In this past Sunday’s New York Times Book Review, Barbara Kingsolver paid tribute to Wendell Berry, “the man she counted among her most important literary mentors.”

Kingsolver focused on Berry’s commitment to “the possibilities of life in a small place” and how they are a mirror to the world, “because, let’s face it, every place has its own kind of small.”

Every place has its own kind of small. This line is living in my heart at the moment because lately I’ve been wondering if I have lived too small a life. I was raised in a small town in western Pennsylvania, attended a small Christian college outside a small town in Massachusetts and now, live in a small town in Maryland in a small Coop unit with a small front and back yard. But then Kingsolver continues:

It’s a universal clemency to find delight in what we have instead of craving what we don’t, and likewise, a balm to any existential dread to consider that “the fragment of the earth/that is now me” is just passing through: “It is on its way/from having been a tree,/a school of fish, a terrapin,/a flock of birds. It will pass/through all those forms again.”

Who doesn’t want to be a flock of birds someday?

Someday I would like to be a flock of birds or a terrapin or school of fish or a tree.

Kingsolver ends her appraisal of her mentor with the last stanza of Berry’s poem, “Stay Home.” Here is the entire poem:

I will wait here in the fields
to see how well the rain
brings on the grass.
In the labor of the fields
longer than a man’s life
I am at home. Don’t come with me.
You stay home too.

I will be standing in the woods
where the old trees
move only with the wind
and then with gravity.
In the stillness of the trees
I am at home. Don’t come with me.
You stay home too.

Is Berry being dismissive with his commands, “Don’t come with me”? Or “You stay home too”? I don’t think so. I think he’s telling me to stop chasing external ambitions and instead anchor myself in the present moment.

About Berry’s death, Kingsolver writes:

A giant tree has surrendered to gravity. No, not surrendered. Accepted. I’ll take Wendell’s instruction to stay here, in these fragments of the earth that are still me, and use them while I can, to nurture a place, a family, a spiritual trust, a neighbor. To call that home, and carry on.

I’ll try to take those instructions, too. To stay here, continue to nurture a place, a partner, beloveds, a spiritual trust, a neighbor. To call that home, and carry on.