Monday December 2<\/p>\n
Last Friday, November 29, was the anniversary of Bill Pauly’s sudden death at 59 of a heart attack while taking a lovely sabbatical after years of demanding pastoring on the Pine Ridge Lakota Reservation in western South Dakota. \u00a0 \u00a0Before Pine\u00a0 Ridge\u00a0Bill was pastor in a South Milwaukee hispanic parish. Bill is a soul friend and I miss him at especially at this time. \u00a0This Mary Oliver poem to which he introduced me captures his earthiness and urgency and his passion for the sacred ordinary.<\/p>\n
Welcome to these last days of Term One.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
john sj<\/p>\n
p.s. \u00a0 This post is the first of a new format — \u00a0a new listserve address and a blog. \u00a0 I’m still working on an email that explains how it works; it should arrive in your mailbox later today.<\/p>\n
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WAGE PEACE<\/p>\n
Mary Oliver<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Wage peace with your breath.<\/p>\n
Breathe in firemen and rubble,<\/p>\n
breathe out whole buildings and flocks of red wing blackbirds.<\/p>\n
Breathe in terrorists and breathe out sleeping children and fresh mown<\/p>\n
fields.<\/p>\n
Breathe in confusion and breathe out maple trees.<\/p>\n
Breathe in the fallen and breathe out lifelong friendships intact.<\/p>\n
Wage peace with your listening: hearing sirens, pray loud.<\/p>\n
Remember your tools: flower seeds, clothes pins, clean rivers.<\/p>\n
Make soup.<\/p>\n
Play music, learn the word for thank you in three languages.<\/p>\n
Learn to knit, and make a hat.<\/p>\n
Think of chaos as dancing raspberries,<\/p>\n
imagine grief as the outbreath of beauty or the gesture of fish.<\/p>\n
Swim for the other side.<\/p>\n
Wage peace.<\/p>\n
Never has the world seemed so fresh and precious.<\/p>\n
Have a cup of tea and rejoice.<\/p>\n
Act as if armistice has already arrived.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t wait another minute.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Monday December 2 Last Friday, November 29, was the anniversary of Bill Pauly’s sudden death at 59 of a heart attack while taking a lovely sabbatical after years of demanding pastoring on the Pine Ridge Lakota Reservation in western South … Continue reading