Dec. 5, 2024

By Rev. Rick King

For many years, my walks have taken me down an old fence row in a wooded hollow on what was once my grandfather’s farm. A battered galvanized bucket is hanging on a fence post near the head of the hollow, and I never go by it without stopping to look inside. For what is going on in that bucket is the most momentous thing I know, the greatest miracle that I have ever heard of: it is making earth….This slow work of growth and death, gravity and decay, which is the chief work of the world, has by now produced in the bottom of the bucket several inches of black humus…All creatures die into it, and they live by it.

–Wendell Berry, 1988

I’ve been reading a collection of essays called “The World-Ending Fire: the Essential Wendell Berry,” in which the farmer, writer and activist writes of land and farming, change and permanence, and the importance of local culture, among other things. In this bucket is the legacy of the earth continually renewing itself, if left to do what it does best.

As we’ve considered the kind of legacy New Life Presbyterian and we want to leave as congregations, we’ve considered the options we have and the decisions we make as stewards of our respective churches’ legacies, and whether they benefit the place that we’re part of, our immediate, surrounding area.

Wendell Berry would say that we’ve all grown accustomed to thinking what happens in governments or corporations sets the norm for all of us, no matter where we live: urban, suburban, rural or small towns. And we think this way at our peril, he says, because it takes away our agency, which most often has its greatest impact locally—on our local culture:

“The loss of local culture is, in part, a practical loss and an economic one. For one thing, such a culture contains, and conveys to succeeding generations, the history of the use of the place and the knowledge of how the place may be lived in and used. For another, the pattern of reminding implies affection for the place and respect for it…Lacking an authentic local culture, a place is open to exploitation, and ultimately destruction, from the center.”

Although Berry writes specifically about rural life and farming, I think what he says also applies to where we must focus if we want to preserve or reclaim what is good about this place, or change what we can for the better, regardless of what might be happening in Washington, DC.

Anna Hall writes of legacy in a recent post on the Convergence blog: “When we think about the future, we often first contemplate our personal and family futures. Yet the future is collective. Individualism will only take us so far. Our lives and futures are inescapably entangled with all those in our lives and even beyond.”

I’ve had conversations with many of you about this year’s presidential election outcome, which we may both find distressing. Personally, I’ve been on what I call a “modified media fast,” meaning I severely restrict my daily consumption of news for the sake of my mental health. Maybe you’ve adopted this strategy, as well—or may find it helpful to do so. So much of the anticipation of a second Trump term is filled with dread, which paralyzes us even though not one policy has been enacted yet.

Berry observed in 1988 that “the prevailing assumption has been that if the nation is all right, then all the localities within it will be all right also. I see little reason to believe that this is true….in fact, both the nation and the national economy are living at the expense of localities and local communities.”

And he concludes by saying that improvement will likely have to begin somewhere outside of cities primarily, and outside Washington and the corridors of power. We can reclaim our agency only by exercising it locally.

What legacy will we leave as a local congregation? It depends on where we begin.