Words from Wendell

Dear friends,

The rain subsided in Chattanooga last Friday long enough for a gathered crowd of 80 or so people to celebrate the dedication of Hartnell Farm. The beautiful, winding fields of Hartnell's 60-odd acres were gifted to the St. Andrews Foundation, a Methodist organization which plans to utilize the site as a functioning organic farm and education site.

Among those gathered was Wendell Berry, a Kentucky farmer, poet, and author who has penned powerful and prophetic works on culture and agriculture for four decades. If you have never read his wonderful book The Unsettling of America, I suggest you traipse on down to the library and check it out. Berry's words at the dedication ceremony prompted me to reread two of my favorite quotes of his. They go something like this:

"The triumph of the industrial economy is the fall of community. But the fall of community reveals how precious and necessary it is. For when community falls, so must fall all of the things that only community life can engender and protect: the care of the old, the care and education of children, family life, neighborly work, the handing down of memory, the care of the earth, and respect for nature and the lives of wild creatures."

"A part of our obligation to our own being and to our descendants is to study life and our conditions, searching always for the authentic underpinnings of hope."

I am currently finishing up the second of the Cracks in the Pavement letters, this one on technology and culture. In two or three weeks, we will be hosting an event on community and food at Williams Island Farm. Details to come. It's a good time to come visit Chattanooga!

Take care,
Chad