The Best Gift Wendell Gave Me

I blame Wendell Berry. I say it with the utmost affection. When people ask me about some of my more eccentric choices in life — such as when, as a young seminarian, I sold my laptop on eBay and started composing papers on a Royal Standard typewriter; or what moves me to prep for preaching with pencil and paper, in analog fashion, often on foot; or why I still resist getting a smartphone — more often than not I point my finger at the Kentucky farmer, philosopher, and writer, who died this past week in his home at the age of 92.

I know that I am not alone. Like few other contemporary artists or intellectuals, Berry elicits not only admiration but devotion. His devotees are known to vest him with inordinate power over their lives. A friend of mine named his firstborn son Wendell. I relish the writing of novelist Amor Towles, for instance, but it would never occur to me to name my children after him or aspire to model my life after his. Berry’s fans, by contrast, well and truly idolize him. I know whereof I speak.

So when I found myself in one of the biggest pickles of my life, naturally I wrote a letter to Wendell Berry. What I received in return, beyond all he had already given me in his writing and witness, was his best gift to me of all.

***

I am not a farm kid. I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit. It was an agreeable enough upbringing. Our cul-de-sacs were populated with kids playing football, our pavement was trafficked with baby boomers hustling to pay the bills, and our strip malls were occupied by stores selling manufactured goods at discount prices. (The nearest such strip, around the corner from my subdivision, was even called “The Shops at Waldon [sic] Pond.” I’m sure Thoreau would be proud.)

That the writings of an agrarian like Wendell Berry would thus resonate with me so deeply when I first encountered them in my young adult years makes either perfect sense or no sense at all. In any case, like the eponymous character in his novel Jayber Crow, I caught a vision. Wendell depicted a life characterized by, as he puts it in his essay “The Work of Local Culture,” “the ancient rule of neighborliness, the love of precious things, and the wish to be at home.” As I wended my way through seminary and the early season of ministry, maturing as a preacher and pastor to God’s people, the vision persisted in my mind’s eye like stubborn sun spots after staring up at the sky.

After several years serving on the West Coast, I received the call to shepherd a parish far from the madding crowd in a sleepy rural village in northwest Michigan. The year-round population of the town numbered a few hundred. The nearest stoplight and big box grocery store was 25 miles away. Mail was collected by a visit to the post office, which doubled as the town gossiping spot. The stately old church building, with its steeple peeking over the top of the tree-lined streets, looked like it was fashioned for the set of a Hallmark movie. I fell in love immediately.

The parish’s charms notwithstanding, friends and fellow pastors discouraged me from accepting the call. The community, like too many rural communities, was dying out; the average age was north of fifty. By the admission of one of its own members, the congregation felt like a waiting room for the church’s cemetery. There were few families, few programs, few prospects. Not to mention the long, dark, and dreary Michigan winter. It looked like a ministry dead end.

I accepted the call. When asked why, I blamed the Holy Spirit, of course — and Wendell Berry.

***

The parish was no utopia. The (in)famous fishbowl of small-town life was ever present. My first Christmas Eve there, a member who served on the volunteer fire department was called out of lessons and carols to clean up a grisly suicide two blocks away. Our church groundskeeper, when he showed up to work (no guarantee), often arrived under some sort of influence (not the Holy Spirit). We weren’t short of sinners.

And yet it was a real place — not quite Port William, but a genuine “membership” (as Burley Coulter would put it) constituted of colorful characters, generational relationships, and a rich connection to creation. My family and I inhabited the parsonage next door to church and embraced our best Wendell Berry life: planting a garden, keeping bees, tending chickens, whiling away the time watching the sunset from our front porch.

Time passed. By God’s grace and the power of his Word, the congregation held steady and over the years even experienced modest growth. Fellow pastors would tease me about our town’s small size and wonder aloud what could possibly keep me busy all day; I smiled, refrained from disclosing that “keeping busy all day” wasn’t my aspiration, and savored the depth of ministry the place afforded. I batted away like troublesome gnats opportunities to serve at exciting upstart ministries or larger suburban churches. That vision I first glimpsed years earlier reading Berry had come into focus. We bought a small acreage and our plots at the church cemetery, grateful to be rooted in our community and content to live out our days within its limits. Life was blessedly simple.

***

And then, one day, it got complicated. Rumblings came of a call that I could not dismiss so easily — to teach homiletics at my alma mater, our denomination’s flagship seminary. My first reaction was to shrug it off, as I had other inquiries that had come my way. But this was different. I felt (and feel) compelled by the need for faithful evangelical preachers and the responsibility to form future servants of the Word. As Bonhoeffer once wrote, “The matter of the proper education of preachers of the gospel is worthy of our ultimate commitment.” I was utterly torn.

A thought came to mind: Why not ask Wendell? It had occurred to me to write to him before, if for no other reason than to express my appreciation for his inspiration and influence. Now I also coveted his advice. I scribbled off a few paragraphs describing my plight, addressed the envelope to P.O. Box 1 in Port Royal, Kentucky, and walked over to the post office to drop the letter in the mailbox.

Only a couple of weeks later, while I was out on a visit, I got an excited phone call from my wife. “You won’t believe what’s waiting for you when you get home,” she said. Wendell had written back — addressing his letter to me as “Reverend,” no less.

I wavered as I held the unopened letter and contemplated its contents. For all my love of the parish, I think I knew in my bones that the Lord was calling me to teach. But I felt within myself the acute conflict of betraying a vision — yea, a man, this man whose words I now held in my hands. It’s no stretch to say that I was prepared to take as gospel whatever counsel Wendell might offer. If he told me to burn the boats, I would have gotten the matches ready. But what would he say?

Wendell didn’t tell me what to do. He gently ribbed me for my choice of a role model, offered some sweet words of encouragement and affirmation, and commended my future and my family to God’s good graces. He refused to avail himself of the authority I had accorded him. Instead, he offered his own kind way of saying, with Solomon, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might” (Ecclesiastes 9:10).

When the call indeed came to serve at the seminary, my wrestling continued until finally I succumbed to the Lord and limped away from our beloved parish. I’m now in my third year teaching future preachers, and I have seen the first fruits of the good work here. God, as is his way, has gone before us and blessed me more than I deserve. All shall be well.

When I first got his letter, I was disappointed that Wendell didn’t summarily resolve my dilemma. I soon recognized the grace of his response, however. I’d ginned up guilt by my own image of the life I thought his writings told me I ought to live. By declining to dictate my next steps, Wendell gave me his best gift of all, one that until that moment I didn’t know I needed: not advice but absolution. The man whom I “blamed” for so much in my life didn’t hold it against me that I wasn’t him.

What’s remarkable about my story of Wendell isn’t how exceptional it is but how commonplace. Wendell Berry took God seriously, but not himself. Many have idolized him, and idolize him still, but he resisted the temptation to self-exaltation. In so doing, he proved to be a faithful reflection of the Lord who, knowing that all things were in his hands, stooped down to serve. In the final analysis, Wendell was just like us all: a pilgrim on this earth, desiring a better country. Now he sees the vision face-to-face, and it is glorious.