Citizenship Papers

It is difficult to write a review for a book that is so well written, so unbelievably relevant and important, that makes you feel humble as you try to form a clear concise sentence the way only Wendell Berry can. He is our modern day Mark Twain! Thank you, Mr. Berry, for saying what needs to be said!

Wendell Berry throughout this book describes the real meaning of citizenship. Not citizenship of a country but citizenship of a place, a community, an ecosystem. Berry writes that security comes from being self sufficient within that community. The fact that a breakdown in transportation in this country would leave grocery stores bare should give us all pause. How much more sense it would make to know the farms still exist locally to provide the food, to know the farmer through a Community Supported Agriculture arrangement, to not be dependent on food shipped across the country and even across the oceans.The problem is current and past policies are driving small farmers out of business and local businesses are being driven out by megastores such as Walmart. But Berry points out we can resist being driven along this path and stand up and say no. Join a CSA, shop at the farmer's market, buy organic, support the local shops. Wendell Berry says it better. "This, of course, is the description of an emergency. It is moreover an emergency of the worst kind:one that cannot be resolved by "emergency measures". It is an emergency that calls for patience, and to be patient in an emergency is a hard requirement. but patience is what we must have if we hope to complete our work.Obviously, we must use the emergency measures that are available to us, thought there are not many. We must do what we can politically, thought our political power at present is not great. But we must remember that good work cannot have a merely political completion. Our work will not be completed in the world's capitals, but in healthful farms and forest, ecosystems and watersheds, and in coherent communities. More important even than political victory for our side is the necessity to keep our thinking sound enough and complex enough to deal effectively with actual problems and needs. We must not let either political urgency or our sense of peril reduce us to the proto-warfare of slogans and sound bites."

This man is wise and we need to listen to him. Even more, we need to think hard about what actions we can take to address the concerns raised here. For most of us, our actions will necessarily be considered "radical", for most of us have strayed far from living with a consideration for the health of the earth and the local communities we live in. I am frightened at the direction this nation is going and I hope and pray more people pay attention to what Bush and his crew are doing and kick him out next year. But that is only a small part of what needs to happen. Berry consistently gets to the hard roots of many of our modern crises and is always clear-headed and forceful in his analysis. An amazing writer and a master stylist. Read him now. Now is when we most need to hear him.