Over the last week or so, my social media feeds have been inundated with tributes to the late, great Wendell Berry, who passed away at the age of 92 on August 31st.
I only really got into Berry a year or so ago.
He was, by all means, a great man of letters.
A Southern agrarian and communitarian at heart, Berry taught us that life wasn't just about expediency, efficiency, and bigness. Rather, his writings centered around home, rootedness, neighborliness, and good husbandry.
He despised the fast-paced industrialized life of Northern cities.
A cosmopolitan life, to Berry, was one devoid of meaning.
Born and raised on his family farm in Kentucky, Berry understood that place, people, and nature, above all, were what gave one meaning and purpose.
The migration of peoples from a rooted life in the agrarian South to a hyper-industrialized and impersonal life of a Northerner corroded the soul.
I read and loved The Unsettling of America, The Need to Be Whole, and a few of Berry's essays, including his famous Luddite lament: Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer.
A Jewish-Italian from Brooklyn, Berry let me into a world that I knew nothing about.
What did I know about the cultivation of land or the importance of animal husbandry?
I've spent my life in the "concrete jungle," moving around from one Brooklyn apartment to the next.
No connection to the soil or anything like that.
But still, Berry's prose resonated with me in a deep and profound way.
Why?
Well, because, I firmly believe that, within all of us, there is a visceral need for belonging, place, and communion with others.
Atomistic living is not good for us. On some deep level, we all understand this.
Berry gave words and a voice to what we all already knew to be true.
In his words, "to be whole and free, we must be at home."
Berry is, once again, at home.
RIP.
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