Port William

But, of course, the real universal is inclusive of a particular place.

That is brought out very specifically in the work of Wendell Berry and his theological understanding of what he's describing in Port William.

But I think it's also there in the universal appeal of Dolly Parton, her music, her kind of universal embrace.

There is a sense of a spiritual rootedness in both of their work, in both of their artistry, in the particular appeal of imagination that they're working with.

And so Barry says, it seems to me that we belong to each other and to God.

And so he has this strong sense of place very much built upon his religious, his Christian faith.

One of his fictional characters in Port William, he created a town, but it's actually based on his own town there, is Burley Coulter.

And this is the way Burley Coulter explains it.

What I saw now was the community imperfect and irresolute, but held together by the frayed and always fraying, incomplete and yet ever holding bonds of the various sorts of affection.

So Barry pictures what he admits is an idealized representation of this in the fictional community of Port William, in Hannah Coulter, which is tied for me as his best novel, I think.

He talks about Nathan Coulter's sense of ultimate rebellion against the kind of mobility that happened in American society after World War II, where people who had experienced fighting overseas now were expected to leave their hometowns and go make it in the world.

So Nathan says, members of Port William aren't trying to get someplace.

They think they are someplace.

And that entails a sense of unity and of purpose and this membership, the integrity that comes with membership, the holding together, what binds it? It's affection in his view.

For that, the rich and powerful need the help of countless ordinary people." I think about it all the time right now, and indeed, it was just one of those things that I know will live in my brain forever from Wendell.

So anyway, we're sending our love to Tanya, Virginia, Mary, and the rest of the Berry family, the town of Port Royal, the town of Port William.

Lost some serious legends this week.

It's a lot to take in.