upon reading Wendell Berry

“Works of art participate in our lives; we are not just distant observers of their lives. They are in conversation among themselves and with us. This is a part of the description of human life; we do the way we do partly because of things that have been said to us by works of art, and because of things we have said in reply.” - Wendell Berry's "Style and Grace" Essay

What a beautiful thought! Reading Wendell Berry essays (I'm reading: "What Are People For?") is always thought-provoking in areas of religion, the environment and US and world economies. Essays such as "Why I won't buy a computer" can initially seem immature or irrational but stir interesting thought and responses (that particular article was published in "Harper's" and received almost all negative responses). His essay, "God and Country", expresses well how the Church at large buys into the same economy as corporations - it must to keep its organization/structure alive, thus drawing the line between "ministry" and 'other' Christians who must serve God 'in their spare time'. That ever present separation of sacred and secular; to spiritualize those who use excessive God/Jesus language (i.e. those who make the name trite or shallow due to overuse or not meaningul use) and acts that serve the Church structure, if not the actual community (local or world) or 'the body'.

"... ‘full-time Christian service’, which the churches of my experience have used exclusively to refer to ministry, thereby once making of the devoted life a religious specialty or career and removing the possibility of devotion from other callings. Thus the $50,000-a-year preacher is a ‘full-time Christian servant’, whereas a $20,000 or a $10,000-a-year farmer, or a farmer going broke, so far as the religious specialists are concerned, must serve ‘the economy’ in his work or in his failure and serve God in his spare time. The professional class is likewise free to serve itself in its work and to serve God by giving the church its ten percent. The churches in this way excerpt sanctity from the human economy..." - "God & Country"

It is interesting how Christians often lift up those who devote their time to prayer or the church or even a missionary who is out "saving souls" as most holy, while those doing practical work to meet needs either physical or emotional, actually 'feeding and clothing Christ', are overworked and unrecognized, with few to partner with them. Acts of love are every bit, if not more, sacred in the difficult drudgery of the day-to-day, not just in grand acts, 'ministry' settings or when able to be seen by others.

Having worked for some years in ministries myself, where this feeding and clothing was actually happening, as were a lot of other clearly contrary acts to the message of Christ (as it is in any group of people), even having spent months doing life-altering work in remote slums or third world villages, none of it is quite as character-building or powerful as learning to give that love in my daily 'grind', in my own household, to difficult acquaintances and friends, on the streets outside your door, and sometimes hardest of all, in finally accepting vs. loathing yourself.

The economy of grace and love is here at every moment. The most sacred is right in front of us, not in hours of prayer or service, though these can be healthy, important pieces of our lives. They are never the whole, though, nor even our closest moments to our Creator. If we would but open our eyes, we'd see God in the 'insignificant' now, right in front of us, and we would weep with the sheer beauty and the immense possibility to give love... and receive it... in every humble moment.