Wendell Berry Essay

[Ed Iglehart]

Published as a full page paid advertisement in Yesterday's New York Times, this essay has been abridged for the web.  (3000 words)
If you would like to read the full article,  please click here https://ssl.crocker.com/orionsoc/freeom.cfm  to receive a Free Trial copy of this issue of Orion magazine.

The concluding paragraph is well worth reading (as is the full 3000 word abridged version:  http://www.oriononline.org/pages/om/03-2om/Berry.html

"We can no longer afford to confuse peaceability with passivity.
  Authentic peace is no more passive than war. Like war, it calls for
  discipline and intelligence and strength of character, though it calls
  also for higher principles and aims. If we are serious about peace,
  then we must work for it as ardently, seriously, continuously, carefully,
  and bravely as we now prepare for war."

http://www.oriononline.org/pages/om/03-2om/Berry.html

  Kentucky farmer Wendell Berry is the author of   more than thirty books including, most recently,
In the Presence of Fear: Three Essays for a   Changed World.
http://www.oriononline.org/pages/os/marketplace/bookstore/OSbooks/Berry.html

  This essay, an abridged version of one appearing   in the current issue of Orion, appeared in a   full-
page advertisement in The New York Times   on February 9th, 2003, made possible by   contributions
to Orion's Thoughts on America Fund, ( https://ssl.crocker.com/orionsoc/supportjoin_os.cfm ) which
supports the widest public   dissemination of writing that directly and artfully   engages the historic
challenges of our time, and   that offers an alternative vision for a sane,   sustainable, and peaceful
existence.
--
To put the bounty and the health of our land,
our only commonwealth, into the hands of people
who do not live on it and share its fate
will always be an error.
For whatever determines the fortune of the land
determines also the fortune of the people.
If history teaches anything, it teaches that.
   --Wendell Berry http://www.tipiglen.dircon.co.uk/berryfc.html

"It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan,
more uncertain of success, nor more dangerous to manage
than the creation of a new order of things.

For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit
by the preservation of the old institutions,
and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new ones."
                        -- Machiavelli, The Prince (1513)

Pereant, inquit, qui ante nos nostra dixerunt.
"Confound those who have said our remarks before us."
                -- Aelius Donatus

"[A] man can live decently without knowing all the answers,
or believing he does - can live decently even in the understanding
that life is unspeakably complex
and unspeakably subtle in its complexity."   -- Wendell Berry

Brought into right relationships with the wilderness,
man would see that his appropriation of Earth's resources
beyond his personal needs would only bring imbalance
and beget ultimate loss and poverty for all.
 -- John Muir

Peace, God's mercy and blessings be upon you.
Assalaam 'alaikum wa rahmatullaahi wa barakaatuhu.
Innal hamdalillaah was-salaat was-salaam 'alaa rasoolillaah.

ed