Wendell Berry & Annukka Laine

Wendell Berry & Annukka Laine

The Peace of Wild Things 

by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

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Wendell Berry is an American poet, essayist, farmer, and novelist. He was born on August 5, 1934, in Newcastle, Kentucky. He attended the University of Kentucky at Lexington where he received a B.A. in English in 1956 and an M.A. in 1957. Berry is the author of more than thirty books of poetry, essays, and novels. He has taught at New York University and at the University of Kentucky. Among his honors and awards are fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations, a Lannan Foundation Award, and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. He married Tanya Amyx in 1957; they have two children. Wendell Berry lives on a farm in Port Royal, Kentucky. http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/675.

Annukka Laine: Faith, Hope, Love: In Your Hands, oil on canvas. 

Annukka Laine was born in 1955 in Tampere, Finland. As a child she began to visit services in the Lutheran church near her home on Sunday mornings. She was impressed by the services, but even more so by the paintings and stained-glass windows. Twenty years later she came to faith. This happened while she was studying art in Germany. After moving back to Finland she worked as an art teacher, art therapist and painter. She has painted several altar pieces for churches in Finland. Annukka also teaches and lectures about early to contemporary Christian art in various Christian schools and churches. She lives and works inTampere, Finland. More info. http://www.kuvataiteilijamatrikkeli.fi/fi/taiteilijat/2379 

 

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