Tomorrow we head off to Omaha. That’s where I want to be to celebrate my 65th birthday on Sunday — with people I love and in the place that will always be home. What can be a six-hour drive will be one of indeterminate length because of Jeb the Dog. He’s family and I cannot imagine a birthday without him.

Stopping every 100 miles or so is not a burden — we use Jeb’s need for “exercise” as our excuse. Truth is, we’ve plotted a pretty handy course which correlates Jeb’s needs with antique malls, casinos, candy stores and Made-Rite hamburger restaurants. Without frequent stops, how else would we have discovered that the highest point in Iowa — we’re talking altitude — is on a farm-place just across the state-line from Worthington, MN?

Driving through farm country Monday evening after attending the wake of a 63 y/o man in Northfield — something we are also doing more and more these days — heightened our anticipation for our trip to Omaha. Timely rains have yielded beautiful landscapes and the promise of an abundant harvest. The elongated shadows cast by the 6 pm sunlight remind all who are lucky enough to see just what inspired Claude Monet’s obsession with haystacks!

For this nostalgic occasion I will try to quiet anxious voices reminding all who will look or listen that we have created a perilous ecological crisis. This Earth — who ancient peoples reverenced as mother, the “home” we all hold in sacred trust — labors under the weight of our blissful ignorance.  Dare we acknowledge this as the consequence of our collective greed?

Returning home through farm-country I will take along two poignant assertions by Kentucky farmer-writer Wendell Berry: “I’m not interested in spirituality that is dependent on cheap fossil fuel, soil erosion, and air pollution.” Or even more to the point, “No use talking about getting enlightened or saving your soul if you can’t keep the topsoil from washing away.”

Milestones increasingly recognized as a gift — like turning 65 — are not times for rancor or remorse. So, I will hold as bedrock and birthright an even more foundational quote: “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning — the sixth day.” (Genesis 1:31)
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This reflection was inspired by Eric Anglada’s review of Distant Neighbors: The Selected Letters of Wendell Berry and Gary Snyder, edited by Chad Wriglesworth in the current issue of the National Catholic Reporter [http://ncronline.org/authors/eric-anglada]