Much Good Work to Do

Written by Van

 

In thinking about stewardship, I have been drawn recently to the writing of Wendell Berry.  In his 1992 book, Conservation is Good Work, he wrote,
“No settled family or community has ever called its home place an “environment.” None has ever called its feeling for its home place “biocentric” or “anthropocentric.” None has ever thought of its connection to its home place as “ecological,” deep or shallow. The concepts and insights of the ecologists are of great usefulness in our predicament, and we can hardly escape the need to speak of “ecology” and “ecosystems.” But the terms themselves are culturally sterile. They come from the juiceless, abstract intellectuality of the universities which was invented to disconnect, displace, and disembody the mind. The real names of the environment are the names of rivers and river valleys; creeks, ridges, and mountains; towns and cities; lakes, woodlands, lanes roads, creatures, and people.

And the real name of our connection to this everywhere different and differently named earth is “work.” We are connected by work even to the places where we don’t work, for all places are connected; it is clear by now that we cannot exempt one place from our ruin of another. The name of our proper connection to the earth is “good work,” for good work involves much giving of honor. It honors the source of its materials; it honors the place where it is done; it honors the art by which it is done; it honors the thing that it makes and the user of the made thing. Good work is always modestly scaled, for it cannot ignore either the nature of individual places or the differences between places, and it always involves a sort of religious humility, for not everything is known. Good work can be defined only in particularity, for it must be defined a little differently for every one of the places and every one of the workers on the earth…there is much good work to be done by every one of us and that we must begin to do it.”

In thinking about Berry’s words in relation the work of the church, there is also much good work to do.  We are stewards of the earth and all its resources.  We are stewards of the many gifts we have received.  We are stewards of the mysteries of God, keepers of the sacred traditions and rituals that have sustained people of faith for generations.  Faithful stewardship begins with each of us committing ourselves to the high calling of giving to something greater and believing that in doing so, good things can happen.  How can we all become more faithful stewards of the many resources we have been given to care for the earth which it the Lord’s as well as all that is within it?   What good work is God calling you to do?

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