Tag: wonder

One More Morning

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I want to get up early one more morning,
before sunrise. Before the birds, even.
I want to throw cold water on my face
and be at my work table
when the sky lightens and smoke
begins to rise from the chimneys
of the other houses.
I want to see the waves break
on this rocky beach, not just hear them
break as I did all night in my sleep.

I want to spend the day watching this happen
and reach my own conclusions.
I hate to seem greedy—have so much
to be thankful for already.
But I want to get up early one more morning, at least.
And go to my place with some coffee and wait.
Just wait, to see what’s going to happen.
~Raymond Carver “At Least” from Where Water Comes Together With Other Water

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
~Raymond Carver “Late Fragment”


All this he saw,
for one moment breathless and intense,
vivid on the morning sky;
and still, as he looked, he lived;
and still, as he lived, he wondered.
~Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

Every time I open my eyes at dawn,
listening for the voice of one more morning,
I am reminded how precious is this moment
~this new day~
how intensely grateful I am
for each breath and each heartbeat
gifted to me.

We are created for this realization:
we are, everyone of us, beloved.
We are meant to wonder breathless at this,
to keep watch, waiting to see what will happen next.

Holding Wonder Like a Cup

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Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children’s faces looking up
Holding wonder like a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell,
Music like a curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
And for your spirit’s still delight,
Holy thoughts that star the night.

Spend all you have for loveliness,
Buy it and never count the cost;
For one white singing hour of peace
Count many a year of strife well lost,
And for a breath of ecstasy
Give all you have been, or could be.
~Sara Teasdale “Barter”

photo by Nate Gibson

Some days I wish to keep hold forever:
when the light is just right in the trees,
the breezes fill with blossom fragrance,
the congregation sings with joy as I play accompaniment,
a smiling child climbs up on my lap just because,
a meal is enjoyed by all who join together.

I know I barter for these moments
by giving up some piece of me,
knowing the sowing of self
will reap the rich harvest of an overflowing heart.

Pay Attention to the Lilies

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From the simplest lyric to the most complex novel and densest drama, literature is asking us to pay attention… pay attention to the world and all that dwells therein and thereby learn at last to pay attention to yourself and all that dwells therein.

Literature, painting, music—the most basic lesson that all art teaches us is to stop, look, and listen to life on this planet, including our own lives, as a vastly richer, deeper, more mysterious business than most of the time it ever occurs to us to suspect as we bumble along from day to day on automatic pilot. In a world that for the most part steers clear of the whole idea of holiness, art is one of the few places left where we can speak to each other of holy things.

Is it too much to say that Stop, Look, and Listen is also the most basic lesson that the Judeo-Christian tradition teaches us? Listen to history is the cry of the ancient prophets of Israel. Listen to social injustice, says Amos; to head-in-the-sand religiosity, says Jeremiah; to international treacheries and power-plays, says Isaiah; because it is precisely through them that God speaks his word of judgment and command.

And when Jesus comes along saying that the greatest command of all is to love God and to love our neighbor, he too is asking us to pay attention. If we are to love God, we must first stop, look, and listen for him in what is happening around us and inside us. If we are to love our neighbors, before doing anything else we must see our neighbors. With our imagination as well as our eyes, that is to say like artists, we must see not just their faces but the life behind and within their faces. Here it is love that is the frame we see them in.

In a letter to a friend Emily Dickinson wrote that “Consider the lilies of the field” was the only commandment she never broke. She could have done a lot worse. Consider the lilies. It is the sine qua non of art and religion both.
~Frederick Buechner from Whistling in the Dark

I have broken the commandment to “consider the lilies” way too many times. In my daily life I am considering almost anything else: my own worries and concerns as I walk past so much beauty and meaning and holiness. My mind dwells within, blind and deaf to what is outside.

It is necessary to be reminded every day that I need to pay attention beyond myself, to be reminded to love my neighbor, to remember what history has to teach us, to search for the sacred in all things.

Stop, Look, Listen, Consider:
all is grace,
all is gift,
all is holiness brought to life – stunning, amazing, wondrous.

The Snuffle of Winter

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We praise thee, O God, for thy glory
displayed in all the creatures of the earth,
In the snow, in the rain, in the wind, in the storm;
in all of thy creatures, both the hunters and the hunted…
They affirm thee in living;
all things affirm thee in living;
the bird in the air, both the hawk and the finch;
the beast on the earth, both the wolf and the lamb;…
Therefore man, whom thou hast made
to be conscious of thee,
must consciously praise thee,
in thought and in word and in deed.
Even with the hand to the broom,
the back bent in laying the fire,
the knee bent in cleaning the hearth…
The back bent under toil,
the knee bent under sin,
the hands to the face under fear,
the head bent under grief,
Even in us the voices of the seasons,
the snuffle of winter, the song of spring,
the drone of summer,
the voices of beasts and of birds,
praise thee. 
~T.S. Eliot from Murder in the Cathedral

In the midst of all the snuffling viruses of winter,
the back breaking daily work and labor:

this amazing glory happens this morning

the sky is afire with Him

I am reminded yet again
all things affirm thee in living
and so shall I.

And so shall I.

To Go Home By Another Way

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If you could see
the journey whole
you might never
undertake it;
might never dare
the first step
that propels you
from the place
you have known
toward the place
you know not.

Call it
one of the mercies
of the road:
that we see it
only by stages
as it opens
before us,
as it comes into
our keeping
step by
single step.

There are vows
that only you
will know;
the secret promises
for your particular path
and the new ones
you will need to make
when the road
is revealed
by turns
you could not
have foreseen.

Keep them, break them,
make them again:
each promise becomes
part of the path;
each choice creates
the road
that will take you
to the place
where at last
you will kneel

to offer the gift
most needed—
the gift that only you
can give—
before turning to go
home by
another way.
~Jan Richardson from “Blessing for Those Who Travel Far”

… having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.
Matthew 2:12

The night sky was still dim and pale.  
There, peeping among the cloud wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, 
Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while.  
The beauty of it smote his heart, 
as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him.  
For like a shaft, clear and cold, 
the thought pierced him that in the end 
the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: 
there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.
~J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

The star represented a hope
too long elusive;
so weary and with so much need
they headed out for unknown lands
to follow a light seemingly
beyond their reach.

When they found its source
they could touch His earthliness.
No shadow cast of darkness,
and no iron nails
could quell the beauty
of its brilliance.

Having been so illumined
they could only return home another way~
No longer could they be
who they had been.

An Advent Paradox: Eternal Yet Not a Day Old

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O child, Creator of all! 
How humbly you lie in the manger.
You who rule powerfully in heaven!

There the heaven of heavens cannot contain you;  here, however, you are held in the narrowest manger.

There, in the beginning of the world, you decorated the earth with green grasses that produced seed, with fruit-bearing trees that produced fruit, you ornamented the heavens with the sun, the moon, and the stars, the sky with winged birds, the waters with fish, you filled the land with reptiles, draft animals, and beasts; here, however, in the end of the world, you are wrapped in swaddling clothes!

O majesty! O lowness!
O sublimity! O humility!
O immense, eternal, and Ancient of Days!
O small, temporal infant whose life is not yet one day upon the earth!

~Adam of Dryburgh from  The Roads from Bethlehem

 

 

 

There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.
John Calvin

 

 

 

 

We are blinded to the Glory given to us in a narrow manger if we allow ourselves to perceive it as something routine and commonplace.  There is nothing commonplace about the gifts of Creation or the gift of His Son as Savior.

I can’t remember the last time I celebrated even a blade of grass,  given how focused I am in mowing it into conformity and submission.  Or the fruit of the trees, the birds of the air, the fish of the seas, the beasts of burden who work for us. Too often I’m not up early enough to witness the pink sunrise or I’m too busy to take time to watch the sun paint the sky red as it sets.

I miss opportunities to rejoice innumerable times a day.  It takes only a moment of recognition and appreciation to feel joy, and for that moment time stands still.  Life stretches a little longer when I stop to acknowledge the intention of creation and sending the Son of God to earth as an endless reservoir of rejoicing.

If a blade of grass, if a palette of color, if all this is made for joy, then the coming of Jesus into the world means I was made for joy as well.

Even small temporal commonplace me.

 

A Long and Wondrous Journey

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Last night
the rain
spoke to me
slowly, saying,
what joy
to come falling
out of the brisk cloud,
to be happy again
in a new way
on the earth!

Then it was over.
The sky cleared.
I was standing
under a tree.

imagine! imagine!
the long and wondrous journeys
still to be ours.
~Mary Oliver from “Last Night the Rain Spoke to Me”

 

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Our rainfall this week was met with joy and relief, refreshing what had waited all summer parched and dry and dying.

Too little too late.

Across the country and in other parts of the world, this week’s rainfall caused flooding and destruction, threatening homes and lives.

Too much too soon.

This life’s too little/too much journeys are frightening, wondrous and arduous.

And this journey, this life, is ours to travel.  Let us pray for a little more just right.

 

 

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