Ragan Sutterfield

The practice of Sabbath also has the effect of elevating the value of labor and of the people engaged in it.

The deeper my love the more particular it becomes and the more limited in scope. It is only through such particulars that we can come to save the creation.

When we exist in a world of gift, in which we ourselves are given, then our own labors must be gifts to those around us.

Thanksgiving is fully living into our givenness—it is the acceptance that our life is a miracle.

It is in work that we find the test of our relationship to the creation because work is the question of how we will use the creation. For Wendell Berry, work done well brings us into a wholeness and cooperation with the creation in which we can find health. Bad work destroys the connections that make life possible. For Berry good work is like a prayer—it is an act of both gratitude and return. Good work accepts the gifts of creation and uses those gifts to further their givenness. There are seeds that lie for decades in the soil, waiting for the right conditions before springing to life.