Practice Resurrection

This week's lectionary readings reminded me of one of my favorite poems, Wendell Berry's The Mad Farmer Liberation Front. Berry begins by describing how we live when we function out of our fear and anxiety rather than embracing God's promise that our needs are known and will be provided for and realized as we strive first for God's justice, peace, and joy.

Be afraid to know your neighbors and to die.
When they want you to buy something they will call you.

Berry spends the rest of the poem outlining how we might try to not worry about our life.

So, friends, every day do something that won't compute.
Love the Lord. Love the world.
Work for nothing. Take all that you have and be poor. Love someone who does not deserve it.

The reading from Isaiah describes how God cares for us even more than a mother for her child, asking:
Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb?
Berry echoes:

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy a woman satisfied to bear a child? Will this disturb the sleep of a woman near to giving birth?

In the final stanza, the poet suggests that we might be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction.
Berry concludes by naming what it would mean for us to live out of hope rather than fear:

Practice resurrection.

Amen. Read the whole poem here.