Tag: gift

Yet One Rich Smile

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Yet one smile more, departing, distant sun!
One mellow smile through the soft vapory air,
Ere, o’er the frozen earth, the loud winds run,
Or snows are sifted o’er the meadows bare.
One smile on the brown hills and naked trees,
And the dark rocks whose summer wreaths are cast,
And the blue gentian flower, that, in the breeze,
Nods lonely, of her beauteous race the last.
Yet a few sunny days, in which the bee
Shall murmur by the hedge that skirts the way,
The cricket chirp upon the russet lea,
And man delight to linger in thy ray.
Yet one rich smile, and we will try to bear
The piercing winter frost, and winds, and darkened air.
~William Cullen Bryant “November”

 

The window of richness is brief these November mornings,
enough time to feed and water animals,
watch the geese fly overhead,
capture the light and fog in soft vapory air
before it dissipates back to
just another ordinary day.
This blessing of light is
beyond my understanding,
beyond my ability to preserve,
beyond any gratitude I can offer.
It is freely given with a smile
and I delight to linger…

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Still About to Be

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Give up
the bitterness,
the anger,
the sadness
for what isn’t,
that you wish you had.

And embrace the gift of what you do have.
For therein
is really what you want more of:
Joy

~Elizabeth Elliot

All Joy reminds.
It is never a possession,
always a desire for something longer ago
or further away
or still ‘about to be’.
~C.S. Lewis from Surprised by Joy

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Divine Glee

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What is this unfolding, this slow-
going unraveling of gift held
in hands open
to the wonder and enchantment of it all?

What is this growing, this rare
showing, like blossoming
of purple spotted forests
by roadsides grown weary with winter months?

Seasons affected, routinely disordered
by playful disturbance of divine glee
weaving through limbs with
sharpened shards of mirrored light,
cutting dark spaces, interlacing creation,
commanding life with whimsical delight.

What is this breaking, this hopeful
re-making, shifting stones, addressing dry bones,
dizzying me with blessings,
intercepting my grieving
and raising the dead all around me?~Enuma Okoro “Morning Reflections”

 

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Shimmering Bliss

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I became aware of the world’s tenderness,
the profound beneficence of all that surrounded me,
the blissful bond between me and all of creation,
and I realized that the joy I sought …
breathed around me everywhere…
in the metallic yet tender drone of the wind,
in the autumn clouds bloated with rain.

I realized that the world does not represent a struggle at all…
a predaceous sequence of chance events,
but shimmering bliss,
beneficent trepidation,
a gift bestowed on us and unappreciated.
~Vladimir Nabokov from his story “Beneficence”

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What I Didn’t Know

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photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten

For grace to be grace, it must give us things we didn’t know we needed and take us places where we didn’t know we didn’t want to go.
~Kathleen Norris

His grace and mercy has salvaged me when I didn’t know I needed saving, given me what I didn’t think I needed so have never asked for, and taken me where I never planned to be because I was so comfortable where I was.

Grace is not about giving me what I want; it is never a reward for good behavior.  It is giving me what I need when I deserve nothing whatsoever.

It is the prickly vine I must cling to, grateful to be spared from falling.  It is the flow that carries me to safety through the desolate landscape.

I am grateful, so very grateful, for what I didn’t know.

photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten

Lenten Grace — The Uses of Sorrow

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photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten

Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.
~Mary Oliver, “The Uses of Sorrow”

The bright sadness of Lent
is a box full of darkness
given to us by someone who loves us.

It takes a lifetime to understand,
if we ever do,
this gift with which we are entrusted
is meant to
hand off to another and another
whom we love just as well.

Opening the box
allows light in
where none was before.
Sorrow shines bright
reaching up
from the deep well
of our loving
and being loved.

Its Small Self

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For a long time
     I was not even
        in this world, yet
           every summer

every rose
     opened in perfect sweetness
        and lived
           in gracious repose,

in its own exotic fragrance,
     in its huge willingness to give
        something, from its small self,
           to the entirety of the world...

Mary Oliver from “The Poet Visits The Museum of Fine Arts”

This time of year, I go out to our flower garden twice a week and pick several fresh rosebuds for the bud vase on our kitchen table.  This feels like a luxury to interrupt the natural unfolding of a blossom simply so that it can be enjoyed indoors for a few days, but “its huge willingness to give something” grants me permission to do this.  I am consoled that there will be more buds where those came from.  The blooms will continue to grace our table until October when the first hard frost will sap them of all color and fragrance, leaving them deadened knots of brown curled petals.  They give no more for seven long months.

I wait impatiently for that first spring bud to appear, forcing myself to wait several weeks before I begin rosebud harvesting.  Although roses from the florist may be perfect color and long lasting,  they are neither as sweet nor their scent as exotic as those growing in the soil right under our windows.

It is a wee joy receiving this humble gift from the garden.  It is enough that a rose in gracious repose gave its small self long before I was and will continue long after me.   I hope I am as willing to give something from my small self during my time here, and may it ever be as sweet.

Lenten Reflection–The Best Work Of All

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photo by Josh Scholten

If I can put one touch of rosy sunset into the life of any man or woman, I shall feel that I have worked with God.
G.K. Chesterton

This short video about a young man with Down’s Syndrome who changes a work place illustrates such a simple point: anyone can make a memorable difference in the lives of others by bringing a touch of beauty and meaning into their otherwise routine work. I found it inspiring as it was shared by one of my co-workers and now each of us is searching for our own special way to touch others with that daily “rosy sunset.”

The point is the unexpected gift, whether it is a palette of color in the sky at the end of the day, a thoughtful gesture that pays forward inspiring others to do the same, or the sacrifice that pays for all debts forever. It is doing the work of God in other’s lives–the best work of all.

thanks to our near neighbors Bellewood Acres for this beautiful sunset photo from 3/6/12