Mother's Day and Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

Today is Mother's Day and I phoned my moms and my sisters-in-law who are mothers, too. I am nesting at home on a day that is rainy, cool, gray and windy. A perfect day for nesting and reaching out from my cozy bedroom with computer on my lap and cell phone on my night stand. I am not sad.

I am touched by all that I have encountered today.

The day started in prayer for guidance and readings from my daily readers, followed by church. A new face in the pew. A tired face. A troubled face. I reached over with a handshake and welcomed her. It can be hard to take yourself any place new. I wanted to extend warmth for her effort.

The sermon at McKinley Presbyterian Church was especially moving. A reading of Julia Ward Howe's 1870 Mother's Day Proclamation followed by the reading of the 2005 children's book, And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell with illustrations by Henry Cole. The children gathered to the front of the church and our pastor read the book.

And Tango Makes Three is the true story of two male penguins, Roy and Silo, who live together as a couple in New York City's Central Park Zoo. They were observed by the zoo keeper trying to hatch rocks that looked like eggs. The zoo keeper gave them the second egg of a male-female penguin couple, a couple which had previously been unable to successfully hatch two eggs at once. The two males hatched and raised the healthy young chick, a female named "Tango" by keepers, together as a family.

Then came a reading of "Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front" by Wendell Berry. I reprint it below. It and the hymns and one of the prayers in our bulletin really hit home giving me encouragement to strive to live and act from love and graciousness.

As I headed home from church to connect on Skype with my friend from another land, I stopped by a family restaurant and ordered take-out. The waiting area was crowded with families. As I sat waiting for my food, a woman sat down next to me as she waited for her table. "Are you a mother?" I asked her. "No," she said, though she is the mother of two pets. We chatted and found out we knew someone in common. As we talked, I found that I wasn't waiting any more. I was listening. When her name was called she rose and we shook hands and said how nice it was to meet each other and then she invited me to join her for lunch. I would have if it were not for my appointment with my friend. I love these spontaneous kind interactions with "strangers." I am open because I don't know anything about them. May I be as open with those with whom I "know."

And now for Wendell Berry's poem, Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

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.