"creating a path back to the life of harmony and hesed we lost east of Eden."
In the introduction to This Day by Wendell Berry he mentions he has misused the word "wild." Considering his most famous poem hinges on this word for many people, the shift is pretty profound, i think?
"As for "wild" I now think the word is misused. The longer I have lived and worked here among the noncommercial creatures of the woods and fields, the less I have been able to conceive of them as "wild." ..."They are far better at domesticity than we industrial humans are. It became clear to me also that they think of us as wild, and they are right. We are the ones who are undomesticated, barbarous, unrestrained, disorderly, extravagant, and out of control."
Like you said,
"It would be grown from the common life of those who have submitted themselves to an ever growing Yes to what God is doing in the world."
I'm trying to piece together how the shift in perspective from "wild" to "domestic" invites a person, a community, to view or hopefully partake in what's given? Running from our wildness, the world of man, to the domestic order of gods given world.
J., I really like the contrast you draw here of redefining wild and domestic. I still find "wild" a helpful word, but it certainly can lend to a vision of life that absents human participation in the given world. The "domestic order of gods given world." I'm going to be sitting with that line.
Maybe the word “wild” helps break the spell. It draws us out of our human centered mindset or Medusa Mindset, to steal from John Moriarty. Maybe “wild” shakes our stunted eden nature awake just enough to ping our longing for the return. So until the human creature recognizes its own domestic role in creation the spell remains?
"creating a path back to the life of harmony and hesed we lost east of Eden."
In the introduction to This Day by Wendell Berry he mentions he has misused the word "wild." Considering his most famous poem hinges on this word for many people, the shift is pretty profound, i think?
"As for "wild" I now think the word is misused. The longer I have lived and worked here among the noncommercial creatures of the woods and fields, the less I have been able to conceive of them as "wild." ..."They are far better at domesticity than we industrial humans are. It became clear to me also that they think of us as wild, and they are right. We are the ones who are undomesticated, barbarous, unrestrained, disorderly, extravagant, and out of control."
Like you said,
"It would be grown from the common life of those who have submitted themselves to an ever growing Yes to what God is doing in the world."
I'm trying to piece together how the shift in perspective from "wild" to "domestic" invites a person, a community, to view or hopefully partake in what's given? Running from our wildness, the world of man, to the domestic order of gods given world.
J., I really like the contrast you draw here of redefining wild and domestic. I still find "wild" a helpful word, but it certainly can lend to a vision of life that absents human participation in the given world. The "domestic order of gods given world." I'm going to be sitting with that line.
Maybe the word “wild” helps break the spell. It draws us out of our human centered mindset or Medusa Mindset, to steal from John Moriarty. Maybe “wild” shakes our stunted eden nature awake just enough to ping our longing for the return. So until the human creature recognizes its own domestic role in creation the spell remains?
Humans being bad at being human.