Wendell Berry writes sacramentally about the cycle of life. We know the definition of a sacrament--an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. In my experience we grasp the grace of the sacrament intuitively but only over time and with regular practice does a sacrament become transformational. Berry outlines a profound practice below. Is it really possible any longer to make it truly sacramental?
Contemporary Reading: Wendell Berry, from The Gift of Good Land We cannot live harmlessly or strictly at our own expense; we depend upon other creatures and survive by their deaths. To live, we must daily break the body and shed the blood of creation. The point is, when we do this knowingly, lovingly, skillfully, reverently it is a sacrament; when we do it ignorantly, greedily, clumsily, destructively, it is a desecration . . . in such desecration, we condemn ourselves to spiritual and moral loneliness, and others to want.
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