The Joys of Failed Work

We must take ourselves and our work seriously, but not too seriously

Wendell Berry, “Sabbaths 2007, No. 9,” hanging in my study

Maybe 15 years ago, friends gifted me a limited edition letter press of Wendell Berry’s poem, “Sabbaths 2007, No. 9.” I framed the piece and hung it on the wall of my study, and all these years these words have watched over me as I’ve written, as I’ve sat with people with broken hearts and perplexing questions, as I’ve prepared sermons, as I’ve pondered my life and my work, as I’ve managed budgets and conflicts and dreamed a few big dreams. As I’ve sat staring out the window trying to come up with something intelligent to say. As I’ve played solitaire on the glowing screen atop my desk. As I’ve wrestled anxious thoughts about my family.

I’ve kept the poem fixed in place, even with a move from Charlottesville, Virginia, to Holland, Michigan. I’ve known I needed these sentences watching over my shoulder because I’m sometimes prone to hubris, and at other times despair. It’s one kind of sin to think too little of ourselves, and it’s another kind of sin to think too much. I can’t say which is more debilitating or harmful. They are both a poison.

But reading Wendell provides an antidote either way. Neither my triumphant efforts nor my cataclysmic failings control the story of grace. In the end, I do not make the forest grow. In the end, nothing is finally lost or ruined. In God’s grand sweep, I matter a great deal — but not so much as I might think. The world relies on God, not me. Here’s a liberation, a shackle-breaking truth saving me from all kinds of exhausting follies.

All this reminds me of Merton: “We have so little joy, because we take ourselves too seriously.”

I go by a field where once
I cultivated a few poor crops.
It is now covered with young trees,
for the forest that belongs here
has come back and reclaimed its own.
And I think of all the effort
I have wasted and all the time,
and of how much joy I took
in that failed work and how much
it taught me. For in so failing
I learned something of my place,
something of myself, and now
I welcome back the trees.

Wendell Berry, “Sabbaths 2007, no. 9”

You may read a collection of Berry’s Sabbath poems, or his other poetry or astounding fiction or essays, while also supporting your favorite local bookstore here. Or you may also purchase directly from the Berry Center.