Mysteries Too Marvelous

Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.
How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds will
never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.

Let me keep company always with those who say
“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.

~Mary Oliver “Mysteries, Yes” from Evidence

We must learn to acknowledge
that the creation is full of mystery;
we will never entirely understand it.
We must abandon arrogance
and stand in awe.
We must recover the sense
of the majesty of creation,
and the ability to be worshipful in its presence.
~Wendell Berry from  The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays

photo by Sara Lenssen Larsen
Vermeer–Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window

…in being a living mystery:
it means to live in such a way
that one’s life would not make sense
if God did not exist.
~ Emmanuel Cardinal Suhard of Paris
quoted in Walking on Water

I’m unsure how much of a mystery I am –
I am transparent as glass most days,
easily see-through.
My life makes no sense
without the knowledge
God’s Hand created me,
His breath becoming mine.
He forms the bridge over the deep,
so I may safely cross.

It’s astonishing, to be truthful.
It makes me laugh and point and cry out “Look!”
to anyone who will listen
so we can bow down together, amazed.

Leonardo Da Vinci’s Hand of John the Baptist

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