“To cherish what remains of the Earth and to foster its renewal is our only legitimate hope of survival.” -Wendell Berry
Are you tired of news hosts asking everyone they interview what is going to happen - especially relating to re-opening after the pandemic? Those interviewed are always put in a double bind. If they urge caution, they are met with comments about how tired we are and how unfair it is. If they predict good news they are immediately met with fear that things are moving too quickly.
The truth is - we don’t know what will happen in the future. “We never did and we never will.” Wendell Berry was asked a similar question when asked to deliver a talk on the Narrative of the Future. That was his response as poet, farmer, and lover of earth - especially his home locality in Kentucky. While reminding us that scripture urges us to have no thought for the morrow, that might also be a problem.
The first thing we might do instead, he says, is to look at history for lessons. The evil that is sufficient for the day does indeed play out tomorrow. Remember the lack of preparedness in 2010 for a pandemic that was raised and never acted upon. We have paid for it now.
A second thing is to appreciate the day we have when our pains and losses are minor ones, Not everyone is so fortunate. Losing a loved one to disease is not the same as being deprived of going to bars. Time moves in one direction. What are we doing with our days?
We can’t predict the future. But we can provide for the future. To do this, we recognize the choices we make today have consequences and have an impact on our own future and the other creatures we share the planet with.. While climate change demands a big solution according to many, Berry says it seems so big that we have to keep moving that solutions further and further into the future because it seems so gigantic. The thinking about solving it also become political with views that range from drastic to futile. We propose policies - and argue about them
How will changes in policy affect the climate of the futre. We don’t know. What does matter is not policies, but principles. Changes in principles, Berry says, can be made now by as few as one. Small solutions do not have to wait for the future. He suggests that rather than trying to save the world, maybe we could start to live savingly. Among the options I remember from the second world war was the rationing of fuels. Governments could do it then without question- but so can we now- one by one. It’s only one small example, but we can choose others and learn. The best lessons about frugality are taught by the earth itself.