In Honor of Wendell Berry

A great one died on August 31st. This is my favorite of his many soul-searching poems

The phrase "practice resurrection" comes from this poem by Wendell Berry. I like the phrase; it is pregnant with meaning and challenge and hope. Its context in "Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front" by Berry sets it up:

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.

from The Country of Marriage, 1973, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich

I Have Pedaled

The privilege of bicycle adventures across decades fill me with gratitude

Gap of Dunloe, County Kerry, Ireland

I have pedaled a hundred miles along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Vietnam.

I have bicycled past elite long-distance runners of the Kalenjin tribe training on the roads near Eldoret, Kenya.

I have ridden to far flung 19th-century wooden churches, restored as a collective UNESCO World Heritage Site, on Chiloe island in Chile.

I’ve been chased by a pack of wild dogs (dohls) on a hilltop plateau in central India.

I have ridden solo for days along the Irish coast with mystic Skelig Michael in view.

Hell's Gate National Park, Kenya

I’ve glided along rural Dutch canals and navigated Amsterdam’s busy bikeways.

I’ve pedaled for a week beside the Allegheny and Potomac Rivers to climb the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Riding along Highway 1, I’ve taken in the California Pacific coast and stopped a while to watch surfers at Morro Rock.

I’ve climbed West Virginia trails on a mountain bike and rolled along it’s winding, hilly byways on a road bike.

I’ve followed the Mississippi River for a week through Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa.

A rural road in India

I rode 100 miles from Chicago to Wisconsin and back one day along Lake Michigan.

These and more fill my mind and warm my heart with gratitude.

And yet, there are many possible bicycle adventures to contemplate.

Glacier, Yosemite, Sequoia, Camino de Santiago, le Alpe d’Huez, the Underground Railroad, Canada to Mexico, Cairo to Capetown, China’s Great Wall, Japan’s hilly byways, Bogota to Caracas, Portland to Baltimore…

Unexplored trailways in Indiana alone could consume the rest of my days.

I dream and I plan and I ride my bicycle wherever the pathways invite me--whether across the city or across the world.

Come August

August seems less about doing summer and more about being summer 

Unlike June and July, August is the least intentional of summer months. 

Looking forward to summer, we schedule vacations, sign up for camps and mark outdoor events on our June and July calendars. June and July are planned and structured. We're determined not let summer be wasted. We go and attend and spend and return. We pack up and line up and take in and wade in. Come August, except for the Indiana State Fair, we've fulfilled most everything on our summer checklist.

Maybe we're tired enough from doing summer by the time August rolls around that we're actually ready for being summer. Earnestness eases and we relax. Or, maybe August's heat saps our strength and wilts our will to get up and go. Whatever, it just seems like by early August we're finally in a summer state of mind.

It may last just a few days, this balance between 'been there, done that' and get ready for next and gotta get going. We're between what's over and what's to come. Returns to school and the energy of September will quickly impinge upon whatever is left of summer. But the end of Dog Days offers a short stretch or window of some kind of grace.

The onset of August is less about intending and doing and more about being and observing. We watch surprise lilies sprout. We pull ripening tomatoes and pick green beans. We listen to cicadas clinging to trees. We savor a glass of iced tea. A novel reads itself to us. We sit in the shade and watch sprinklers water what's left of heat-scorched lawns.

We don’t leave summer completely in August, or at least it doesn’t leave us. It is in August, when the unique experiences and moments of summer begin to be numbered, that we realize that we have been blessed by it. This is the month when we savor summer, linger with its graces. Though September is on the horizon, perhaps the best days of summer are still to come.

John Franklin Hay

johnfranklinhay.blogspot.com

Instagram.com/johnfranklinhay

I See America Through the Eyes of Love

Over 30 years ago, Ken Medema created a patriotic song that still sings in me

Here are the lyrics to "I See America Through the Eyes of Love" by Ken Medema, a blind singer/songwriter who grew up at Silver Lake, Michigan. From the time I heard and sang "Moses" in a college choral group to today, I have received inspiration, challenge, comfort, and insight from Medema's songs--frequently created and sung extemporaneously immediately following a speaker's conclusion in a conference or faith and justice gathering.

You can listen to "I See America" at this YouTube link.

Verse 1 

I have seen the white sand beaches

Near the town where I was born

I have seen the springtime forest

Fresh and green

I have walked along the highways

By the fields of standing corn

I have breathed the mountain air

So fresh and clean

And I've been in other places

Where it's hard to breathe the air

And the high rise holocaust

Blocks the morning sun

Where children play in dirty streets

And no one seems to care

America's children

Look what we have done

Refrain

I see America

Through the eyes of love

I long for all her people to be free

And if you see

Put your hand to the job

There is work that must be done

'Til freedom's song is sung from sea to shining sea

Verse 2

I have seen the dauntless pilgrims

Who came from foreign shores

And braved the raging peril of the sea

I have seen them suffer hardship

And risk their lives in war

In order that a people may be free

But I've seen how first Americans were

Driven from their land

And I've seen the slave ships come

From far away

Tyranny is still alive

There is hate on every hand

We must work to end oppression's day

Verse 3

I have seen the untold millions

Whose birthplace freedom made

Who nourished by her dream grew

Strong and tall

I have seen them teach their children

So the dream would never fade

I have seen them stand to answer

Freedom's call

But I've seen how greed and carelessness

Can wipe the dream away

To create a living nightmare in its stead

So rise up children dream again

For it's time for us to say

Though some may scoff

The dreamers are not dead

Pride: in Honor of My Church Friends

I fly the flag and celebrate/protest with Pride in honor of… 

- Every child and youth in our evangelical church youth group who was alienated by the church and rejected by their loved ones for acknowledging they were gay/lesbian. 

 - Todd, frail and sincere, who played the pipe organ with power. I hope to see you again on the other side someday. 

- Dan, for tolerating my ignorance and self-righteousness. 

- David, who as a buoyant teen styled holy women’s hair at church camp, sang like an angel, and could dance friends into a trance. Thanks for reaching out to me in your last months of life. We’ll catch up, I hope. 

- Chris, who befriended me when I transferred to Plainfield High School as a senior. RIP. 

- Emery, who endured decades of “love the sinner, hate the sin” treatment from churched extended family. You rose above in spite of. 

- The youth and adults in the congregations I led before I fully embraced inclusivity. Even then, I hope I offered a space for searching without undue judgment. I repent and ask your forgiveness; I salute your continuing journeys. 

- Fellow students at Olivet Nazarene University who were forced to stay in the closet by intimidation or be subjected to pressure for “conversion” by homophobic church zealots. Belated kudos to all who came out and were kicked out. 

- All who have had to grapple maddeningly with a judging church and god which/who is defied/eclipsed by the Jesus really presented in the Bible. 

Pride, to me, is in honor of all who have struggled just to BE in the face of religious and cultural ignorance. Pride is a celebration of life and love. Pride is a protest against all who would try to suppress or cancel the rights and hopes of our loved ones and neighbors. 

I am an ally. Count on me.

On it Goes

I wrote this poem at the onset of the Iraq War, but it applies to all the wars and conflicts shallowly planned and stupidly justified ever since.

We are told
Coyly cajoled
To anticipate victory

Flags wave
We behave
As if it was meant to be

With every death
Gasping breath
Resolve is supposed to deepen

Till debt is paid
For every grave
We are chided not to weaken

It seems inane
Surely insane
To follow this logic through

We buy the lie
Exchange right
For a tough man’s stunted view

On battlefields
Clarity yields
To prior and distant choices

Ill-conceived
Blindly-believed
Ignoring wiser voices

Quagmire ensues
Still we choose
To pursue paths of violence

On it goes
Till who knows
So long as most keep silence. 

Who Makes These Decisions?

We do, or don't, depending on our care and persistent engagement as citizens

Protestors demonstrate in opposition to a
proposed data center on Sherman Drive on
Oct. 13, 2025, in the Martindale Brightwood
neighborhood of Indianapolis. 
Credit: Lee Klafczynski for Mirror Indy

I wrote this Dr. Seuss-ish poem in 1998 in light of my work in regional land use and transit planning. The dynamics of local decision-making fascinate me.

I revisited the poem this week in light of the recent pathetic decision process in which the City of Indianapolis granted permission for a data center to be located in the Martindale Brightwood neighborhood over the persistent and raised voices of local residents.

Who makes these decisions
     About where traffic lights go,
Where highways are built,
     How fast or how slow?

Who makes these decisions
     About size, width, and scale,
About where parks can be planted,
     Where county jails?

Who makes these decisions

     About developing land;

How much shall we grow?

     Which trees shall stand?

Who makes these decisions

     That give shape to a town,

That set habitation,

     That move us around?

Others make these decisions

     When we don’t get involved,

When we choose not to care,

     When we have no resolve.

Others make these decisions--

     They speak in our names,

They assume our places,

     It’s part of the game.

Others make these decisions

     Representatively.

But do they represent or

     Count on passivity?

Who makes these decisions

     Is up to you and me;

If we care not about them,

     Do we care to be free?

We make these decisions;

     These decisions are ours.

Unless we concede them,

     These are within our power.