Hello fellow earthlings ~
I’m writing today to share a poem that I have returned to many times since I first read it a few months ago. It’s called “The Morning’s News”, from Wendell Berry’s1 1971 book Farming: A Handbook2. Though I don’t know what event he is referring to at the beginning of the poem, his sentiments resonate with me now as I read the news today in 2025.
The atrocities happening to Palestinians in Gaza3 are weighing heavy on my heart and mind. I am trying to find ways to digest and respond to what’s happening there, and my country’s involvement in it, without surrendering my agency, compassion, or spiritual stability.
”Uselessness and horror hold the eyes
open to the dark”
“What must I do
to go free?”
I’ve been sitting here for too long trying to explain all the reasons why I’m sharing this poem, and why it feels relevant to me now, so I think I will stop trying and let it speak for itself. I’m grateful that Mr. Berry took the time to articulate this many decades ago so that another generation could read this as we continue to cycle through bewilderment, dissolution, rage, and grace.
The line that I keep turning over in my mind is:
“I will serve the earth
and not pretend my life could be better served.”Lately I’ve been noticing myself grasping for something to hold on to, some kind of certainty or directive. Even though I know that I wouldn’t want to know the future, (if I had the opportunity to), part of me is still trying to know everything. What I really do believe and would be willing to wager that I know for sure, is that “the future”, or in other worlds, “the world”, “our reality” — is being created by (all of) us in every moment. Surely some elements of that are out of our control, as our existence itself is mysterious. But I do have agency, and I can direct my energy. I have the option of “entering into the design of man’s hate”, as Berry so concisely describes it, and I also have the option to put on a “deathlier knowledge” and “prepare to die” instead. It is poignant to me how he chooses to frame these as choices that are in opposition to each other, indicating that though hatred can lead to death, as he describes in the first brutal lines of this poem, death exists outside of hate. Death exists in the realm of the earth, where everything is received, turned under, restored and remade. Death is where all things go to surrender their efforts, to truly know peace.
I pray that all those that have lost their lives, their homes, their ability to participate in this world freely and safely due to the cold hearted sickness of genocide — may they know the peace of being received by the earth, by beauty, by love.
May we ALL know, and remember that peace.
May those of us that are still here come to understand that “preparing to die” might mean that we can choose to live in such a way that allows us to be at peace with the fact that our lives end. May we find out what’s possible when we live to serve the earth.
with love in the unknown,
- Rachel
“We’re all going to have to do something to help our land, our country itself,” …. “We have to find a way to pay it what we owe it. And what we owe it, of course, is our love.
Thank you Sara, for this book
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