On questions, and planting sequoias

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

Hello, friends. Welcome back to my midwinter series on Wendell Berry’s poem, “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front.”

Each week this month, we’re considering one stanza of this poem, and what it might teach us in this moment. (Read last week’s discussion here, and read the poem in its entirety here.)

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Welcome back, everyone. This week we dive into the middle of Berry’s poem, the third of five stanzas, the one that leaves me feeling like I’m standing in a field surrounded only by trees and birds, blue sky and rushing winds:

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

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Berry’s opening line here is one I love: “Ask the questions that have no answers.” This approach annoys some people, who find it frivolous, or futile. (Or those who believe that all questions must—or should—have an answer.) And I admit it: there are times when we need to stop the philosophical debates and take action.

But I believe the very act of asking, of circling closer to an answer or a framework, is worthwhile.

Wrestling with the big questions—about birth and death, love and faith, the essentials of human existence—is part of what makes us human beings. We may not get to an answer, Berry says (an idea reinforced by the very next lines), but it's the genuine seeking that is most important. (I’m reminded of a theology class I took as a college freshman, in which we spent several weeks circling around the many possible answers—historical, political, theological, existential—to the question: “Why did Jesus die?” We never did “answer” that question in any definitive sense, but the discussions were fruitful, though they often made my brain hurt.)

After Berry’s philosophical opening, he hits us with another look at the long game: invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.

Planting trees has become a common symbol for an act of hope regarding the future. But Berry’s not suggesting just any trees—he’s naming giant trees that can live for centuries. In other words, he seems to say: think about those who will come after you, and act accordingly.

Care for the earth with an eye to its future, he says. Consider the value of what you might begin, and tend to, but never finish. (This echoes Lin-Manuel Miranda’s words on legacy toward the end of Hamilton: “What is a legacy? It’s planting seeds in a garden you never get to see.” Hamilton, and the other Founding Fathers, knew something about legacy: they were setting in motion an ambitious experiment, with no idea whether and how it would endure after they were gone.)

This image, and this stanza, call to mind an early scene from Anne of Green Gables, in which Anne tells Marilla, “If I really wanted to pray, I'll tell you what I'd do. I'd go out into a great big field all alone or into the deep, deep, woods, and I'd look up into the sky--up--up--up--into that lovely blue sky that looks as if there was no end to its blueness. And then I'd just feel a prayer.”

Berry’s tone here is one of similar, sweeping scope, both spatial and temporal. And, he says, we should consider this mindset when thinking about our “main crop,” our life’s work.

All of us are temporary caretakers; we inherit forests (and other projects) that we did not plant, and we work on things whose conclusions we will not live to see. This is part of the human condition; anyone who’s ever been part of a family, a religious community, or a longstanding organization can tell you that. But, Berry adds, flip that capitalistic model of profit and loss on its head, and call this—the ongoing work—your profit instead of chasing short-term returns.

What does it mean, really, to consider the ongoing work (and the leaf mold) your profit? To believe, as Jeff Chu says in his upcoming book Good Soil, that creating rich, healthy dirt is the point? (I interviewed Jeff recently and it was a delight – look out for that interview coming soon.)

I struggle with this mindset, as a single-income household in an expensive American city. Sometimes I find myself far too focused on salary and profit and the credit card bill, instead of the longstanding work of creation and care. I also find myself longing for quick solutions to our most intractable problems, even though I know they’re so difficult precisely because simple fixes don’t exist.

While I wrestle, I do my best to tend and nourish in small ways; regular readers know about my love for both my houseplants and the potted seedlings on my back patio, plus my regular yoga practice and a handful of deep friendships. But I suspect Berry is talking about something deeper here: a reorientation, a mindset that truly values nourishment (and sometimes fallow periods) over “growth” or expansion. A willingness to forego visible progress (and the recognition that goes along with it) in favor of slow, quiet, cell-level growth. An approach that includes some of those things that “don’t compute” from the previous stanza: stepping outside of the scarcity model and into something else altogether.

Perhaps this mindset is another one of those questions that have no answers: unsolvable and sometimes maddening, but important for our growth as human beings.

I’ll be back next week with a meditation on Berry’s fourth stanza – which includes trees, laughter, and even carrion. Until then, I’d love to hear your thoughts – please share in the comments!