LOYAL. LOCAL. COMPLETE.
Let me start with an apology.
This week’s column contains no overarching parable, as advertised in the name. Instead, I offer a thought.
It’s a presidential election year, and unless you’ve been lucky enough to be unplugged from social media and television for the last 12 months, it’s hard to ignore that fact.
During any election season, the struggles and evils embedded in the very bones of our society become talking points for the candidates we see running for office, presidential or otherwise.
We often think whoever lands in the Oval Office, in an open seat on the Supreme Court or even on a local city council or board should be the one to fix these problems we encounter every day. For Edgar County, that list of problems might include drug addiction, homelessness, poverty, stagnant population, quality-of-life needs or littering, to name a few.
It can be easy to leave it up to the ‘people in charge’ at the national, state and local levels to pick up the broken pieces around us. Sometimes these same expectations are placed on local charities or businesses.
There could be several reasons for this. We might not understand the limitations of government, especially at the local level. We might choose not to help address some of the problems around us because we weren’t the ones who created the issue in the first place. We might confuse thought with action, thinking if we vote for the right person or carry the right beliefs, then we have done our part. This top-down, outward-in philosophy of change conveniently places the burden of responsibility on everyone else, and I’m often guilty of thinking this way myself.
Can electing good people into office make a difference? Absolutely, and some issues require governmental or institutional action. But tackling many of the problems we see around us, especially here in Edgar County, will require the intentional efforts of all of us, moving in unity as neighbors and friends, rather than the stroke of a pen from a government office.
There are few voices better suited to explain this point than that of Wendell Berry. Berry, born Aug. 5, 1934, and raised on a rural Kentucky farm, is a writer and poet, as well as an environmental and social activist. Berry’s prose, as deep and rich as the soil he spent years cultivating on his farm, is an inspiration and a relief to the environmentally conscious, or anyone who simply seeks meaning and beauty in life.
“The World-Ending Fire,” a compilation of essays and works from Berry, has held me in a white-knuckle grip ever since I first began reading it. While the passages quoted are mostly aimed toward issues like farmland preservation and ecological concerns, they still carry weight in other areas.
For Berry, many of the issues we encounter on a daily basis are not matters to be left solely to ‘the people in charge.’ If checking a box next to a name on a ballot is the only thing we are willing to do to fight poverty, hunger, addiction or any ailment in our community, we’ll never find the cure.
“For most of the history of this country, our motto, implied or spoken, has been ‘think big.’ A better motto, and an essential one now, is ‘think little,’” Berry writes in his 1970 essay of the same name. “That implies the necessary change of thinking and feeling, and suggests the necessary work.”
What does Berry mean by “think little?” Does he mean we ought to reign in our hopes and aspirations for our future?
Berry goes on to explain that thinking little means taking simple action that leads to a desired outcome, however ‘little’ that action may seem. We’re not trained to operate this way. Sweeping systemic changes are often considered more productive, but Berry argues that’s not always the case.
Regardless of your beliefs or political leanings, I’m sure you can think of a time when someone in a position of authority failed to deliver on a promise. Or, if they did deliver, it took so long to plan out the details of the solution and so many adjustments were made to please others involved in the process, the promised action proved ineffective.
On the topic of environmental crises, Berry visualized the problem by writing the following.
“But even the most articulate public protest is not enough. We don’t live in the government, or in institutions, or in public utterances and acts, and the environmental crisis has its roots in our lives. By the same token, environmental health will also be rooted in our lives. That is, I take it, simply a fact, and in the light of it, we can see how superficial and foolish we would be to think that we could correct what is wrong merely by tinkering with the institutional machinery,” he explained.
Many of the issues we see around us may stem ‘from the top,’ but the twisting, gnarly mass at the root of these problems is connected to each one of us on a very personal level. So, who better to address the problems in a community than that very community? What better time is there to make a change than now?
If we truly care about our neighbors, we have to be willing to respond to the needs around us as individuals before we can expect organizations, businesses or government agencies to step in, according to Berry.
“We need better government, no doubt about it, but we also need better minds, better friendships, better marriages, better communities. We need persons and households that do not have to wait upon organizations, but can make necessary changes in themselves, on their own,” he writes.
Good intentions and planning, which can unravel quickly, amount to little if we never take action ourselves.
“If you are concerned about the proliferation of trash, then by all means, start an organization in your community to do something about it,” Berry continues. “But before and while you organize, pick up some cans and bottles yourself. That way, at least, you’ll assure yourself and others that you mean what you say.”
Of course, this is easier said than done. For Berry, the costs of living an environmentally conscious life on his Kentucky farm meant minimizing the use of modern amenities like gas, air conditioning and electricity, or cutting them out altogether. It meant swapping out the convenience of modern farm equipment for livestock that can nourish the land while they work.
For the people of Edgar County, living a community-conscious life will likely cost evenings, weekends, sweat, tears and more.
It may also involve setting aside our pride and our own ideas in the interest of getting something done.
So, what do we do? And what right do I have to ask people to invest time, energy and money in an age where each is at a premium?
To answer the first question, that depends on the change you’d like to see. While this list is far from exhaustive, there are plenty of “little” things we can do.
To answer the second question, I do not have the right to demand anything of you, but I think we all owe it to those we care about, family, friends and neighbors, to make the space we share a little bit brighter.
Even if the issues plaguing our communities did not start with us, or we don’t understand the struggles of our neighbors, we become part of the problem if we refuse to act.
“To be fearful of the disease, and yet unwilling to pay for the cure, is not just to be hypocritical, it is to be doomed,” Berry writes. “If you talk a good line without being changed by what you say, then you are not just hypocritical and doomed, you have become an agent of the disease.”
In my short share of time at The Prairie Press, I’ve met board members, volunteers, teachers, business owners, pastors and even children who are doing everything they can to push the needle in the right direction for this place we call home. None of them are presidents, CEOs or superheroes. They are simply kind, patient people who, somewhere along the way, decided thinking little is just as valuable as dreaming big.
In a world where many expect change to trickle from the top down, where actions have been exchanged for opinions, I hope we all have the bravery and humility to start thinking little.
Quotations from “The World-Eating Fire” used in this column are transcribed from the audiobook recording.