It’s been a week since the death of Wendell Berry, and I’m still processing the loss. I’ve found it helpful to do some of my own writing about the writer who mentored me in the finer points of human mortality. I’ve read through some of my favorite passages from some of my favorite books, and I’ve also picked up a book of Berry’s poetry (though it’s less familiar to me than his prose). It’s also been helpful to talk about the legacy of Wendell Berry with friends.

Over the weekend, my friend Grace hosted “a little worter dranking party.” She invited one of our mutual friends who was most familiar with Berry’s essays… another mutual friend who hadn’t read any of Berry’s writing but was intrigued by second-hand stories… one of her college friends who studied English literature and developed a special affinity for Berry’s poetry… her landlord, who loved Berry’s essays and poems, and who is a something of a poet himself… and me, with my pronounced fondness for Berry’s novels and short stories.

When we arrived, a small card table held snacks like cheddar popcorn, no-bake cookies, and sugared pecans, as well as drinks like maple bourbon smash and old-fashioned cocktails (mixed with real Kentucky bourbon). A fire had been kindled in the fire pit.

After finding seats around the fire, Grace read a passage from Jayber Crow that described a fictional gathering not unlike our eclectic circle, except we were invited by text messages whereas the fictional guests were invited by handwritten notes, saying:

Come to a little worter dranking party Sat night at the Grandstand. Whatever you want to delute your worter with will be fine.

This fictional invitation to a fictional place in the fictional town of Port William, Kentucky, came from the hand of a fictional character named Burley Coulter. But here’s where fiction manages to hold more truth than real life: condensing mundane details and expanding internal emotions and experiences of intimate community. Throughout Wendell Berry’s books, Burley Coulter is the best example of a flawed-but-favorite character from Port William. He wasn’t educated, but he was intelligent (I feel compelled to note that his misspellings on that invitation to the “little worter dranking party” were at least partially intentional, perpetuating an inside joke). He disappeared from society regularly, but he always seemed to be there when it mattered most. He fathered a child out of wedlock, but he demonstrated greater faithfulness to his family than most fathers. He was a loner, but he fostered community: off-the-grid, late at night, by personal invitation.

I believe that when Wendell Berry wrote about Burley Coulter and Jayber Crow and all the rest, he was writing about himself. About all of us, really. Before biking over to Grace’s place, I had marked a passage in my copy of Jayber Crow, which called back to the jug passed around at that little worter dranking party, and which I read aloud by firelight:

I am a man who has hoped, in time, that his life, when poured out at the end, would say, “Good-good-good-good-good!” like a gallon jug of the prime local spirit. I am a man of losses, regrets, and griefs. I am an old man full of love. I am a man of faith.

I’m thankful for the legacy of Wendell Berry. I’m thankful for friends with whom I can share the losses, regrets, griefs, love, and faith. Amen.