Salt and light

After Matthew 5:13-16 

You are both

salt and light,

salt to season

and enhance, 

and light

to shine so

others may

see. You are

salt to flavor

the message,

you are light

to illuminate

the truth.

You are salt

to preserve;

you are light

to dispel

the darkness.

 

Photograph by Tim Hufner via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

How Do I Live in God’s Presence Every Day? – Daniel Hyde at Reformation 21.

 

The Defining Mark of the Christian – Robb Brunansky at The Cripplegate.

 

Driving Through Cornfields: Past the End of the World – Timothy Willard at Rapt.

Saturday Good Reads - Sept. 5, 2026

Since his death on Monday, people have been writing about Wendell Berry (1934-2026). Including me at Tweetspeak Poetry. Below are quite a few links – memories, remembrances, assessments. I’m reminded of Mark Twain’s words, “Let us endeavor so to live so that when we come to die, even the undertaker will be sorry.” Wendell Berry was loved, and he left a deep mark. 

In late August, I wrote about how The Norton Anthology of English Literature shaped my understanding of poetry. It turns out I wasn’t the only one. Mark Bauerlein at Portico discusses his own Norton experience. 

 

The author of the blog Spitalfields Life took a walk along the Ridgeway, considered to be the oldest road in Britain. He wrote about the experience, and he took pictures, too. 

 

More Good Reads

 

Wendell Berry

 

Stewarding Land and Language – Jake Meador at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

Love’s Shadowless Light – Jeffrey Bilbro at Front Porch Republic.

 

In Memory: Wendell Berry – Gracy Olmstead at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

Wendell Berry’s Eternal Story – Paul Kingsnorth at First Things Magazine.

 

The Once and Future Wisdom of Wendell Berry – Rod Dreher at The Free Press.

 

Wendell Berry, writer and prophet, was extolled by many as a modern-day prophet – Yonat Shimron and Adelle Banks at Religio News Service.

 

Wendell Berry’s vision of a sacred world – Norman Wirzba at The Christian Century.

 

Why Wendell Berry mattered – Nate Hanrahan at The Spectator.

 

The Real Ideal – Paul Pastor at Front Porch Republic.

 

Remembering Wendell Berry – Gracy Olmstead at Granola.

 

A Voice for My Generation – Samuel Heard at Front Porch Republic.

 

Writing and Literature

 

We Still Need Fairy Tales – Ashley Hales at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

Life and Culture

 

When Everything Is Forgotten – Joseph Orso at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

Art

 

Riding the Waves of Stone Sea, St. Louis Art Museum’s Largest artwork – Emily Wasserman at St. Louis Art Museum blog. 

 

Movies

 

20 Years Later, ‘Amazing Grace’ Producer Says Wilberforce’s Story Still Resonates – Michael Foust at Crosswalk.

 

Poetry

 

“Last Supper,” poem by Elinor Wylie – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Derrick Porter, Hoxton Poet – Spitalfields Life.

 

Faith

 

How to Pray When You Fel Like You Pray the Same Thing Every Day – Courtney Reissig at Crossway.

 

Known by Heaven – Josh Groban and Lauren Daigle

 Photograph: Wendell Berry Reading by Ben Aguilar via The Berry Center.

Light

After Matthew 5:13-16 

Light shines,

light illumines,

dispelling darkness

allowing truth to be

seen. No one uses

light to hide it,

or bring it. Light

is used to shine

upon the truth.

 

Put your light

upon a stand,

elevated to shine

in the household,

in the village,

in the land,

in the world.

 

Let your light shine

for others to see,

to allow others

in darkness come

into the light.

 

Photograph by Dyu-Ha via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

“The Beginning of Contemplation,” poem by Gail Fox – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

“The Kingdom of God,” poem by Francis Thompason – Megan Willome at Poetry for life.

 

Eclipsing the Sun – Seth Lewis.

 

The Ministry of Saying Less – Peter Mead at Biblical Preaching.

A Non-Personal Memory of Wendell Berry

I first saw the news Monday about the death of Wendell Berry rather obliquely. Two Facebook friends independently posted poems by him. I stared, realizing the coincidence meant only one thing. He’d died, aged 92. 

Some news events shock you, upending what you understand about the world. An assassination. The fall of the Berlin Wall. A terrorist attack like 9/11. Others reduce you to a sense of profound quiet. It was that second kind I experienced on reading those two poems. Neither post mentioned his death. They didn’t have to. I knew.

 

I don’t have a personal story about Wendell Berry. I know people who’ve gone to his lectures, and people who’ve made pilgrimages to his home in Kentucky. People who’ve met him. But I don’t have a personal story. What I have is a one-off story, which probably tells you more about agriculture, biotech agriculture, and the wars that raged over genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, for three decades. The story also tells you more about Berry’s impact and influence than many obituaries.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Thursday Readings

 

The 2026 Society of Classical Poets International Poetry Competition and the International High School Poetry Competition. 

 

“The Elixir,” poem by George Herbert – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

After the Storm, Still I Float – poem by Riyanka Paul.

 

“The Blind Man and the Elephant,” poem by John Godfrey Saxe – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient & Modern. 

Some Wednesday Readings - Sept. 2, 2026

Wendell Berry’s Affections – Gary Houchens at The Imaginative Conservative. 

Wendell Berry (1934-2026) – Jeffrey Bilbro at Front Porch Republic.

 

The Witness of Wendell Berry – C. Christopher Smith at Cultivating Communities.

 

The Swap Not Heard ‘Round the World: Ordering the Declaration’s Grievances – Rpbert Parkinson at The Journal of the American Revolution.

 

The Highdays & Holidays of Old London – Spitalfields Life.

 

Your Guide to Dolly Parton’s Crime Movies – Olivia Rutigliano at CrimeReads. 

 

Photograph: Wendell Berry (1934-2026).

Poets and Poems: Jen Karetnick and "Organ Language"

A grandmother’s jewelry. A heavy rainfall. The fruit in a pina colada. A soccer game. Accompanying a parent to a medical procedure. Waiting for biopsy results. A can opener. Grief. Riding in the car with your sister. Gardening. A frog. Cicadas. Arthritis. The neighbor who calls you by the wrong name. 

What all these disparate things have in common is that they’re familiar. common, everyday. They’re so familiar that we often forget them or overlook them. 

 

In the hands of poet Jen Karetnick, however, the familiar and the common become something else. She reaches into her own childhood. She considers the experiences of her own children. She looks at the life she’s living now. The subjects are largely what we know as experiences common to all of us, but Karetnick shows us how the familiar will also indicate something deeper, something more profound. That’s the heart and soul of her new collection, Organ Language.

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Night jar – poem by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

Planted – poem by L.L. Barkat at Every Day Poems.

 

“You, Andrw Marvell,” poem by Archibald MacLeish – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Poetry Club Tea Date: The Pershing Hotel – Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

Do You Hear Birds? – poem by Elizabeth Wickland at Rabbit Room Poetry.

Some Monday Readings – Aug. 21, 2026

In Search of Northanger Abbey: Farleigh Hungerford Castle – Nancy Bilyeau at English Historical Fiction Authors. 

At the Zoo – Adam Smith at Ford Forum.

 

The Restless Odysseus in All of Us – Luke Sheahan at National Review.

 

Storytelling with Martin Shaw – Frank Mulder at Plough.

 

Why Is Nothing Original Anymore – E.J. Larow at After Progress.

 

The Man Called Ishi: Story of the Yahi’s Final Survivor – Brian Clark at This Is the Day.

 

Review: An Underappreciated Victory; Bernardo de Gálvez’s Mississippi River Campaign Against the British in 1779 by Stephen L. Kling, Jr. and Kristine L. Sjostrom – Phil Greenwalt at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

See 16 Stunning Images from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards – Carlyn Kranking at Smithsonian Magazine.

 

“Consecration Day” – William Merriman at The Imaginative Conservative. 

 

Photograph: The existing buildings and part of the ruins of Farleigh Hungerford Castle, via English Heritage.