Like many, I am frequently sitting in traffic. Between living in the suburbs of an east coast city, and a commute that can take over an hour, I spend a good amount of time in the car each day. So it’s no surprise that Wendell Berry’s imagery, in the poem The Thought of Something Else, captured my imagination the first time I read it. Berry begins:
A spring wind blowing
the smell of the ground
through the intersections of traffic,
the mind turns, seeks a new
nativity - another place,
Simpler, less weighted
by what has already been
The “intersections of traffic” are certainly metaphorical. But for me, the image brings to mind quite literal experiences. I know the exact moment. Stuck in gridlock, the stagnant, smog-saturated air is suddenly displaced by the scent of unseen soil, somewhere out there beyond the asphalt. The breeze invades my senses and, as the aroma of frying bacon makes my stomach groan with longing too deep for words, the smell of the ground fills me with the longing for “another place.” In the next few lines, Berry expands on the idea of another place:
Another place!
it’s enough to grieve me -
that old dream of going,
of becoming a better man
just by getting up and going
to a better place.
How well I know this dream. Stumbling across it in Berry’s poem leads me to suspect that it is a universal human dream. The dream that healing, peace, joy, wholeness, purpose, self-improvement—in a word, perfection—is attainable, if we could just go to the right place. A better place. Note that Berry doesn’t call this a hope or a desire. He calls it a dream. As visceral as dreams may be they are not a present reality. Further, Berry calls the “dream of going” a sad dream.
My suspicion is that Berry is grieved by the old dream because he knows that “getting up and going/ to a better place” will not make him a better man. My theological instincts tell me he is right. No matter where I go, I will be there. Where I am, I bring my guilt, my shame, my fragmentation, my hurt, my dysfunction, my grief, my pride. The problem humanity faces is not their place, but themselves. History bears out this truth. For example, consider, the words of George Berkeley, 18th century bishop, philosopher, and poet, in his poem Verses on the Prospect of planting ARTS and LEARNING in AMERICA:
In happy climes the seat of innocence,
Where nature guides and virtue rules,
Where men shall not impose for truth and sense
The pedantry of courts and schools:
There shall be sung another golden age,
The rise of empire and of arts,
The good and great inspiring epic rage,
The wisest heads and noblest hearts.
Berkeley had high hopes that the New World of America would be a utopia. During Berkeley’s lifetime Europeans could move to the New World in order to leave behind the corruption and decay of the Old World. For a time, however short, they could live under the illusion, the dream, that America was the place where “nature guides and virtue rules.” Today however, across the political spectrum, I think it is fair to say we have not always been led by the “wisest heads and noblest hearts.” In just the last few decades multiple presidents have done things which are unethical. The culture of America has not fared much better.
Americans are not living in a world “Where men shall not impose for truth and sense/ The pedantry of courts and schools.” American “courts and schools” may look different from those of late medieval and renaissance Europe, but they are there nonetheless. There are many institutions and cultural structures that impose views without regard for truth or common sense. In short, history teaches us that it is the people that make the place, not the place that makes the people. Yet, however much truth is in this conclusion, it is not the full picture. We must also acknowledge that places we inhabit do have an influence on us and the power to shape us.
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Sometimes I daydream about my optimal living conditions. Usually this involves a cottage on the coast of Maine, the constant crash of waves against rocks, long walks amid fragrant Jack Pines, and time. Time to sit, to think, to read, and to write. With all of this I imagine that I would be happy. I try to convince myself that anxiety and melancholy would dissipate. Instead I would feel constant joy and peace. This is my version, or one one my versions, of the old dream of going to another place. We all have our own version of the dream. Must the dream always be grief-inducing? Is there no reality in it? In the peace of the pine forest will my shame so sully my experience that the place has no positive impact on me? On the shore, as I listen to waves crash endlessly against granite, will my guilt-stained soul bring an ugliness that renders this place of wild beauty impotent? Can a good place, if only in part, bring healing and wholeness? As Berry’s poem goes on he seems to still hold out some hope that it can:
The mystery. The old
unaccountable unfolding.
The iron trees in the park
suddenly remember forests.
It becomes possible to think of going.
A memory sparks hope. But a memory of what? The inorganic, man-made trees in the park suddenly recall the vibrant, organic life of a forest. With the memory of life, hope is renewed. How does memory lead to hope? The question brings to mind an old Hebrew proverb: “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life” (Proverbs 13:12). Perhaps the grief that arises from the old dream is not so much that it cannot come true, but that it has not yet become reality. A desire unfulfilled is like an iron tree. It stands tall against the sky, cold and unmoving. It is dead. But a fulfilled desire is a living tree, more than that, a life-giving tree.
Perhaps there is a type of memory in all of us, an ancient echo of a long forgotten past, the memory of a garden. And in the midst of that garden, if we could go there, we would find the tree which gives life. We would find all we could hope for in life. Not simply life everlasting, but life perfected. The old dream of going to another place, at its core, is the longing to return to Eden. But the fact is, we cannot return. We cannot find or recreate that first, pristine place in which God placed Adam. And so we must grieve the old dream of a better place because we know it is not only a hope deferred, but a hope which will never be satisfied.
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We can’t go back to Eden. The way is shut. Despite this, it seems to me that Berry still holds onto the tantalizing hope of another place. How can this be? The seeds of this hope were planted in the opening stanza: “the mind turns, seeks a new nativity.” The key word is “nativity.” A new nativity is a new beginning or new birth. Contained within this four syllable word is the hope of all who dream of a better place: rebirth. In a new nativity the perfect place and the radical renewal of our soul go hand in hand. The old dream of going and becoming a better man cannot be fulfilled by returning to an old place. To become a better man we must go to a new place. If we are to find this place, where we can become a better man, we must place our hope in a place that is yet to come. In short: this earth must be reborn; and we along with it. The Bible claims as much. The apostle Paul wrote,
For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. (Romans 8:19-25)
Notice how Paul connects the rebirth of humanity together with the rebirth of creation. Creation awaits the glorification of the sons of God even as it groans in agony for freedom from corruption. This hope, for which we were saved, is what we truly desire when a fresh breeze interjects itself in the mundane and frustrating realities of life in a gridlocked world.
When beauty appears unexpectedly, I am often surprised by how it simultaneously creates feelings of awe, peace, and deep sadness. True beauty will awaken our souls to every good thing that is lost in sin, and to every good thing that we hope to regain through Christ. Ultimately beauty draws us not to itself, but to its source. In this way even those who do not know Christ long for him and the new life he offers. Beauty reminds us that the new nativity we all seek can only be found at the Nativity. The Son of God entered our place as a perfect and uncorrupted babe. He grew and lived, suffered and died, without sin. The resurrection is proof that he, unlike us, was not corrupted by the fallen and broken places he entered. It shows that he alone has the power to remake this world and grant us a new life.
Berry concludes his poem with a description of this new nativity as,
- a place where thought
can take its shape
as quietly in the mind
as water in a pitcher,
or a man can be
safely without thought
- see the day begin
and lean back,
a simple wakefulness filling
perfectly the spaces among the leaves
The new nativity is something the mind “turns” and seeks.” The poem’s title The Thought of Something Else, comes into focus in these concluding lines. In the new nativity it is possible to have space for thought, as well space to experience the beauty of the natural world “safely without thought.” This description brings to mind the teaching of the apostle Paul: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2, emphasis added). The Christian hope of salvation includes the hope of a mind that is renewed. Only a renewed mind can experience the perfect stillness of water in a pitcher, undisturbed by the tremors of anxiety, worry, anger and fear. A renewed mind rests secure and stable in the will of a good God. Likewise, only a renewed mind can rest in the present moment and feel the presence of God, who is light and love, shine forth into our life as the sun shines into the “spaces among the leaves.” The old dream of going to another place, it turns out, is the desire to be renewed by the power and presence of God.