
the cadence of love.