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Ponderings

Quiet Shelters Book Recommendations January 25

The oscillations of weather in the American West have always demanded attention and respect, but the dramatic swings of recent years have been particularly striking. The generous rains of the previous two years in Southern California gifted the landscape with lush vegetation, which now, parched by this year's drought and stirred by fierce Santa Ana winds, has become an explosive tinder. Ten days ago the hills above Los Angeles were set ablaze, a sobering reminder of how quickly abundance can turn to catastrophe. And we're learning, perhaps too late, that predictability itself may be a luxury of the past. We are thinking about and praying for the folks in these communities.  


These conditions ask something of us - a deeper engagement with our communities, a more attentive relationship to place, and perhaps most importantly, a revival of local knowledge and mutual care. Few writers have explored these themes of community, place, and mutual obligation more profoundly than Wendell Berry, whose works have long served as guideposts in our library's philosophy. This month we’d like to recommend our favorite piece of Berry’s fiction and two of our favorite pieces of his non-fiction. These writings have influenced us here at Quiet Shelters about as much as anything else on the shelves. 


Wallace Stegner His Life and Work

My single favorite piece of fiction, Berry’s novel Jayber Crow, offers us one of literature's most moving portraits of community life and belonging. Through the eyes of Jayber, the town barber of fictional Port William, Kentucky, we witness the quiet dignity of small-town life and the profound beauty found in ordinary moments and relationships. Jayber's position as both observer and participant in his community allows him to see his neighbors with remarkable clarity and overwhelming tenderness. I don’t know what more I can say about such a beautiful and lyrical masterpiece. Rather than attempt to, I would simply like to quote at length one particularly moving passage, in which Jayber dreams of his community transfigured: 


“My vision of the gathered church that had come to me... had been replaced by a vision of the gathered community. What I saw now was the community imperfect and irresolute but held together by the frayed and always fraying, incomplete and yet ever-holding bonds of the various sorts of affection. There had maybe never been anybody who had not been loved by somebody, who had been loved by somebody else, and so on and on... It was a community always disappointed in itself, disappointing its members, always trying to contain its divisions and gentle its meanness, always failing and yet always preserving a sort of will toward goodwill. I knew that, in the midst of all the ignorance and error, this was a membership; it was the membership of Port William and of no other place on earth. My vision gathered the community as it never has been and never will be gathered in this world of time, for the community must always be marred by members who are indifferent to it or against it, who are nonetheless its members and maybe nonetheless essential to it. And yet I saw them all as somehow perfected, beyond time, by one another's love, compassion, and forgiveness, as it is said we may be perfected by grace.”


This passage will always raise the hair on my arms. Few passages in contemporary fiction can rise to the level Berry establishes; grace, mercy, understanding, compassion, all virtues increasingly lacking in modern discourse, here elevated to something close to a hymn.


The Sound of Mountain Water by Wallace Stegner

Published in 1969, The Long-Legged House represents some of Berry's earliest and most prescient environmental writing, remarkable for how thoroughly it anticipates the environmental and social challenges we face today. The deep understanding of community life that Berry explores through fiction finds its philosophical expression in his essays, particularly those collected in The Long-Legged House. The title essay, which chronicles Berry's experience building and living in a small cabin perched on stilts above the Kentucky River, becomes a meditation on what it means to truly inhabit a place. Through his account of constructing this modest dwelling and making it a home, Berry explores themes that would occupy him for the next half century: our relationship with place, the meaning of belonging, and the patient work of building a life in harmony with the natural world. Other essays in the collection, including "The Rise" and "The Native Hill," further develop these ideas of rootedness and responsibility to place. Together, they present an early but remarkably mature articulation of Berry's environmental and social philosophy, showing how his ideas about community and conservation were shaped by direct experience with the land he would spend his life defending.


The Abstract Wild By Jack Turner

These themes reach their fullest expression in Berry's 2012 Jefferson Lecture, It All Turns on Affection. Here, Berry argues that genuine care for places and communities must begin with affection - not abstract principles or economic calculations, but the kind of love that grows from long association and careful attention. Without this foundational affection, he suggests, our efforts at conservation and community-building will remain shallow and ultimately ineffective. It's a message that seems particularly relevant as we all face environmental and social challenges that can appear overwhelming in their scope and complexity.


In times of environmental uncertainty and social fragmentation, Berry's wisdom offers a path forward: begin with where you are, know it well, love it well, and build community around that knowledge and love. While this may not solve all our problems, it provides a foundation for meaningful action and mutual support. As the West continues to grapple with drought, fire, and rapid change, perhaps this is the sort of wisdom we most need to cultivate.


Affection, attention, and community. These themes weave through all of Berry's work, from his fiction to his essays to his poetry. They remind us that in uncertain times, our strongest resources may be the connections we forge with each other and the places we call home. Here in Southern Utah, where the dramatic landscape both sustains and challenges us, we're learning daily what it means to build the kind of community that can weather whatever changes come our way. Berry's works serve as both guide and inspiration in this ongoing project of creating meaningful connections and cultivating the kind of affection that leads to genuine care - for our land, our neighbors, and the culture we're building together.


Take care of each other. Stay warm. Keep reading.


Cheers to you all.


Dave


We hope you enjoy Quiet Shelters January book recommendations. If you would like to receive future recommendations make sure to sign up for our newsletter and feeds!


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