Wendell Berry is one of my favorite writers. Sure, he is white, and a male of the species. But there is a tender fight within him that comes shining through on behalf of land and lovers (two of my favorite inventions). So when a man like that has the opportunity to whisper in the President's ear and takes the opportunity to speak well of a woman's love for tending earth, I wonder at all the good that will come of it.
Say what you will about Obama; he is a politician after all. Though I am qualified to accomplish a great many tasks, I am not qualified to cast the first stone upon hypocrites. Furthermore, I know I run the risk of contradicting my previously admitted distaste for folks who take gardening privileges for granted. But Berry's nuanced love for properly tending our land on a grand scale is more closely akin to my concerns than it might seem at first blush.
At the end of an article describing the awards ceremony to honor other artists alongside Mr. Berry, Obama is quoted as having encouraged us thusly:
“We have to remember that our strength as a people runs deeper than our military might; it runs deeper than our GDP — it’s also about our values and our ideals that each generation is called to uphold, and that each artist helps us better understand.”
and I sounded my barbaric yawp accordingly.
You can read the entire article for yourself if you need some good news for a change.
No comments:
Post a Comment