The other day Anna (former staff ) met Wendell Berry. Even though wasn’t my experience, I was excited about that, because I think he’s AWESOME, and I also thought he was dead. She wrote: no… he is very much alive. Brilliant, gracious, humble, and genuine are the words that come to mind...

Have you discovered him? He’s an author/farmer. Here’s one of my favorites—He just hits my nail on the head when he says stuff like “I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.” Such an elegant gift to be able to put together the same simple words so uniquely, so perfectly capturing my experiences…

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

– Wendell Berry, Openings: The Peace of Wild Things