Tuesday August 5 – “a doorway into silence”
Pulses of intense rain when I woke, without a lot of wind. And more to come says weather.com, Perhaps a soaker without broken trees, a summer day (“Scattered thunderstorms this morning, then mainly cloudy during the afternoon with thunderstorms likely. High 79F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%”). Dazzling summer days — crisp dry air, breezy and not too hot, showing flowers and shades of green brought by trees and shrubs and grasses — they refresh my soul. So do rainy summer days when I pay attention and even, ugh, sticky days with heavy pollen.
Mary Oliver invites the reader to find words to say the spectacular and the ordinary, the winsome and the frayed. The principle behind the work day posts is to open a space about 2 minutes long in which someone’s words remind us of stillness waiting to be noticed.
Have a good day. Beauty lives deep down.
john st sj
Today’s Post: Praying
It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.
Mary Oliver
p.s. Kathy Lilla Cox, one of our grads and now a professor of theology, sent me pictures from Assisi this summer: “Three friars sang the songs, which were teaching tools for the early Fransciscans. One played the violin, a second the guitar, and Friar Alessandro, who sang (beautiful rich voice), played the instrument in the pictures. After the concert, several of us went to talk with Alessandro. Friar Alessandro said he saw the instrument in a painting and it sparked his imagination.”
Kathy chose the camera perspective. I like her choose of bare feet, near the instrument, in Franciscan sandals.
