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.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
-excerpt from Wendell Berry's "The Mad Farmer Liberation Front"
One of my top twenty favorite days was waking up in Bowling Green, KY to a new friend reciting this entire poem by heart on the kitchen counter as the sun shot through the blinds and the words hit us stronger than any dull cup of coffee ever could. Leah and I blinked awake to the words
"Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die"
and have been Wendell fans ever since.
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