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Rector's Reflection: In Memory of Wendell Berry
Another great light has gone out. This week, the world lost Wendell Berry — a poet, farmer, pacifist, environmental activist, and prophet. Berry, who viewed the earth as a holy gift that requires humility, care, and love, spent a lifetime writing psalm-like poetry that invites us back to mindfulness and attention. As someone whose first ministry job involved planting and managing a farm in northwest Connecticut, I have always loved how Berry offered his wisdom the way the land offers a harvest — slowly, patiently, to those willing to wait for it. For your prayer life this week, I offer Berry's "The Peace of Wild Things," a small poem that carries big mercy.
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Peace be with you, beloved community.
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