Wendell for Wednesday

A person who undertakes to grow a garden at home, by practices that will preserve rather than exploit the economy of the soil, has set his mind decisively against what is wrong with us. He is helping himself in a way that dignifies him and is rich in meaning and pleasure. But he is doing something else that is more important; He is making vital the contact with the soil and the weather on which his life depends. He will no longer look upon rain as a traffic impediment, or upon the sun as a holiday decoration.

Wendell Berry, A Continuous Harmony: Essays Cultural and Agricultural