We arrived with just a few minutes to spare.  Could this be the place?  The winding roads, up and down through the grassy hillsides, the hollows, not that far from the Ohio River were exhilarating and disorienting for two guys from Chicago.  Additionally we had overlooked the loss of an hour of travel time as Port Royal Kentucky was just inside the Eastern Standard Time Zone.  Nevertheless the GPS indicated that we were there.  The first driveway we pulled into featured a barn and a welcoming committee of two or three sheep eyeing us through the gate.  This could not be the place.  After turning around we approached another drive way not far down the road, the end of which appeared an ordinary looking farm-house.  Tobin waited in the car as I knocked on the door.  There was nothing around to indicate who occupied this house, no street address, or name on a mail box.  After some vigorous knocking, a tall older man opened the door.  I did not have to ask, it was Wendell Berry.

Tobin and I were invited through the front living room, which featured a filled floor-to-ceiling book shelf on one wall, into the Berry’s kitchen.  The three of us sat at a round wooden table.  The furnishings, the items around us in the room were similar to those in my kids memory to my grandparents farm-house in North Carolina a life time ago.  I felt at home suddenly, though having previously met Mr Berry only through his poems and essays.  He appeared a tall, composed gentleman, white casual shirt, and work pants showing some old paint stains.  No pretense here, what you see is what you get.  Lest I forget, the kitchen featured more floor to ceiling bookshelves on one wall.

So we began to talk.  We talked for two hours.  Prior to our visit Mr. Berry had asked Tobin what he wanted from the visit.  So that is how the conversation began.  Tobin expressed a conundrum that he has lived with, wrestled with for some time.  Mr. Berry’s response was that one cannot expect to be understood, to communicate with persons who are clearly on the opposite side of conserving the soil and seeking the long-term welfare of Nature.  Berry confessed his failure to communicate over years of writing and speaking to the matter.  “In the long run you must realize that you are going to lose,” was my understanding of his “advice.”  Then came his point which was a paraphrase of a saying of Jesus found in the Gospel of Matthew.  Take no thought for tomorrow,  –sufficient for today is its own trouble.  Worry about outcomes is pointless–but we can and ought to make provision for the future.  The future is by nature unpredictable.  Our desire to shape the future according to our wishes, is unproductive, interfering with the provision what needs to be made by today’s work.  The focus needs to be on day to day provision.

That minute or two of soliloquy by Mr. Berry on a theme which he often touches upon in his writings, made the visit worthwhile for me.  I am not not the only individual traumatized about what the future may bring.  Media cultivates that anxiety as standard policy now a days.  Mr Berry advised to lose oneself in one’s work, make provision for the future, and do not worry about it.

The conversation continued for two hours.  He is a keen listener. He is, as anyone who has read his essays knows, a masterful story teller.  We heard stories of a farming disaster that had occurred to the land in his area when big Ag companies persuaded some to terrace their hillside fields in an attempt to grow corn.  He told us about his father who was a sagacious country lawyer, one who made good use of the country bumpkin stereotype to conceal his legal strategy for his client.

Mr. Berry shared with Tobin and I what was on has mind at this time.  He had a lot to say.  Perhaps the main theme was the importance of neighborliness.  Being a neighbor is something one does, mainly with small words and helpful gestures.  How one feels about the other person, like or dislike is irrelevant.  By cultivating a neighborly relationship we take care of one another, and by extension are able to take care of the land.  We discussed that idea at some length.  It is a simple idea, that can be complex and demanding according to circumstances.  Yet, it is a practice that is accessible to everyone, no one is unqualified, on the outside of this approach of day to day living.

I will never fully unpack all that was discussed within that two hour conversation around the Berry kitchen table.  The experience was a example of neighborliness.  We two strangers were graciously welcomed and listened to with sincerity.  That is what it means to be a neighbor.

Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Gospel of Matthew chapter 6 verse 34