We can't really move on from that point without bringing in another resource. Wendell Berry.
It's perhaps Berry's most well known poem, but it's always worth revisiting:
Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation FrontA couple of observations about the poem for our reflections about edging back toward enchantment.
Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion -- put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go.
Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
--from the collection The Mad Farmer Poems
First, you see in the poem a recovery of the enchanted, sacramental ontology:
Love the Lord. Love the world. Plant sequoias. Say that your main crop is the forest that you did not plant, that you will not live to harvest. Say that the leaves are harvested when they have rotted into the mold. Call that profit. Prophesy such returns. Put your faith in the two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years. Listen to carrion. Go with your love to the fields. Lie down in the shade. Be like the fox.
In addition, similar to Gerard Manley Hopkins' "God's Grandeur" poem, this embrace of nature and place is contrasted with disenchanted consumption and production:
If you love the quick profit, the annual raise, vacation with pay, and want more of everything ready-made, your mind will be punched in a card and shut away in a little drawer. When they want you to buy something they will call you. When they want you to die for profit they will let you know. So, friends, every day do something that won't compute.
Our hearts thrill to these lines. But what else is there in a flat, hollowed out, disenchanted world? Just working and buying things. Week after week. Year after year. We feel the lie in this, the cheapening, numbing and deadening of life. We know there are holy, sacred and enchanted things. True, as skeptical, doubting and modern Christians we struggle with doubts and disenchantment. But we know that we must learn to give our approval to all we cannot understand. As smart, educated and sophisticated Christians we must learn to praise ignorance, for what man has not encountered he has not destroyed. There is sacred mystery. We must ask and embrace the questions that have no answers.
We must practice resurrection.
That is how we edge back toward enchantment.
