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Stewardship, Membership, and Voting: Reflections on Wendell Berry’s A Place on Earth

A Place on Earth
Wendell Berry’s A Place on Earth

The main character of Wendell Berry’s A Place on Earth, as in many of his novels, is the fictional town of Port William, Kentucky. While Berry is a masterful storyteller, the narrative is less important than the relationships that the characters have with each other, with the town and surrounding farmland they inhabit, and with the land itself.

Berry continually returns to the question of what effect a character has on the people, town, and land around him. When a character is introduced, Berry will often describe the condition of the person’s farm, home, or workplace. For example, Berry contrasts the relatively wealthy Roger Merchant with Roger’s tenant Gideon Crop. Roger inherited a large, profitable farm from his father, but has allowed it to fall into disuse; even Roger’s rental income is handled mostly by his lawyer. Gideon, meanwhile, inherited almost nothing from his father except a tenant relationship with Roger. What little Gideon has, however, is well-maintained and attended to. In Berry’s vision of the world, your stewardship of your home and workplace is a moral dimension of your character. It’s not the complete judgment, but it’s important.

Relationships are also part of this stewardship. One of Roger’s few friends — perhaps his only friend — is Mat Feltner, one of the heroes of Berry’s universe. Mat describes his friendship with Roger as “perplexing,” because Roger regularly calls on Mat for his counsel, keeps Mat engaged in long, rambling, over-complicated discussions of minor issues, and never takes Mat’s advice. Despite this frustrating pattern, Mat still invests time and care in his relationship with Roger. Mat’s attitude toward Roger, in many ways, mirrors his attitude towards farming: care, hard work, and good stewardship are their own rewards, regardless of the outcome.

Campus as a Place on Earth

As I have been reading A Place on Earth, two comparisons have come to mind. The first is the campus as a place made up of a combination of land, people, and relationships. In Berry’s novels, the history of an individual or a family is never far from the surface, and he will often interrupt the narrative with a back story that gives deeper meaning to the immediate situation. Isn’t it so often the case on campus that we can’t understand what’s happening without knowing the history that has led up to this moment? [Read more…] about Stewardship, Membership, and Voting: Reflections on Wendell Berry’s A Place on Earth

Where Is God When It Rains?

Hurricane Sandy & Marblehead [Front Street 9]
Storm surge from Hurricane Sandy in Marblehead, Massachusetts
As I write this, several million homes are without power on the East Coast due to Hurricane Sandy. Except for natural disasters like this one, it’s easy to forget our connection to the weather, nature, and the rest of Creation. Even for those in the midst of the hurricane, modern comforts — like Netflix, which experienced a boost in online streaming in the areas affected by severe weather — help take the edge off of the danger outside.

In the most recent episode of Mars Hill Audio, Norman Wirzba discusses his new book Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating. He quotes Wendell Berry, from his essay “In Distrust of Movements,” on the subject of our modern separation from the reality of the world:

Educated minds, in the modern era, are unlikely to know anything about food and drink, clothing and shelter. In merely taking these things for granted, the modern educated mind reveals itself also to be as superstitious a mind as ever has existed in the world. What could be more superstitious than the idea that money brings forth food?

When the stores are sold out of food and all the bridges and tunnels are closed, the tenuous connection between money and food becomes clear.

Still, we don’t usually expect the wind and the rain to try to kill us. The astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson suggested on Monday that we might be naïve for assuming all will be well in our relationship with Earth:

[Read more…] about Where Is God When It Rains?

Week in Review: Show Me the Money

What are you reading, watching, thinking about this week? As usual, here’s a few which have been on our mind. Let us know your thoughts on any/all of them. If you have items you’d like us to consider for the top five, add them in the comments or send them to Tom or Mike.

1. Who pays for higher education, in the U.S. and around the world? Scott Jaschik interviews (by email) the authors of Financing Higher Education Worldwide (D. Bruce Johnstone & Pamela N. Marcucci. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010) in Financing Higher Education Worldwide (Inside Higher Ed. 6/24/2010).

2. Who pays for continuing education in the medical community? The question being explored in this article extends beyond the medical community and various related research fields. What does it mean to be truly free from [industry] bias? How does someone in a field which involves the application of research in real world contexts avoid flirting with becoming a mouthpiece of industry? Do you agree with Dr. Francis S. Collins, N.I.H director,” who criticized the move as a “breathtaking sweep to squash something that is really important to us, which is the science that’s going on in the private sector.”

Dr. James O. Woolliscroft, dean of Michigan’s medical school, said leading faculty members “wanted education to be free from bias, to be based on the best evidence and a balanced view of the topic under discussion.”

While the financing in question amounts to as much as $1 million a year at Michigan, commercial payments for industry speakers and courses nationwide come to about $1 billion, nearly half the total expenditure for such courses.

The debate over whether the medical profession should develop an industry-free model of postgraduate education is a delicate one. A conference at Georgetown University on Friday, called “Prescription for Conflict,” will highlight the arguments on both sides through presentations by federal health officials, professors from leading medical schools, hospital executives and a Senate investigator. — Natasha Singer & Duff Wilson. Debate Over Industry Role in Educating Doctors. NY Times. 6/23/2010.

3. What is the cost of For-Profit Education? New Grilling of For-Profits Could Turn Up the Heat for All of Higher Education (Paul Basken. Chronicle of Higher Education. 6/22/2010). Interesting case. Worth following the discussion Washington, D.C. How do Emerging Scholars intersect with the changing field of higher education?

Click “Read more” to read about Wendell Berry, social media, and UK basketball.  [Read more…] about Week in Review: Show Me the Money

What’s the purpose of a university?

Home Economics. Wendell Berry.
Home Economics. Wendell Berry.Here’s Wendell Berry’s answer:

Here’s Wendell Berry’s answer:

The thing being made in a university is humanity. Given the current influence of universities, this is merely inevitable. But what universities, at least the public-supported ones, are mandated to make or to help to make is human beings in the fullest sense of those words — not just trained workers or knowledgeable citizens but responsible heirs and members of human culture. If the proper work of the university is only to equip people to fulfill private ambitions, then how do we justify public support? If it is only to prepare citizens to fulfill public responsibilities, then how do we justify the teaching of arts and sciences? The common denominator has to be larger than either career preparation or preparation for citizenship. Underlying the idea of a university — the bringing together, the combining into one, of all the disciplines — is the idea that good work and good citizenship are the inevitable by-products of the making of a good — that is, a fully developed — human being. This, as I understand it, is the definition of the name university.

From “The Loss of the University,” in Home Economics. [Read more…] about What’s the purpose of a university?