RIP Wendell Berry

I found out early this morning that my favorite living author is no longer living. Wendell Berry was a poet, an activist, and an incredible storyteller. I thought I’d include a quote from one of my favorite books, Jayber Crow. (Thanks Russ Moore for the recommendation!) It was the first Berry book I bought and the only one I bought on Kindle, but in the book he had the main character say,

“Back there at the beginning, as I see now, my life was all time and almost no memory. Though I knew early of death, it still seemed to be something that happened only to other people, and I stood in an unending river of time that would go on making the same changes and the same returns forever. And now, nearing the end, I see that my life is almost entirely memory and very little time.”

I thought that was an incredible way of looking at death…early, we seem to have no memories, but lots of time, but then as we grow older our memories increase, and time seems to draw toward an end.

Berry then said something else,

“Toward the end of my life…I began to understand that whenever death happened, it happened to me. That is knowledge that takes a long time to wear in. Finally, it wears in. Finally, I realized and fully accepted that one day I would belong entirely to memory, and it would then not be my memory that I belonged to…”

Week after week, I stand and preach in a place full of memories…there are happy moments—dedications of babies, weddings, salvations, baptisms, and worship, but there are other moments…moments like funerals that come way too often.

Week after week I stand to preach and men and women move entirely to our memories.

We all escape into the memories of others, but that isn’t our end…Jesus takes us home to where time no longer matters, and memories somehow become realities. Where shadows come alive in the light of the One who is the light of the world. Where we gather in shadows, they now feast in the light.

I’m thankful for Wendell Berry and the impact he had on my thinking.
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