On practicing resurrection

Concluding our series on Wendell Berry's Mad Farmer Liberation Front

Hello, friends. Welcome back to my midwinter/early spring series on Wendell Berry’s wonderful poem, “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front.” We’ve been considering each stanza in turn, and what they might teach us in this moment. (Read the most recent post here, and read the poem in its entirety here.)

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Welcome back, friends. Today, after a week off (I was traveling), we’re looking at the last stanza of Berry’s poem—his final instructions to those interested in joining this motley crew of mad farmers:

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox,
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

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Berry’s opening image seems classically pastoral: Go to the fields with your love. It sounds like Arcadia, which I read in graduate school, or like a Shakespeare play. It’s peaceful, even idyllic – or it would be, if we hadn’t just been thinking about carrion and power and expecting the end of the world. In this context, going out into the fields can be read as a gesture of defiance, or perhaps as a desperate attempt to enjoy what beauty still remains.

I think it’s all of those. And I also think it’s subversive – which makes sense, given the title and direction of the whole poem.

You may have heard this before, but let me say it again: rest and celebration and joy are all part of resistance in a time when the prevailing forces (capitalism, billionaires, ego-crazed politicians) would prefer to keep us small, isolated, indoors, and afraid. Going out into the fields (or to the river, or the lake, or the local park) reminds us of a world beyond our human fears and frailties. It reminds us to put down our screens and take a deep breath (or five), to appreciate the sun on our skin, the life of the natural world, and the planet (and the universe) to which we are inextricably bound.

Resting and celebrating in community with other people is also important. As Gwendolyn Brooks would remind us,

we are each other’s
harvest:

we are each other’s
business:
we are each other’s
magnitude and bond.

For me, this local, in-person community sometimes looks like weekday evenings at Eastie Farm, digging in the dirt and making (slightly awkward) conversation with neighbors I don’t know well. It can also look like a walk along the waterfront in my neighborhood with a friend, or flipping pancakes for college students at a church supper last week. It often looks like voting (sometimes working the polls) and checking in on my people, and paying attention to what goes on my city and my neighborhood.

Berry goes on to urge us to “Swear allegiance to what is nighest your thoughts.”

I’m not sure what he means, exactly, but I wonder if, given the context of being in the fields with a loved one, he means: Swear your allegiance to that community you’re building, to those you love and the places you hold dear. Turn your loyalty toward what truly matters, instead of blindly following the whims of advertising and politics.

And, speaking of politics and politicians: Berry recommends a good old-fashioned double-cross.

This manifesto began with a warning: about what happens when we “love the quick profit” and are “afraid to know our neighbors” (from stanza 1). Remember, Berry says, if you follow the prompts of capitalism, “you will have a window in your head” and the machine of capitalism will control you.

Here, near the end of the poem, he advises us to “lose” our minds as soon as they become too predictable, too rigid, too automated.

Leave a false trail on purpose, he says, like the fox or another creature who makes “more tracks than necessary.” Make them think you’re going one way while you sneak off on a rogue, creative tangent. It’s an obfuscation tactic (and a form of holy mischief), but I think it’s also a cry against honoring efficiency as a god.

Much of our best work as a species is glaringly inefficient: making cookies or dinner or jewelry, planting a garden, knitting a sweater, learning to play an instrument or compose a piece of music. I made scones this week with two different friends and their young children; we also played games, took short hikes, planted herbs, folded laundry, made s’mores. Most of it was not efficient, and none of it earned us any money. But all of it was soul-nourishing – and delightful.

Art, relationships, and long, looping discussions about power and freedom and philosophy and love—none of these things are efficient. All of them, perhaps, make “more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction.” But: they are what make us unique as human beings, and what make life worth living.

Berry ends with a brief sentence that still puzzles and intrigues me: “Practice resurrection.”

Growing up as an evangelical Christian, I was taught that only Jesus had been resurrected, and that new life wasn’t something we could bring about by ourselves. I’ve broadened my definition of resurrection in the years since: look how the flowers and trees come back to life every single year (though I have no control over that process). Now, I think resurrection can mean looking for new life and hope in this complicated world: planting seedlings (if not always sequoias), picking up litter, supporting neighbors in need, and caring for our bodies, our souls and each other.

So many of these actions seem small, and they are, on their own. But I now believe resurrection can show up in all sorts of ways and places. I wonder if practicing it simply means tending to the daily work of hope and community and justice – and also pausing to notice and celebrate the resurrections we didn’t bring about. Admitting our own limitations – but also delighting in the powers beyond ourselves – is key to practicing resurrection.

Thanks for sticking with me here in this series, friends. As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments, and please share your ideas for future series!