I am a Faux Mad Farmer
A personal essay on myth, gospel and dirt [What Wendell Berry taught me about home and faith]
Paul Sawyier (1865-1917), Kentucky Landscape
When I die, I have a gut feeling that it will be in Kentucky. I was born there, in Louisville, the 27th most populous city in the United States, at a hospital called Norton Suburban. I grew up in the suburbs. Not the wealthy suburbs, and certainly not the trendy suburbs, but not the poor suburbs either. There was a Chick-fil-A at the front of my neighborhood, a Wal-Mart down five minutes down the road, and a neighborhood pool, but when I was in elementary school it closed because the HOA ran out of money.
When I was a child, I would get frustrated when my cultural heritage could not be traced back farther than the land down yonder. My best friend in kindergarten was from Britain, and another girl in our class was from Texas and another kid was Italian and her family went to Europe every summer. My great-grandmother was from Butler County, Kentucky. And my great-grandmother’s great-grandmother was from Butler County Kentucky. And then history just kind of stopped. Any further traceable lineage beyond the hills of Butler County had been lost to the trees and to the fields and to the dirt.
If we haven’t met irl- my name is Parker Mindel. I’m 23 years old. I enjoy good books and sad movies. I studied Bible and Theology at a reformed-leaning evangelical Christian university in Southern California. Now, I work at a Christian high school in Orange County. Generally most of my hobbies and interests involve hanging out in that sometimes awkward intersection between theology, culture, art and entertainment.
My teenage self loathed my Kentuckian heritage. I was embarrassed, self-conscious that I didn’t come from anywhere cooler or more important than the Louisville suburbs. I cloaked my shame in aggressive apathy, virtue-signaling to my friends: “I don’t mind Louisville… but I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else in the state…” In my budding, pubescent mind, Kentuckians were buy-and-large conservative and ignorant. Two things teenage Parker was not. Thus, as I got older, I set my mind on getting out and escaping to somewhere with culture and diversity and adventure and intellectual depth. Pulled between different influences in the home, church, and school, I settled on Biola University in La Mirada, California. And when I was 18, I moved away.
Considering how much I wanted to escape the suburbs, Biola was an ironic pick. Kentucky suburbs begin in one place and end in another. They can be measured and quantified. California suburbs sprawl and bleed into one another, and La Mirada is no exception. These suburbs felt inescapable. Perhaps it is for this reason that something surprising happened to me in California. Within weeks, I painfully discovered that I had not escaped the suburban dread I felt in Kentucky… I had only suppressed it.
In my core, I felt misunderstood when I first arrived in California. When I would tell people I was from Kentucky, I would have some version of the same conversation over and over again. As I shared with people, I could literally watch their minds float over the sticks and land in the boonies, as they began to picture some imaginary, anonymous, rural, holler-town, akin to the very real Butler County my family lived and died in, but at the same time nothing like it at all. I could peer into their brain and see them construct a false, mythologized, caricatured version of the state and project it back on to me as I continue: “I’m from Louisville… the Derby? Louisville’s kind of like like what Nashville was like 25 years ago.” And their mental schema shatters as they say “Oh! Muhammed Ali?” And I say “Yeah, Jennifer Lawrence, Diane Sawyer, Jack Harlow.”
Their minds return to the suburbs, to the 27th largest city in America. A city familiar but not familiar enough to make any real impression besides a two minute horse race and bourbon.
Though I felt suburban Kentucky was boring when I first moved, at least it was home. In California, I felt a lack of interconnectedness to the land and to my neighbor that was dizzying. Much can be said of California’s cultural landscape… I understand California is a complex, multicultural place. Still, in my sociocultural sub-pocket, I noticed a pungent attitude of self-indulgent hedonism that felt distinct from the way people were back home. Before long, all of the characteristics that once lured me to California were now grotesque. Joan Didion, in reflecting on her upbringing in the golden state, called California “the wearying enigma.” I felt this in my bones. In Kentucky, California hedonism sung a promise to me like she a siren, and I Odysseus. Now, the veil had been lifted, and I realized that I had been deceived.
I have come to believe that living in Orange County can be likened to living on a cruise ship sailing in open ocean but never reaching any real destination. As a college student I found myself entertained, sure, but disoriented and seasick. Diverse and interesting people are living in close proximity to me, but who is my neighbor to me on a ship like this? In California, I felt a general attitude of severance from the other, from the land, from penitence and history. The pursuit of pleasure, leisure and entertainment still feels distinct to me here. There is a specific brand of placeless California hedonism in Orange County, and her song seems sweet but her bite is sharp. Again, Joan Didion summarized this well:
“One difference between the West and the South, I came to realize in 1970, was this: in the South they remained convinced that they had bloodied their land with history. In California we did not believe that history could bloody the land, or even touch it.”
-Joan Didion, Where I Was From
Four years ago, it pained me to admit that I missed Kentucky. I was homesick. In order to combat my vertigo, I needed a guide and a sage. I needed someone to tell me that the Kentuckian land I come from is significant. I needed someone to validate my disillusion with the Great Californian Myth. Perhaps by act of divine grace, I found Wendell Berry. Particularly, I found one of his hallmark poems, titled “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front.”
I have attached the poem in its entirety below.
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 easy 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.
At last! This poem was the anchor to my soul that I was yearning for but unable to articulate for myself. I longed to live the life described by the Mad Farmer: personal wholeness that involves communion with neighbors, the land, faith and history. I longed for a rule of life that embraces simplicity and rejects the sins of consumerism, utilitarianism and hedonism. As I mulled over Berry’s words, I began to realize that I had loved Kentucky all along. I began to notice the ways that I had always beheld the city and the suburbs, the trees and the grass, the dirt and the sky. By God’s grace, the childhood desire to hail from somewhere more important began to fade away.
If I felt misunderstood by Southern California, I felt understood by Wendell Berry. My soul was both exposed and comforted through his words. To this day, the poem gives my soul a rich grounding that directly combats the spiritual displacement I feel in California. It is my goal, then, to be a kind of exiled mad farmer, pitching a tent in this golden land east of Eden.
Yet… I have something to confess. No matter how many times I meditate over these words, I must admit that I am a really bad mad farmer. No matter how many times I tell myself that I am a young Berryite refusing to bow to the industrial complex, standing firm in my ground as a creature that will live and die to the soil beneath me… when I peer into my soul (even for just a second) it is clear that I am a fraud. A faux mad farmer.
Let me give some examples. I read and digest Berry’s words as he writes…
“When they want you to buy something they will call you.”
But then I think about how I have never been an online shopper until this year when I, fueled by my own self-image, started to succumb to algorithmic ads on Instagram and Pinterest.
“Take all that you have and be poor.”
Other than a short Saturday volunteering in Santa Monica, I have not contributed financially to assist the the 80,000+ people who fled their homes due to the LA fires, which took place less than 50 miles from where I live.
“Swear allegiance to what is nighest your thoughts.”
My screen time was up by 30% last week, for a total of 2.3 hours each day. I used to read novels before bed. Lately I’ve been scrolling TikTok nightly.
When I compare the life I long to live with the reality of my lived experience, the discrepancy is jarring. Is the Mad Farmer’s Manifesto just a dream then? Is Berry’s rule of life (expressed in the poem) just as much of an enigma as Southern California’s placeless hedonism? Did I simply exchange a myth for another myth? Tit for tat?
Sociologist and theologian Dr. Jason Sexton, contributing to a published collection of essays titled Theology and California, describes this phenomenon clearly:
“People come [to California] from elsewhere looking for a better life, having bought into the myth, whether from boosters or someone else. When they arrive, and are asked "where are you from?" they reply, "elsewhere," causing deep forms of loyalty and identity to emerge (however strong they might have otherwise been) giving shape to the myth of the (in some ways better) life that they had. These new arrivers remain loyal to their place of origin, and this is reinforced in various ways. They then aim to import and appropriate mythical features of erstwhile identity in California. When this import of the mythical prior place and its cultural features doesn't work, a dissatisfaction with the present place (California) sets in. Delusion transpires and disenchantment with the present place and the dreams attached with it become shattered. The individual is left with a choice: in what world will he or she live?”
My emotional response and personal offense to this passage make it abundantly clear that Dr. Sexton is a very good sociologist. He may as well have cut me open with a scalpel. While it would be easy to believe that Berry’s poem is just a “mythical feature of erstwhile identity” that I imported from Kentucky to California in order to cope with my childhood suburban angst, I refuse to reject the Mad Farmer’s Manifesto in the same way I rejected Californian hedonism. This is because I believe California’s placeless hedonism, when followed to its logical end, results in momentary pleasure and beyond that, emptiness. The Mad Farmer’s Manifesto, rather, describes life not as it is but as it ought to be. C.S. Lewis famously described Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection by the phrase “true myth.” Perhaps Lewis’ language is helpful when thinking about the Mad Farmer’s Manifesto, too.
I can call The Mad Farmer’s Manifesto true myth with confidence, for in the poem I see the echoes of the Gospel. The manifesto ends with the infamous line: “Practice resurrection.” Could the whole Sermon on the Mount not be summarized better by these two words? Could the Apostle Paul’s entire life and ministry to the early Church in Asia Minor not be summarized better with this simple phrase? Even the Great Commission, Christ’s last instruction to his followers, could be reduced to the charge “Practice resurrection.”
I do not love Berry’s poem for the Kentuckian nostalgia or sense of home it provides (though the poem does soothe those longings). I do not love the poem for the way it condemns those sinful, systemic structures of our day. I love the poem for the way it sharply articulates the mighty sacrifice that the Gospel demands in a post-industrialist, utilitarian, hedonistic time as this. Dietrich Bonhoeffer described the grace bestowed by Christ as costly. Jesus says to his disciples in Matthew 16:24-25 “…If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?” (ESV). In other words, grace demands everything. In this sense, it is no wonder that living in accordance with the Gospel (as poetically described in the Mad Farmer’s Manifesto) feels at times like an unattainable myth. This myth, however, is real.
If the Gospel of Jesus Christ is a false myth, The Mad Farmer’s charge to “practice resurrection” is just as futile as SoCal self-indulgent hedonism. How could anyone practice resurrection if resurrection is first not practiced on their behalf? The beauty of the Gospel is that Christ, having lived a life unstained by the decrepit systems and structures of this world, practiced resurrection in fullness, knowing that humanity could not achieve resurrection by their own volition. It is in this vein that the Apostle Paul calls Christ the “Second Adam” in Romans 5. I do not believe that a really good poem can resurrect the fields of Kentucky, the hills of California, and the neighborhoods, suburbs, towns and homesteads that dot these landscapes. Rather, resurrection is only possible through the Gospel as articulated in this piece of artistry.
If one views Berry’s poem as some sort of law that, if followed, will achieve a utopic desired outcome, all efforts to inaugurate resurrection into the world will inevitably fail. In other words, if the Mad Farmer’s Manifesto is our end, and human willpower our means, resurrection will not come. Rather, if the gospel-renewal of all things (physical creation certainly included) is our end, and the Mad Farmers Manifesto a poetic expression of our means, there is hope to see our land redeemed “from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory” (Romans 8:21, ESV). However well intended we are when we attempt to practice resurrection own our own accord, Christ’s words that “apart from me you can do nothing” ring true.
I must return to Jason Sexton’s question: “In what world will I live?” This question demands a choice. Will I choose to remain in a state of delusion when false promises produce disenchantment, as Dr. Sexton describes? Or will I make the conscious, difficult choice to cling to what is Real and True? Wendell Berry, through the Mad Farmer’s Manifesto, is pleading with the reader to answer carefully.
Christ, when calling his disciples, asked a similar question:
“And Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. And on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” And they told him, “John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.” And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.” (Mark 8:27-29 ESV).
Christ has said “Practice Resurrection” and I have ignored, making myself a faux mad farmer. Kentuckian homesickness and Californian suburban dread quickly evaporate from my mind as I see the supreme choice before me: In what world will I live?