{"id":2019,"date":"2016-10-03T00:00:14","date_gmt":"2016-10-03T04:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/mission-and-identity\/?p=2019"},"modified":"2019-09-18T16:47:33","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T20:47:33","slug":"oct-3-the-messenger-mary-oliver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/2016\/10\/03\/oct-3-the-messenger-mary-oliver\/","title":{"rendered":"Oct 3 &#8211; The Messenger &#8211; Mary Oliver"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Monday October 3<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201c . . . \u00a0my work<br \/>\nwhich is standing still and learning to be astonished.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Today\u2019s post I\u2019m writing at the Maritime Institute just 15 minutes from Baltimore\u2019s airport. \u00a0 About 80 people have been gathered by the collective national presence of The Sisters of Mercy in the world of higher education. \u00a0What is the current state of the health of our culture of work among the 16 colleges and universities \u2014 students and faculty and support staff that treat their heritage of \u00a0\u201cMercy\u201d as their soul. \u00a0Like conferences everywhere, people meet and talk and listen with each other, over coffee or wine or water. \u00a0 Our last plenary speaker today, John Collins, C.Ss.R. invited us to listen while he read Mary Oliver\u2019s \u201cThe Messenger.\u201d \u00a0 As many of Mary O\u2019s poems as I\u2019ve posted I had not met this one.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s lovely and evocative. \u00a0Try reading it out loud.<\/p>\n<p>Back in Detroit Monday evening.<\/p>\n<p>I hope your work week is beginning well.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>john sj<\/p>\n<p><strong>Today\u2019s Post \u00a0 <\/strong>\u00a0&#8220;The Messenger&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>My work is loving the world.<br \/>\nHere the sunflowers, there the hummingbird \u2014 equal seekers of sweetness.<br \/>\nHere the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.<br \/>\nHere the clam deep in the speckled sand.<br \/>\nAre my boots old? Is my coat torn?<br \/>\nAm I no longer young, and still not half-perfect?<br \/>\nLet me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work,<br \/>\nwhich is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.<br \/>\nThe phoebe, the delphinium. The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.<br \/>\nWhich is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,<br \/>\nwhich is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart<br \/>\nand these body-clothes, a mouth with which to give shouts of joy to the moth<br \/>\nand the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam, telling them all,<br \/>\nover and over, how it is that we live forever.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/170\/2016\/10\/CloudHeart.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2020\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/170\/2016\/10\/CloudHeart.jpg\" alt=\"cloudheart\" width=\"101\" height=\"130\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Monday October 3 \u201c . . . \u00a0my work which is standing still and learning to be astonished.&#8221; Today\u2019s post I\u2019m writing at the Maritime Institute just 15 minutes from Baltimore\u2019s airport. \u00a0 About 80 people have been gathered by &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/2016\/10\/03\/oct-3-the-messenger-mary-oliver\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11641],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2019"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2019"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2021,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2019\/revisions\/2021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}