The Peace of Wild Things

Wendell Berry died this week, and I find myself returning again to one of his poems I have loved for years, The Peace of Wild Things.

The world feels anything but peaceful right now. Gaza. War. Violence. The suffering we continue to inflict on one another. There is no shortage of reasons to be anxious, angry, heartsick, or simply overwhelmed.

And yet there is also that ancient invitation: “Be still, and know that I am God.”

My walks around Green Lake have become something of a sacred space for me, a place where I am learning to re-engage the stillness I so desperately need. Not because everything is fine. It isn’t. And not as an escape from the suffering of the world. But as a way of becoming quiet enough to remember who I am, who God is, and that the violence and noise around us do not get the final word.

Sometimes it is the trees. The changing light on the water. A bald eagle overhead. And sometimes it is a heron standing almost impossibly still at the water’s edge.

Berry understood something about this. The wild things can return us to a different rhythm, a peace that does not require us to deny what is happening around us. Perhaps they remind us that stillness itself can be a form of resistance to a world determined to keep us anxious, reactive, distracted, and afraid.

For me, these walks are becoming less about getting my steps in and more about recovering some sacred ground.

Perhaps we become still not to escape the world, but so that we can return to it—more grounded, more awake, and more able to love.

Rest in peace, Wendell Berry.

And thank you for reminding us of the peace of wild things.

This blog was originally posted at Andy’s substack: https://substack.com/@blessedarethepeacemakers

Andy and Cari are peacemakers devoted to engaging their “other” as followers of Jesus Christ, believing this is a core characteristic of true disciples of Jesus. Andy uses his camera to build bridges of understanding between groups and to decrease social distance. Andy and Cari spend much time facilitating encounters with their “other” across the country and in the Middle East, helping disparate communities build relational bridges of understanding, and their greatest passion is to hang out with Muslim friends and get people out of the pew, or off their prayer rug as the case may be, and into relationships with their “other.” Learn more about Andy here.