While
attending the annual convocation of cause theorists and bigbangists at the
local provincial research university, the mad farmer intercedes from the back
row...
"Chance"
is a poor word among
the mazes of causes
and effects, the last
stand of these
all-explainers who,
backed up to the
first and final Why,
reply, "By
chance, of course!" As if
that tied up
ignorance with a ribbon.
In the beginning
something by chance
existed that would
bang and by chance
it banged, obedient
to the by-chance
previously existing
laws of existence
and banging, from
which the rest proceeds
by logic of cause
and effect also
previously existing
by chance? Well,
when all that
happened who was there?
Did the chance that
made the bang then make
the Bomb, and there
was no choice, no help?
Prove to me that
chance did ever
make a sycamore
tree, a yellow-
throated warbler
nesting and singing
high up among the
white limbs
and the golden
leaf-light, and a man
to love the tree,
the bird, the song
his life long, and
by his love to save
them, so far, from
all the machines.
By chance? Prove
it, then, and I
by chance will kiss
your ass.
Wendell Berry, "While Attending the Annual Convocation of Cause Theorists and Bigbangists at the Local Provincial Research University, the Mad Farmer Intercedes from the Back Row"