This morning, delaying his own plowing, he was going to help
Walter Cotman plow his corn ground. [Mary] could feel the
knowledge of what he had to do tightening in him like a spring.
She thought of him and Walter plowing, starting in the early light,
and the two teams leaning into the collars all day, while the men
walked in the opening furrows, and the steady wind shivered the
dry grass, shook the dead weeds, and rattled the treetops in the
woods.^1And I loved this section about women on a day of berry picking:
“And there on the ridgetop in the low sunlight they danced the
dance of women laughing, bending and straightening, raising and
lowering their hands, swaying and stepping with their heads back.”^2
As I listened to Wendell Berry’s simple, musical descriptions I was
moved by the beauty of the words. I almost felt a desire to pull on a
pair of overalls and head out to walk the opening furrows of the
fields with Elton and Walter. Or to grab my berry basket and go out
picking berries with Josie Braymer and Mary Penn and the others.
Wendell Berry’s descriptions reminded me, too, of the year we
built our cabin here in the woods: of the morning we stood on the
new foundation with Spike’s parents and prayed for a sturdy struc-
ture, a place where the whole family could share laughter and to-
getherness. His descriptions reminded me of the hard physical labor
that left us happy and exhausted, and of the day that the work was
finally completed.
But this is another day and I have another kind of work to do.
Still, I can do it with the same simplicity and diligence and I can find
joy in it, because the Lord is in it with me. So with the blinking of a
cursor in my eyes and thanksgiving in my heart, I offer this work to
him.
101 MOST POWERFUL PRAYERS IN THE BI BLE 23