Life Is a Miracle by Milton Horne

My adult Bible study class is once again not studying the Bible; we're reading Wendell Berry's, "Life is a Miracle," Berry's 2001 response to E.O. Wilson's scientific credo. Berry is not very compromising, either, as the title implies. He presses the claim that Wilson's arguments are themselves more profoundly influenced by economic doctrine than scientific thinking, pressing humanity into a kind of Weberian "iron cage" more than setting them free from tribalistic and superstitious thought. Uncompromising!

And that comes at a time, my new license plate tells me, when our state, Missouri, is preparing to celebrate its bi-centennial, commemorating entry into the Union as the 24th state, and that under a compromise. You remember the story from your 12th grade (Missouri) citizenship test: both Maine and Missouri were admitted to the United States under a compromise—Maine a free state (no slavery), Missouri, a slave state. And thereafter, there were to be no more states admitted as slave states from the western territories north of the 36° 30' parallel. Compromise on some things seems to be a part of our story, our heritage. (Later, in 1854, a less compromising Supreme Court would rule this compromise unconstitutional!)

Perhaps that's why we're in the mood to compromise, it seems, with the relentless transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2. Still, there's no compromising with our economy or our lifestyle addictions which drive it. Likewise, people are in the streets pressing an uncompromising call for police reform and the elimination of systemic racism. On the other hand, we're not so uncompromising when it comes to the rape and pillage of the environment, which has been suggested as one of the contributory factors in the emergence of viruses such as SARS and MERS.

Compromise is not only the art of statesmanship but the art of living. In the tradition of the Hebrew Scriptures, knowing when to compromise and not is called wisdom. So, reflect on these uncompromising compromises of Jesus: "No one can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to one and despise the other…" (Matt. 6:24) and "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and to God that which is God's…" (Matt. 22:21).