Letter from Wendell Berry

I received a letter from Wendell Berry the other day. Now, this is not as dramatic as it sounds. It's not because I am somebody, it's rather that he is a very gracious man who has unfailingly answered any letters I have sent him over the past 20 years.

Anyway, I have been wondering for some time why Kentucky's Appalachian counties are so much poorer than the Appalachian counties in the surrounding states. Additionally, Kentucky's Appalachian counties are some of the least church-attending parts of America, whereas the Appalachian counties of the neighboring states are not as low in their church attendance.

Wendell was one of the people I sought out on this.

I won't go in to his answer-- at least at this point-- because he said something else in regard to our church plant in Menifee County and the dream that is in my heart of a new church in Wolfe County:

“I would like to see the Christian faith, with or without the churches, amount to something in the modern world.” Man, that hit me hard. He meant it in regard to Jesus' love for the poor and the hungry and the sick.

So whether or not I ever find out why Eastern Kentucky is so consistently poor, one of the effects of the Kingdom must be that the poor hear not just Good News, but find Good News.