Tag: mystery

What Wondrous Love: Something Way Down Deep

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We all know that something is eternal. 
And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, 
and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars 
. . . everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, 
and that something has to do with human beings. 
All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that 
for five thousand years and yet you’d be surprised 
how people are always losing hold of it. 
There’s something way down deep 
that’s eternal about every human being.
~Thornton Wilder, from “Our Town”

Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lacked any thing.

A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?

Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.
~George Herbert “Love III”

Write as if you were dying.
At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients.
That is, after all, the case.
~Annie Dillard from “Write Till You Drop”

I began to write regularly after September 11, 2001 because more than on any previous day, it became obvious to me I was dying, though more slowly than the thousands who vanished that day in fire and ash, their voices obliterated with their bodies into eternity.  

Nearly each day since, while I still have voice and a new dawn to greet, I speak through my fingers to others dying with and around me.

We are, after all, terminal patients — some of us more prepared than others to move on — as if our readiness had anything to do with the timing.

Each day I get a little closer to the eternal, but I write in order to feel a little more ready.  Each day I want to detach just a little bit, leaving a trace of my voice behind.  Eventually, through unmerited grace, so much of me will be left on the page there won’t be anything or anyone left to do the typing.

There is no time or word to waste.

Listen, I tell you a mystery: 
We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.
1 Corinthians 15: 51-52

This Lenten season I reflect on the words of the 19th century southern spiritual hymn “What Wondrous Love is This”

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Laid Aside His Crown: The Quiet Mystery

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Days pass when I forget the mystery.
Problems insoluble and problems offering
their own ignored solutions
jostle for my attention…
            And then
once more the quiet mystery
is present to me, the throng’s clamor
recedes: the mystery
that there is anything, anything at all,
let alone cosmos, joy, memory, everything,
rather than void: and that, O Lord,
Creator, Hallowed one, You still,
hour by hour sustain it.
~Denise Levertov from “Primary Wonder” from Sands of the Well

Here is the mystery, the secret,
one might almost say the cunning,
of the deep love of God:
that it is bound to draw upon itself
the hatred and pain and shame
and anger and bitterness and rejection of the world,
but to draw all those things on to itself
is precisely the means chosen from all eternity
by the generous, loving God,
by which to rid his world of the evils
which have resulted from
human abuse of God-given freedom.
~N.T. Wright from The Crown and The Fire

Inundated by constant bad news of the world,
I must cling to the mystery of His magnetism
for my own weaknesses, flaws and bitterness.
He willingly pulls evil onto Himself, out of us.
Hatred and pain and shame and anger disappear
into the vortex of His love and beauty,
the mucky corners of my heart vacuumed spotless.

We are let in on a secret:
He is not sullied by absorbing the dirty messes of our lives.

Created in His image, sustained and loved,
thus reflecting Him,
it is no mystery
we are washed forever clean.

…to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things…
Ephesians 3:9

This Lenten season reflects on the words of the 19th century southern spiritual hymn “What Wondrous Love is This”

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So Hope May Grow

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I have a small grain of hope–

one small crystal that gleams
clear colours out of transparency.

I need more.

I break off a fragment
to send to you.

Please take
this grain of a grain of hope
so that mine won’t shrink.

Please share your fragment
so that yours will grow.

Only so, by division,
will hope increase,

like a clump of irises, which will cease to flower
unless you distribute
the clustered roots, unlikely source–
clumsy and earth-covered–
of grace. 
~Denise Levertov “For the New Year, 1981”

As this year draws to its end,
We give thanks for the gifts it brought
And how they became inlaid within
Where neither time nor tide can touch them.

The days when the veil lifted
And the soul could see delight;
When a quiver caressed the heart
In the sheer exuberance of being here.

Surprises that came awake
In forgotten corners of old fields
Where expectation seemed to have quenched.

The slow, brooding times
When all was awkward
And the wave in the mind
Pierced every sore with salt.

The darkened days that stopped
The confidence of the dawn.

Days when beloved faces shone brighter
With light from beyond themselves;
And from the granite of some secret sorrow
A stream of buried tears loosened.

We bless this year for all we learned,
For all we loved and lost
And for the quiet way it brought us
Nearer to our invisible destination.
~John O’Donohue “At the End of the Year” from To Bless The Space Between 

Sculpture by Artist Albert Gyorgy

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: Poems

photo by Nate Gibson


Each day, for nearly twenty years,
I break off a grain of hope
from these dirt-covered, humble roots
I have dug up to share.

I hand off a grain of hope to you here,
as it will grow through your nurture,
a tiny marvel you break off someday
to hand on to someone else.

Together we can grow a garden of

delight despite damage,
grace despite grief,
wonder despite weeping,
contentment despite conflict,
singing despite sadness,
astonishment despite apathy,
beauty despite brokenness.

Together, we look together and laugh with joy.
Together, we clasp hands and join the journey.
Together, we just might save the world.

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The Sunrise Shall Visit Us: He Came Down

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Down he came from up,
and in from out,
and here from there.
A long leap,
an incandescent fall
from magnificent
to naked, frail, small,
through space,
between stars,
into our chill night air,
shrunk, in infant grace,
to our damp, cramped
earthy place
among all
the shivering sheep.

And now, after all,
there he lies,
fast asleep.
~Luci Shaw “Descent” from Accompanied By Angels

The Word became flesh.
Ultimate Mystery born with a skull you could crush one-handed. Incarnation.
It is not tame.
It is not beautiful.
It is uninhabitable terror.
It is unthinkable darkness riven with unbearable light.
Agonized laboring led to it, vast upheavals of intergalactic space, time split apart, a wrenching and tearing of the very sinews of reality itself.

You can only cover your eyes and shudder before it, before this:
“God of God, Light of Light,
very God of very God… who for us and for our salvation,”
as the Nicene Creed puts it, “came down from heaven.”  

Came down.

Only then do we dare uncover our eyes and see what we can see.
It is the Resurrection and the Life she holds in her arms.
It is the bitterness of death he takes at her breast.
~Frederick Buechner from Whistling in the Dark: A Doubter’s Dictionary

He appeared in the flesh,
    was vindicated by the Spirit,
was seen by angels,
    was preached among the nations,
was believed on in the world,
    was taken up in glory. 
1 Timothy 3:16

[The Incarnation is like] a wave of the sea which, 
rushing up on the flat beach, 
runs out, even thinner and more transparent, 
and does not return to its source but sinks into the sand and disappears.
~Hans Urs von Balthasar from Origen: Spirit and Fire

photo by Nate Gibson

Perhaps it is the mystery of the thing that brings us back,
again and again, to read the story of how God came down and disappeared into us.

How can this be?
God appearing on earth
born among servant animals,
then to shepherds, the most humble of humans.

How can He be?
Through the will of the Father and the breath of the Spirit,
the Son was, and is and yet to be.

O great mystery beyond all understanding.

Nativity by N.C. Wyeth

Advent 2023 theme
…because of the tender mercy of our God,
whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high 
to give light to those who sit in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.
Luke 1: 78-79 from Zechariah’s Song

O magnum mysterium,
et admirabile sacramentum.
Ut animalia viderent
Dominum natum, iacentem in
praesepio: Beata Virgo,
cujus viscera meruerunt portare
Dominum Christum
Alleluia

O great mystery,
and wonderful sacrament,
that animals should see the new-born Lord,
lying in a manger!
Blessed is the Virgin whose womb
was worthy to bear
the Lord, Jesus Christ.
Alleluia!

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Moments Out of Sight

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A neighborhood.
At dusk.

Things are getting ready
to happen
out of sight.

Stars and moths.
And rinds slanting around fruit.

But not yet.

One tree is black.
One window is yellow as butter.

A woman leans down to catch a child
who has run into her arms
this moment.

Stars rise.
Moths flutter.
Apples sweeten in the dark.
~Eavan Boland “This Moment” from In a Time of Violence

Photo by William Albert Allard
photo by Nate Gibson

At times, particularly at night, I’m keenly aware of all the unknowable and uncountable lives happening behind closed doors and curtained windows, each one living their own sacred moment in time.

So many meals being eaten, baths taken, tears shed, stories told, prayers recited, kisses shared.

These moments are the blessings of a quotidian predictability that we try to pass on to our children. In our routines, we may become oblivious to the mysteries happening all around us: innumerable stars shining, fragile moths fluttering and sweetening apples hanging heavy — yet there is mystery within each of us as well.

In the dark of night, despite our weariness:
We are remarkably loved and loving.
We try our best in difficult times and circumstances.
We grieve losses while struggling to survive sorrows.
We seek purpose and meaning, despite feeling unworthy.

Each passing moment becomes one to cherish.
Each moment mysteriously holy and sweet.

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The Hidden Mystery

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A poem waits
for the mystery
in you—
girl at the window
apple blossoms, orchard
the horses you don’t own
Hope at the way station
the sail you have not found
the dance you have, as yet,
only done in dreams.

Pour in what calls,
“Let me out.”
The gift. The limb. The sun. The moon.

A poem waits
for the mystery
in you—
Pour in, pour in.
Nothing can break the delicate
glass of its
holding.
~L.L. Barkat “Delicate”

Vermeer–Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window

I’ll tell you a secret: poems hide.
In the bottoms of our shoes, they are sleeping.
They are the shadows drifting across our ceilings
the moment before we wake up.
What we have to do is live in a way that lets us find them.
— Naomi Shihab Nye

Poems were hidden from me for decades.  I was oblivious a hundred times a day to their secrets: dripping right over me in the shower,  rising over hills bright pink, tucked under a toadstool, breathing deeply as I auscultated a chest,  unfolding with each blossom, settling heavily on my eyelids at night.

The day I awoke to them was the day over twenty years ago when thousands of innocents died in sudden cataclysm of airplanes and buildings and fire — people not knowing when they got up that day it would be their last.  And such taking of life happens again and again; our world continues to weep.

Now poems don’t hide themselves as often. I begin to see, listen, touch, smell, taste as if each day would be my last. I am learning to live in a way that helps me discern the mystery and it overwhelms me. 

Poems are everywhere when I look.

And I don’t know if I have enough time left to write them all down

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What Power is at Work?

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The snail pushes through a green
night, for the grass is heavy
with water and meets over
the bright path he makes, where rain
has darkened the earth’s dark. He
moves in a wood of desire,

pale antlers barely stirring
as he hunts. I cannot tell
what power is at work, drenched there
with purpose, knowing nothing.
What is a snail’s fury? All
I think is that if later

I parted the blades above
the tunnel and saw the thin
trail of broken white across
litter, I would never have
imagined the slow passion
to that deliberate progress.
~Thom Gunn “Considering the Snail”

…who has a controlled sense of wonder
before the universal mystery,
whether it hides in a snail’s eye
or within the light that impinges on that delicate organ?
~Loren Eiseley from The Star Thrower

May the poems be
the little snail’s trail.

Everywhere I go,
every inch: quiet record

of the foot’s silver prayer.
              I lived once.
              Thank you.
              It was here.
~Aracelis Girmay “Ars Poetica”  

What do I leave behind as I pass through to what comes next?

It might be as slick and silvery and random as a snail trail — hardly and barely there, easily erased.

I might leave behind the solid hollow of an empty shell, leading to infinity, spiraling to nothing and everything.

Instead, just like the persistent snail, I am not my own.

I pray, grateful, for this slow passion of words and images;
there is unending wonder as I make deliberate progress on this journey.

I was here and so were you. And we ultimately belong elsewhere.

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Mysteries Too Marvelous

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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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A Secret Hallowing

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This fevers me, this sun on green,
On grass glowing, this young spring.
The secret hallowing is come,
Regenerate sudden incarnation,
Mystery made visible
In growth, yet subtly veiled in all,
Ununderstandable in grass,
In flowers, and in the human heart,
This lyric mortal loveliness,
The earth breathing, and the sun…
~Richard Eberhart from “This Fevers Me”

I go my way,
and my left foot says ‘Glory,’
and my right foot says ‘Amen’:
in and out of Shadow Creek,
upstream and down,
exultant,
in a daze, dancing,
to the twin silver trumpets of praise.
~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Every day should be a day of dancing
and loveliness and breathing deeply,
of celebrating the fact we woke afresh,
a new start of a secret hallowing.

If I’m honest, I don’t always feel like dancing,
my feet each going their own way
with my head barely attached to my neck.

As I stumble about in my morning daze,
readying myself for the onslaught to come,
I step out the back door, look at the mountain
and mumble “Glory”
and then blink a few times and murmur “Amen”
and breathe it out again a little louder
until I really feel it.

I believe the ununderstandable
and know it in my bones.

A little praise never hurt anyone.
A little worship goes a long way.
It’s the only way mystery becomes visible,
tangible, touchable, tastable and understandable.

Amen
and Amen again.

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Broken, But Not Shattered

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Under a cherry tree
I found a robin’s egg,
broken, but not shattered.

I had been thinking of you,
and was kneeling in the grass
among fallen blossoms

when I saw it: a blue scrap,
a delicate toy, as light
as confetti

It didn’t seem real,
but nature will do such things
from time to time.

I looked inside:
it was glistening, hollow,
a perfect shell

except for the missing crown,
which made it possible
to look inside.

What had been there
is gone now
and lives in my heart

where, periodically,
it opens up its wings,
tearing me apart.
~Phyllis Levin “End of April”

photo by Josh Scholten

The great mystery of God’s love is that we are not asked to live as if we are not hurting, as if we are not broken. In fact, we are invited to recognize our brokenness as a brokenness in which we can come in touch with the unique way that God loves us. The great call of Jesus is to put your brokenness under the blessing.
~Henri Nouwen from a Lecture at Scarritt-Bennett Center

Some say you’re lucky
If nothing shatters it.

But then you wouldn’t
Understand poems or songs.
You’d never know
Beauty comes from loss.

It’s deep inside every person:
A tear tinier
Than a pearl or thorn.

It’s one of the places
Where the beloved is born.
~Gregory Orr from Concerning the Book That Is the Body of the Beloved

Every day, as the sun goes down,
I pause, feeling a bit or a lot broken, remembering how often
I messed up that day, in big and small ways.

I’ve been cracked open, my mistakes leaking and illuminated,
weighing down my heart, impossible to forget,
ready to take wings as I pray for mercy.

With forgiveness, there follows peacefulness.
Broken, but not shattered.
Cracked, but glistening clean.

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