Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.
1.
Something
came up / out of the dark. / It wasn’t anything I had ever seen before.
It wasn’t an animal / or a flower, / unless it was both.
It wasn’t an animal / or a flower, / unless it was both.
Something came up out of the water, / a head the size of a cat / but
muddy and without ears.
I don’t know what God is. / I don’t know what death is.
I don’t know what God is. / I don’t know what death is.
But
I believe they have between them / some fervent and necessary arrangement.
2. Sometimes / melancholy leaves me breathless…
3. Water from the heavens! Electricity from the
source! / Both of them mad to create something!
The
lighting brighter than any flower. / The thunder without a drowsy bone in its
body.
4. Instructions for living a life: / Pay
attention. / Be astonished. / Tell about it.
5. Two or three times in my life I discovered
love. / Each time it seemed to solve everything.
Each time it solved a great many things / but not everything.
Yet left me as grateful as if it had indeed, and / thoroughly, solved everything.
Each time it solved a great many things / but not everything.
Yet left me as grateful as if it had indeed, and / thoroughly, solved everything.
6. God, rest in my heart / and fortify me,
take
away my hunger for answers, / let the hours play upon my body
like
the hands of my beloved.
Let the cathead appear again— / the smallest of your mysteries,
Let the cathead appear again— / the smallest of your mysteries,
some
wild cousin of my own blood probably—
some
cousin of my own wild blood probably, / in the black dinner-bowl of the pond.
7. Death waits for me, I know it, around / one
corner or another.
This doesn’t amuse me. / Neither does it frighten me.
This doesn’t amuse me. / Neither does it frighten me.
After the rain, I went back into the field of sunflowers.
It was cool, and I was anything but drowsy. / I walked slowly, and
listened
to
the crazy roots, in the drenched earth, laughing and growing.
—“Sometimes”
by Mary Oliver
The Christian season of Lent begins this month on
February 14, and will continue until Easter Sunday, on April 1. This year, with so much going on in our world
to distract, disorient, and scatter us, I invite us to heed Mary Oliver’s “Instructions for living a life: Pay
attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”
These instructions are quite similar to the words of Christian prophets
through the ages: “Stay woke! Expect the miraculous. Speak your truth.”
Throughout this new year—and throughout this Lenten
season—we will continue to walk in the ways of Jesus. We will contribute our time and talents to
building a compassionate and strong congregation capable of repairing the
breach of care and grace and hope in our communities. And by sharing our gifts with those around
us, we will build bridges, empower those in need of support, and expand the
possibilities of love. Astonishing
things are happening all around us.
Walls are coming down. Blinders
are lifted. Hesitant voices are
speaking. Doors are opening. Hearts are
welcoming. Diversity is cherished. Let’s be part of these miracles. And let’s be sure we tell about it!
See you in church,
Christy