Wendel Berry & J.R.R. Tolkien

Sunday Painting, by Ben Shahn
- featured on the cover of A Timbered Choir

       For Christmas this year Lindsey bought me was a copy of A Timbered Choir, which is a collection of poems composed by Wendel Berry.  Being fascinated with the complexity, structures, and formats of poetry, I immediately dove in.  However, I didn't get beyond the first page of Berry's introduction before I had to stop and reevaluate my approach.  A Timbered Choir is a collection of Berry's "Sabbath writing;" poems composed during his weekly time of repose, basking in his enjoyment of his creator's craft.  In his introduction the describes the attitude with which he would desire his readers to engage his work, saying "I hope that some readers will read them as they were written, slowly, and with more patience than effort" (p. xvii, emphasis added).  More patience than effort.  Wow.  Now there is a thought that has had to elbow its way into the crowded anxiety of my mind!
       In a class I attended that studied the life of J.R.R. Tolkien, a theme that we explored was the way he presented the passage of time amongst the Elves.  In Middle Earth travelers lodging with the Elves would often have difficulty recalling exactly how long they had been there.  Tolkien's intent behind this was to demonstrate the Elves' more pure engagement of the events of a day, contentedly accommodating the flow of each moment as it came.  I believe that the best fiction should not only leave us fascinated with the author's created world, but turn us around to marvel at our own.  Tolkien's portrayal of the elves contrasted so starkly with my own experience that it has taken up a firm residence in my mind.
       Thinking through the lesson of Tolkien's Elves and the Berry's simple juxtaposition of such gentle patience with such rigid effort offers a cooling balm to my burning sense of performance.  I have often noticed how when I am faced with most any challenge, even if it is an exciting and fun one, my first response is fear seasoned with just a touch of panic.  Such a patient approach to meeting and exploring the various moments and needs of the day challenges my easily adopted black and white perceptions of what and even how life must be done.  Echoing Tolkien's Elves, Berry's call to patience is the call to relationship over structure, to the personal over the programatic, and to grace over law, and is a great way to begin reading through a book of poetry.  I'm excited to dive in all the further!

- Drew