“And the real name of our connection to this everywhere named Earth is ‘work.’ For we are deeply connected by work even to the places where we don’t work, for all places are connected, and it is now becoming quite clear that we cannot exempt one place from our ruin of another. The name of our properly respectful connection to the Earth is ‘Good Work;’ a work that honors the source of its materials, and honors the place where it is done, and honors the art by which it is done, and honors the thing that it makes and the user of the thing made. Good Work is also always modestly scaled — deeply focused on its immediate Here&Now, and it always involves a sort of religious humility — fully knowing all it cannot know.

Of course, the name of our present society’s connection to the earth is ‘bad work’ – work that is only generally and crudely defined, work that enacts a dependence that is ill understood, work that is proud and self-absorbed, work that enacts no affection and work that gives no honor. Every one of us is to some extent guilty of this bad work, and yet this guilt does not mean that we must indulge in breast-beating and confession. It simply means that there is much Good Work to be done by every one of us — and that we all must begin to do the same.” ~ via Wendell Berry

Filed under: Peace Pilgrimage #02: Walking HOME (2019) by Scaughdt