happy easter: practice resurrection.

I went to church this morning, something I do about twice a year (Christmas Eve, and today)--a small Anglican church in Brooklyn, with an interesting congregation (mix of young people, gay couples, families, little old black ladies in the most fantastically wondrous bright hats--like birds of paradise--and their granddaughters, in pastel dresses and white patent leather shoes). I didn't care for the sermon, but the music was nice: all the familiar hymns (I'm a former choirgirl; I know the Easter & Christmas sections of the 1982 Episcopal hymnbook by heart), lots of Haydn and Handel, and to my delight, the choir sang Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus, one of my best-loved of all the pieces of choral music I've ever learned. But I missed the poetry that's always central to the services at Grace. So here's a Wendell Berry poem that I first encountered at an Easter service there four years ago, and have had pinned to the wall of every room I've lived in since. I'd take issue with one or two of the sentiments expressed, but on the whole, it's about as good a list of precepts to live by as I've come across yet. So: Happy Easter, if you celebrate it, and even if you don't, enjoy the sunshine and flowers and chocolate eggs. In the absence of a family to cook for, I'm running off to the East Village to eat döner kebab with K., so I'll have my Easter lamb regardless, and maybe some baklava too.

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

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.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

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.

-Wendell Berry