Tessa Carman was having a conversation with Paul Kingsnorth last year, on “Following Christ in the Machine Age.” This is an overarching theme of Kingsnorth’s thinking and writing. Their conversation was leisurely and ranged over many topics, everything from books they have been reading, to Kingsnorth’s conversion, to Hollywood, to being “cancelled.” Kingsnorth lives on a “smallholding” in Ireland, so naturally the conversation turned to how we humans treat the land. I liked the point that Carman brings up, about how farmers traditionally have not been sentimental about nature, but because they “have to do” the work of caring for the land day in and day out, they develop an intimate relationship with it:
“Christians were not untouched by modernity. Especially when there’s more uprootedness — I suspect it’s easier to treat things like machines if you are used to living amongst machines. And if you’re used to taking care of a piece of land, where you have to treat it as a living thing in some sense, even if you don’t think of it as a living thing, that’s just what you have to do, because there’s a living relationship amongst the animals and the land and the people. You see that and live that, and you see the reality of it— the cycle of life and death, how manure brings life.
“If you’re in the city, you can have your image of how the natural world is instead of the reality. And there’s the danger of sentimentality, when we have disconnected ourselves from the land such that we think we can decide what’s good for the land without even knowing it, without knowing the people, let alone this specific piece of land, these animals and these plants.”
Gladsome Lights 
Becoming intimate with nature because you work with it every day and thus get to know its cycles and quirks and in so doing develop an understanding of it, is akin to people working with others from different cultures which can lead to an understanding and a level of tolerance we do not see practised often enough these days.
LikeLiked by 1 person
An analogy (or his point, in a different context) would be weather. Forecasts based solely on computer models often result in conditions that differ considerably from reality. The gentle joke among many here is that, if the forecast is for winds from 10-15 knots, just add those together and assume it will blow 25 kts.
Generally, I turn to weather sites to confirm what I’ve already observed by sight, scent, or feel. After thirty-six years of sailing and working outdoors, those senses are pretty well honed, and witness to the truth of what Kingsnorth says.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I admire you, knowing the weather like that! It was Tessa Carman I quoted, but she and Kingsnorth are in agreement on these things.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ah. So it was. I was so taken with the point being made I conflated the two.
LikeLike
Oh, gosh yes! There’s a danger in taking up a holy war over something that you’re romantically, but not physically, involved with. Young people are especially prone to it, I think, because they have little experience with real life, and because they have a natural desire to do something important (and the energy to do it!).
I heard Paul Kingsnorth on a podcast once – either Joy Clarkson’s or Grace Hamman’s. You make me want to find it again. xo
LikeLiked by 1 person