Namesake

I thought it interesting this morning, when looking at the title of my blog, I hadn't ever really shared why 'Be like the fox' is it. After all, names are so important in our culture.

Parents fret over naming their children (well, not some people as evidenced by bazaar names out there) or our animals, women change their last names when they marry to signify a new life, names are splayed across jerseys from middle school sports to the professional elite, we pay money to get our initials monogrammed on various personal belongings, we find great identify and significance in a name. I have a friend who has a hyphenated last name can't WAIT to get married and change to just one simple name. I have another friend who's husband took her last name when they got married. I personally like my last name and am nervous about what my married name might be, seeing as how a childhood friend of mine had the last name of Gubert (said like Goobert). I know it could be worse than that.

Titles are equally as important. How many times have you heard 'don't judge a book by it's cover'? I know I do, if I don't like the title then I probably won't read it (I'm shallow in the literary world). We put a lot of thought into our user names for email, twitter, and other social media. How do I want the world to know me? You can communicate a lot or a little by it. My twitter user name is PDXLinds, I thought it
was fitting seeing as how my name is Lindsay and I'm (proudly) from Portland. So when I chose the title for my blog, I wanted it to say something. And rather than try to convey to you what that 'something' was as if it was magic or some epiphany, I'll just show you.

I heard about Wendell Berry from the pastor at my church. The title to the poem for which my blog name comes from, immediately intrigued me the first time I heard it, 'Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front'. Sounds a little crazy, right? See for yourself.

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
By Wendell Berry

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 millennium. 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.

There is a lot packed into that poem, and you might not agree with all of it. I might not agree with all of it. But that is not the point. I think this was written in part, to evoke thought. So, in my life, and the snippets of my life that are here on this blog, that is what I want to do. Make a few more tracks than necessary and practice resurrection.