I might not always choose this hymn to share, but it spoke to me particularly in Lent.

In this hymn I am most lifted up by the final 4 lines. The thought of the spirit’s healing being poured out on us, bringing forth joy and boldness,  gives me such a full heart I can’t help but burst into a broad smile whether anyone is around or not!

The “measure” of “gain and loss” sounds potentially discouraging, but perhaps that’s a source of “the hopes that lead us onward” as well as “the fears that hold us back”. Those fears and that timidity! They are not God given.

Earlier in this Lent I heard and saw several references to our need for faith and courage in responding to the visions God has for us. It came up in the children’s lesson with Abraham and Sarah being good models in leaving their homeland for a place known to God but not to them. I also remember Reverend Wright challenging Beloveds in a sermon preached before the roof damaging storm, to listen for God’s message and  be prepared to step out of our comfort zone in order to fulfill the work God has for each of individually and for us collectively.

Thus I pray,

God, you know our strengths and weaknesses, reinforce and undergird the love we know, that all those whom we meet may also know that love and share it as they are called to do.

Amen

-Nancy Sales

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

by Wendell Barry

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.

Poet, essayist, farmer, and novelist Wendell Berry was born on August 5, 1934, in Newcastle, Kentucky.