We do not generally think about Christmas carols as about a battle. And yet what does it mean for the Christ child to be our savior, if not a blessed release from some kind of struggle?
Kavanagh’s poem looks to Advent for a sort of poetic and spiritual rebirth, a chance to reacquaint ourselves with the “newness that was in every stale thing.”
Wendell Berry could be described by many labels. More than anything else, he has been a voice of practical reason and concise cultural commentary in his more than 80 books published over six decades.