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Prayer is like lying awake at night, afraid, with your head under the cover, hearing only the beating of your own heart.

Wendell Berry

The old and honorable idea of ‘vocation’ is simply that we each are called, by God, or by our gifts, or by our preference, to a kind of good work for which we are particularly fitted.
WENDELL BERRY

Call Each Gift God Honorable Idea Kind Old Our Preference Simply Vocation
I am not bound for any public place, but for ground of my own where I have planted vines and orchard trees, and in the heat of the day climbed up into the healing shadow of the woods.
WENDELL BERRY

Any Bound Climb Ground Heal Orchard Own Place Plant Public Shadow Tree Vine Wood
Annual plants are nature’s emergency medical service, seeded in sounds and scars to hold the land until the perennial cover is re-established.
WENDELL BERRY

Annual Cover Emergency Hold Medical Nature Perennial Plant Scar Seed Service Sound Until
To hear of a thousand deaths in war is terrible, and we ‘know’ that it is. But as it registers on our hearts, it is not more terrible than one death fully imagined.
WENDELL BERRY

Death Hear Know Terrible Thousand War
We cannot know the whole truth, which belongs to God alone, but our task nevertheless is to seek to know what is true.
WENDELL BERRY

Alone Belong God Know Nevertheless Seek Take True Truth Whose
To cherish what remains of the Earth and to foster its renewal is our only legitimate hope of survival.
WENDELL BERRY

Cherish Earth Foster Hope Legitimate Our Remain Renewal Survival
I was a bright boy and I ought to make something out of myself… something else that would be a cut or two above my humble origins.
WENDELL BERRY

Above Boy Bright Else Humble Make Myself Origin Out Something
Industrial agriculture characteristically proceeds by single solutions to single problems: If you want the most money from your land this year, grow the crops for which the market price is highest.
WENDELL BERRY

Agriculture Characteristically Industrial Problem Proceed Single Solution
If we can’t afford to take good care of the land that feeds us, we’re in an insurmountable mess.
WENDELL BERRY

Afford Care Feed God Land Take Us
I’ve had a good life, and was born to and among people I’ve admired and loved.
WENDELL BERRY

Admire Among Born Good Life Loved People
These are people who are capable of devotion, public devotion, to justice. They meant what they said and every day that passes, they mean it more.
WENDELL BERRY

Capable Devotion Justice People Public
To cherish what remains of it and to foster its renewal is our only hope.
WENDELL BERRY

Cherish Foster Hope Only Our Remain Renewal
When you are new at sheep-raising and your ewe has a lamb, your impulse is to stay there and help it nurse and see to it and all. After a while, you know that the best thing you can do is walk out of the barn.
WENDELL BERRY

All Help Impulse IT Lamb New Nurse Raise See Sheep Stay When
The primary motive for good care and good use of the land-community is always going to be affection, which is too often lacking.
WENDELL BERRY

Affection Always Care Community Go Good Lack Land Motive Often Primary Use
We have to regard them as gifts because we couldn’t make them. We have to regard them as good gifts because we couldn’t live without them.
WENDELL BERRY

Gift Good Live Make Makem Them Regard
The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all our most pleasing responsibility.
WENDELL BERRY

After All Ancient Case Earth Most Please Responsibility Worthy

Prayer is like lying awake at night, afraid, with your head under the cover, hearing only the beating of your own heart.

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Prayer is like lying awake at night, afraid, with your head under the cover, hearing only the beating of your own heart.

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