Wise old man

If we were to choose a grandfather for People not profit, it would definitely be Wendell Berry. Here’s just one reason why:From his 2005 commencement address at Lindsey Wilson college:

“Violence, in short, is the norm of our economic life and our national security…The line that connects the bombing of civilian populations to the mountain removed by strip mining … to the tortured prisoner seems to run pretty straight. We’re living, it seems, in the culmination of a long warfare — warfare against human beings, other creatures and the Earth itself.”

Berry told the graduates of the perilous ecological, economic and political consequences of an economy based on war and violence.

“We make war, we are told, for the love of peace. We subvert our Bill of Rights and impose our will abroad for the sake of freedom and the rule of law,” he said. “We honor greed and waste with the name of economy. We allow ever greater wealth and power to accumulate in the hands of a privileged few only to provide jobs for working people and charity to the poor. And we sanctify all this as Christian, though the Gospels support none of it by so much as a line or a word.”

And later:

“Competitiveness, covetousness, ruthlessness and greed are not economic virtues,” he said. “The economic virtues are neighborliness, generosity, trust, good workmanship, thrift and care.”

Jesus would not have been real popular among the corporate elites. He basically said that if we were to major on one thing in life, it should be loving God and loving people. He also championed things like nonviolence, trusting God for our needs like the birds of the air, sharing sacrificially with those that may or may not deserve it. It’s funny that profit isn’t much a part of his teachings, other than to say things like “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world…?”

Our economy says, “That’s cute; get real. Love profit, especially the quick profit. Thank the gods of war for keeping you and your American lifestyle safe. Store up, buy up, use up; you’ve earned it. Let those with less work harder, otherwise they’ll never learn.”

Berry offers some hope in the poem “Look Out”

“…Leave your windows and go out, people of the world, go into the streets, go into the fields, go into the woods and along the streams. Go together, go alone. Say no to the Lords of War which is Money which is Fire. Say no by saying yes to the air, to the earth, to the trees, yes to the grasses, to the rivers, to the birds and the animals and every living thing, yes to the small houses, yes to the children. YES.”

Yes. Say no by saying yes. Yes to better things than profit. Yes to our families and friends, our neighbors and strangers. Yes to the poor and rich alike. Yes to communities near and far, yes to the possibility of a peace, love, justice and generosity breaking into the world through the choices we make each day. Yes.