A VERY BERRY CHRISTMAS! Merry Christmastide & Happy New Year from The Bondurants 2021
Remembering that it happened once,
We cannot turn away the thought,
As we go out, cold, to our barns
Toward the long night’s end, that we
Ourselves are living in the world
It happened in when it first happened,
That we ourselves, opening a stall
(A latch thrown open countless times
Before), might find them breathing there,
Foreknown: the Child bedded in straw,
The mother kneeling over Him,
The husband standing in belief
He scarcely can believe, in light
That lights them from no source we see,
An April morning’s light, the air
Around them joyful as a choir.
We stand with one hand on the door,
Looking into another world
That is this world, the pale daylight
Coming just as before, our chores
To do, the cattle all awake,
Our own white frozen breath hanging
In front of us; and we are here
As we have never been before,
Sighted as not before, our place
Holy, although we knew it not.
-Wendell Berry
Ben and I have been immersed in the words and world of Wendell Berry* this past year through his fictional Port William series as well as many of his lectures based on his essays. I’ve also enjoyed his poetry immensely, so I thought it appropriate to share this Christmas poem with you.
It is hard to put Wendell Berry into words, or to describe how being immersed in the world of Port William has formed our affections and thoughts this past year. His Port William series has reawakened in us a desire for rootedness and deep community and has further grown in us a passion for the stewardship of God’s creation and the beauty of tending the earth. This series has also reminded us of the sacredness of the ordinary- ordinary people, ordinary lives, ordinary communities, and the importance of place- of loving and caring for the place God has placed us in at this given moment.
“He saw a lot of places, and he came home. I think he gave up the idea that there is a better place somewhere else. There is no “better place” than this, not in this world. And it is by the place we’ve got, and our love for it and our keeping of it, that this world is joined to Heaven.” (Hannah Coulter, Wendell Berry)
We encourage you to read the Port William series as well, (and any and all other Wendell Berry for that matter!) and that you would be inspired to love and keep your “place”- the piece of God’s creation that He has entrusted to you, and that by doing so you would experience the joy that comes as your world is joined to Heaven.
This Christmas season, let us remember that Christ too came to a place and a people. We are living in the same world into which He first came, and He will come again to make all things new- all of the ordinary places, people, and communities. Come, Lord Jesus!
Born by our birth
Here on the earth
Our flesh to wear
Our death to bear
-Wendell Berry
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