Practicing Resurrection Subversively

2 min. read

How easily we forget. If resurrection is both a reality and a metaphor for how we view the world, then we should be about practicing resurrection in creative ways all the time.

Enter stage right: Wendell Berry.

Wendell Berry is a novelist, poet, farmer, activist, and cultural critic. I was recently re-reading some of his poetry and have been meditating over his poem, “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front.”

Here are a few of the lines I’d like to share:

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.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.

…

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.

…

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

You can read the entire poem here.

The Music of Resurrection

If you, like me, want to resist against harmful national and religious narratives in loving ways, putting this poetic work in action is a good way to start. It’s easy to resist in anger, or in ways that tear down and destroy. It’s harder to resist by practicing resurrection.

I want to add to the music of a humane world. I’m just one note. On my best days, I’m only a chord. What music could we create together?

I’m just one note. On my best days, I’m only a chord. What music could we create together?

Together we could use our lives as the music and lyrics of compassion and justice. Together, we could be a symphony of love. Together we could be the soundtrack to a dancing resurrection in every corner of creation.

Cease Forgetting

Could we possibly also resist against our habitual forgetfulness?

How many times have we forgotten that resurrection requires death, by ignoring and avoiding the grief of a seed that falls into the ground and dies?

How often have we forgotten that resurrection means the sum will always transcend the individual parts, by focusing on narrow particulars?

How often have we forgotten that resurrection is subversive and unsafe, by aligning ourselves with the majority and trying to be in the “right?”

I want to cease forgetting. Maybe you do, too?

I want to lose everything in order to experience and live in resurrection.