Snippets from “Sabbaths” by Wendell Berry

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June 23, 2010
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At my bridal shower, fifteen years ago, I received an unusual gift: a slim volume of poetry entitled “Sabbaths” by Wendell Berry. I had never heard of him. The friend who gave it to me wrote, simply, “Good luck” on the title page, and I don’t blame her. I was 20 years old. I assumed she chose the book because I was about to become a Berry.

The dishes are broken, the towels long frayed and cut into rags, but this shower gift remains, and at certain moments through the years I’ve returned to this volume to immerse myself in Wendell Berry’s sabbatical meditations. I have no experience critiquing poetry — I fear I lack the vocabulary, and the breadth of exposure to do it credibly — but I love these poems, and through them, this man, Wendell Berry.

Fast forward fourteen years to the publication of my first novel. I bought a plane ticket and flew to Salt Lake City for my first-ever out of town book tour event. I contacted the instructor of a distance writing class I’d taken, years back, and invited him to come to my event. He had said nice things about my writing nearly a decade prior, and I wanted him to know his student had made good. He politely declined, saying Wendell Berry was also in town that night. I didn’t blame him a bit.

It startles me to learn, with a little research, that Berry has written a handful of novels and dozens of essays, critiques, volumes of poetry. I only know this one collection. For me he remains a Sabbath voice, someone I hold secret, as though these poems connect us privately.

I am a Sabbath-keeper, in my imperfect way, and as my writing life has gotten more hectic, I’ve felt the need all the more to guard this day of worshipful rest zealousy — this cathedral in time instead of in space. However pressing the Monday morning deadline, I still won’t work that day. It’s reckless and wrong to attribute one’s blessings to any worthiness on their part, but I have felt this hallowed time to be a lifeline for me, and a conduit for heaven’s help through the frantic balance of my week.

I’ll share below three moments from this volume that resonate for me. All selections are from Sabbaths by Wendell Berry, North Point Press, San Francisco, 1987.

From poem IV:

Projects, plans unfulfilled

Waylay and snatch at me like briars,

For there is no rest here

Where ceaseless effort seems to be required,

Yet fails, and spirit tires

With flesh, because failure

And weariness are sure

In all that mortal wishing has inspired.

Poem X (in its entirety):

Whatever is foreseen in joy

Must be lived out from day to day.

Vision held open in the dark

By our ten thousand days of work.

Harvest will fill the barn; for that

The hand must ache, the face must sweat.

And yet no leaf or grain is filled

By work of ours; the field is tilled

And left to grace. That we may reap,

Great work is done while we’re asleep.

When we work well, a Sabbath mood

Rests on our day, and finds it good.

From poem II:

The mind that comes to rest is tended

In ways that it cannot intend:

Is borne, preserved, and comprehended

By what it cannot comprehend.

Your Sabbath, Lord, thus keeps us by

Your will, not ours. And it is fit

Our only choice should be to die

Into that rest, or out of it.

—

So thank you, Jeannie T., for this gift that keeps on giving. Used editions of this collection can still be bought, I believe.

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Snippets from “Sabbaths” by Wendell Berry

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