ONE STEP AT A TIME

Some things to think about during the church service yesterday. (My choir sang, so I got to sit in the choir loft hearing much of the service twice.)
Before our choir went out, our choir director, Mark, had us hold hands as usual, and gave a prayer. (Well, as Unitarians pray). The thing he said that stuck with me was that when we sang, to sing with "Acuity".

I think that is a good model for life. Another way of saying to be present. The Now is all we have, and everything else is just an illusion. Too often we miss this moment because we are living in this illusion. And we miss the people in our lives, because we are never really "with" them. I remember something that Mark had said in choir practice last week, that the greatest gift we can give to someone is our presence.

The other thing that got me thinking was during the minister's sermon. Why should we live as if our paradoxes always need a resolution? Trying to force solutions onto our lives, into the mystery of our being; it only forces situations and people into circumstances where they do not belong. I've often argued against fundamentalism for that reason. That compelling need that some people have to see things in black and white, the dogma of their truth, the inability to live in the in-between, in that mystery of the unknown.

"Morning Poem"

Every morning the world is created.

Under the orange sticks of the sun
the heaped ashes of the night turn into leaves again
and fasten themselves to the high branches –
and the ponds appear like black cloth
on which are painted islands
of summer lilies.

If it is your nature to be happy
you will swim away along
the soft trails for hours,
your imagination alighting everywhere.

And if your spirit carries within it
the thorn that is heavier than lead –
if it’s all you can do to keep on trudging –
there is still somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth is exactly what it wanted –

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered lavishly every morning,
whether or not you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not you have ever dared to pray.

-Mary Oliver




and....
to end this church inspired blog, we're singing this song by Holly Near, the words, and emotion of which touch me deeply: