Losing Myself Sun, 13th October, 2013
After a very intense week of work and the prospect of an even more intense week to come, I'm taking refuge in thoughts of nature this weekend. Yesterday I enjoyed a wonderful trip to the Missouri Weinstrasse in and around Augusta. The weather was heavenly, and fall colors that were starting to pop on the hillsides formed the perfect backdrop for the vineyards.
When burdens are heavy, it's liberating to just lose yourself in the natural world. It puts everything into proper perspective. Even if things go badly with a project at work, the maples will still turn red, and the geese will fly south.
So today I can't decide which of my two favorite poems to share, so I'll be reckless and share both of them. They are from Wendell Berry and Mary Oliver, my two favorite writers. Berry's "The Peace of Wild Things" is my 23rd Psalm. Oliver's "Wild Geese" is my theology compressed into 18 elegant lines.
I hope you find some peace and inspiration in these passages.
THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
— Wendell Berry
WILD GEESE
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
— Mary Oliver
After a very intense week of work and the prospect of an even more intense week to come, I'm taking refuge in thoughts of nature this weekend. Yesterday I enjoyed a wonderful trip to the Missouri Weinstrasse in and around Augusta. The weather was heavenly, and fall colors that were starting to pop on the hillsides formed the perfect backdrop for the vineyards.
When burdens are heavy, it's liberating to just lose yourself in the natural world. It puts everything into proper perspective. Even if things go badly with a project at work, the maples will still turn red, and the geese will fly south.
So today I can't decide which of my two favorite poems to share, so I'll be reckless and share both of them. They are from Wendell Berry and Mary Oliver, my two favorite writers. Berry's "The Peace of Wild Things" is my 23rd Psalm. Oliver's "Wild Geese" is my theology compressed into 18 elegant lines.
I hope you find some peace and inspiration in these passages.
THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
— Wendell Berry
WILD GEESE
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
— Mary Oliver
