No.824: Last Week at the Farmhouse // Contemplation

This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission of any sale made at no extra cost to you.

We live in a breakneck speed world.  Keep up or you’ll be left far, far behind!  (And people will mock you for it too.)  I’ve been thinking about the juxtaposition between that intensity and a section from the preface of Wendell Berry’s Home Economics:

The essays in this book continue an attempt to construct an argument that I began twenty or so years ago.  The subject of the argument is the fact, and ultimately the faith, that things connect – that we are wholly dependent on a pattern, an all-inclusive form, that we partly understand.  The argument, therefore, is an effort to describe responsibility.

Such an argument is necessarily an essay – a trial or an attempt.  It risks error all the time; it is in error, inevitably, some of the time.  The idea that it could produce a verdict is absurd, as is the possibility that it could be concluded.  I am never completely happy with this project, and sometimes I am not happy with it at all.  I dislike its necessary incompleteness, and I am embarrassed by its ceaseless insinuation that it is a job for somebody better qualified.  I keep returning to it, I think, because the study of connections is an endless fascination, and because the understanding of connections seems to me an indispensable part of humanity’s self-defense.

The essays appear here in the order in which they were written, each having been formed under influence of the ones before.  The pattern of the argument, by now, appears to be a sort of irregular spiral; any subject that it has passed through it is likely to pass through again, sometimes saying the same thing in a different way in a different connection, sometimes changing or developing what was said before. (p.ix-x)

Basically, he’s saying that he’s been wrestling with the development of an argument, using essays written over many years to try to clarify/mold one idea.  Isn’t that such a lost art in our age?  To ruminate on an idea, spinning it around and around, looking at it from all angles.  To read and read some more, listening to other people’s opinions and then weighing that against our original ideas.  To fortify those original ideas or yield to a new and better one.  Does anyone still do that?

I think that process takes margin; it won’t compete with the noise of today’s world.  It has to happen in relative silence.  Do your best ideas or prayers or decision-making happen in the shower?  There’s probably a reason for that.

2024 has been the year that I’ve been striving to cultivate the practice of contemplation: turning off the flashy screens and music (even Gregorian chant or classical!) and just sitting in that silence.  No multi-tasking, no distractions, no numbing my worries or stress with the easier choice.  And it is HARD.  It 100% feels like an intentional rewiring of the brain.  But it is also good and life-giving.

A few things I’ve noticed so far:

+ I don’t have knee jerk reactions to the hot button issue of the day.  There’s always something happening in the world and so many people want immediate reactions.  Contemplation allows me to step back from all of the emotional hysteria, learn from all sides and form a rational opinion on my own.

+ Deep thinking, information retention, and focus are all like exercising: the more you practice, the easier it gets.  I’m definitely not in the “easy” stage, but getting closer.

+ The more you learn, the more you realize all you don’t know.  At least for me, this has kept me humble as I seek to understand things more and more.  I also believe that the more you contemplate what you read, the more you buck the idea of binary boxes – you don’t have to choose Team A over Team B!  So much of life is very nuanced and gray.  You don’t always have to pick one side.

+ I see my words on this blog in a new light.  The thoughts I write are a representation of my wrestling with a complex world.  They will always be evolving, fine-tuned over time or possibly completely abandoned.  And this grace should be given to anyone, even when we don’t agree!  Wrestling with a complex world is okay.  This is the human experience.

Hoping to document the abundance around me all year long!

Around here, abundance looks like…

+ the tender way my family cared for me as I healed from my foot debacle.  I wasn’t able to do anything for days and they all stepped up to help, even (lovingly) yelling at me when I tried to hobble around.

+ selling ten unneeded items for the Farm Sitter Vacation Fund: six books, three pieces of clothing and one curriculum guide.  After shipping and fees, I made $52.29!

Reading //

• Endangered Habitat: Why the soul needs silence from Stephanie Bennett at Plough // “Silence is disappearing. It’s disappearing because we’re being trained to hate it.”
• Why Children Need Lego Now More Than Ever from Joshua Gibbs at Circe Institute
• What Will Tech Mean to Gen Z Families? ​A Conversation with Ben Christenson from Hearth and Field
• Be Present from Katherine Johnson Matinko at The Analog Family // Related to this idea is a book I read years ago but still think about: You’re Not Listening: What You’re Missing and Why It Matters by Kate Murphy)
• “Two Economies” from Home Economics by Wendell Berry // This quote was thought-provoking:

One of the favorite words of the industrial economy is “control”: We want “to keep things under control”; we wish (or so we say) to “control” inflation and erosion; we have a discipline known as “crowd control”; we believe in “controlled growth” and “controlled development,” in “traffic control” and “self-control.”  But, because we are always setting out to control something that we refuse to limit, we have made control a permanent and a helpless enterprise.  If we will not limit causes, there can be no controlling of effects.  What is to be the fate of self-control in an economy that encourages and rewards unlimited selfishness? (p.68)

New Additions to The List // 

• The Naturalist: Theodore Roosevelt and His Adventures in the Wilderness by Darrin Lunde // I’m interested in learning more about Theodore Roosevelt and how much he loved the natural world.
• The Lonely Century: How to Restore Human Connection in a World That’s Pulling Apart by Noreena Hertz
• Behind the Dolphin Smile: A True Story that Will Touch the Hearts of Animal Lovers Everywhere by Richard O’Barry // I watched an interview with the author and am curious to learn more about his backstory.

Watching/Listening //

• the latest selection in the Learning to Look series from Fr. Hugh at St. Michael’s Abbey
• St. Joseph talk from Fr. Sebastian Walshe // A great explanation of Biblical typology.  So good.

Loving //

• Christian Classics Ethereal Library // A new find and what a gift to the world!  So much wisdom to learn…and for free.
• RIND “straw-peary” snacks // yum.