I came across Questionnaire by Wendell Berry the other day and it shook me to my core. Berry, known for his outspoken, prophetic voice, brilliantly and boldly sends a message here. 

I felt compelled to share it with you, dear readers, because the poem gave me great pause to re-consider how I may be failing to do my part. Too tired to put that little piece of plastic into the recycle bin—it won’t really matter, will it?  No time to sign that petition to protect a local river; others are taking care of it, aren’t they? And so go my excuses for ignoring that I am an integral part of a Magnificent Whole. Forgetting that my non-choices impact that magnificence, too. Weary, I let life pull me away from making life-enhancing decisions.

Questionnaire re-affirms for me the crucial significance of our interdependence and the vital necessity of everyone’s wise choices.

I don’t know how it will speak to you. But I have a hunch it will speak to you.

Questionnaire
by Wendell Berry

Questionnaire
by Wendell Berry

1. How much poison are you willing to eat for the success of the free market and global trade? Please name your preferred poisons.

2. For the sake of goodness, how much evil are you willing to do?
Fill in the following blanks with the names of your favorite evils and acts of hatred.

3. What sacrifices are you prepared to make for culture and civilization? Please list the monuments, shrines, and works of art you would most willingly destroy.

4. In the name of patriotism and the flag, how much of our beloved land are you willing to desecrate? List in the following spaces the mountains, rivers, towns, farms you could most readily do without.

5. State briefly the ideas, ideals, or hopes, the energy sources, the kinds of security, for which you would kill a child. Name, please, the children whom you would be willing to kill.