Tag: marvelous

Mysteries Too Marvelous

barnstormingblog1 Comment

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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The Marvelous Light

barnstormingblog1 Comment

 Lord,
              when you send the rain
              think about it, please,
              a little?
      Do
              not get carried away
              by the sound of falling water,
              the marvelous light
              on the falling water.
          I
              am beneath that water.
              It falls with great force
              and the light
Blinds
              me to the light.
~James Baldwin, “Untitled” from Jimmy’s Blues

The good Lord sends what He knows we need even if we don’t know we need it. Then we’re puzzled and not just a little perturbed, especially when it doesn’t fit our plans, our timeline, our desires, our hopes and dreams.

Anyone ask for this year’s chaos and grief? Can I see a show of hands?

No one I know sent up prayers
for a viral scourge to sicken 40 million
and kill over a one million in a matter of months,
or for ever-widening political divides and disagreements,
or increasing distrust and less cooperation between nuclear powers,
or devastating unemployment and economic hardship,
or triggers for riots in the streets,
or being unable to visit my 100 year old aunt in her long term care facility.

Maybe, just maybe,
we are too blinded by the force of this deluge pounding and battering us
to acknowledge the nearly-drowned soaking we bring upon ourselves.

Maybe, just maybe,
the Lord thinks a bit about what He sends,
just as He has done before
and has ever promised to do:
a Light in the midst of the storm,
that Marvelous Light,
if only we would open our eyes enough to see it.