{"id":2474,"date":"2017-12-04T00:00:47","date_gmt":"2017-12-04T05:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/mission-and-identity\/?p=2474"},"modified":"2019-09-18T16:45:52","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T20:45:52","slug":"dec-4-bill-paulysj-and-mary-oliver-wage-peace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/2017\/12\/04\/dec-4-bill-paulysj-and-mary-oliver-wage-peace\/","title":{"rendered":"Dec 4 &#8212; Bill Pauly,\tsj and Mary Oliver &#8212; &#8220;Wage Peace&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Monday, December 4 \u2014 Advent\u2019s 1st week<\/p>\n<p>These first days of Advent \u00a0\u2014 4 weeks that dare us to imagine hope without denying violence, loss, and fear. \u00a0Year\u00a0by year, they stir my blood and fill me with wonder\u00a0\u2014 \u00a0work day cars moving women and men in a hurry, their driving \u00a0more confident in the light traffic. \u00a0Me? \u00a0I love the early dark, and\u00a0the full moon hanging over the West side of our campus this early morning.<\/p>\n<p>This year, to ease me into these 4 weeks, I re-visited the first week in December 2013 (the first year of the Work Day\/Hard Times poetry list). \u00a0I found this\u00a0Monday&#8217;s \u00a0post. \u00a0It\u2019s partly an homage to a Jesuit soul friend who died too young and partly an homage to one of his gifts, introducing me to the poet Mary Oliver one hot summer day in Oglala South Dakota.<\/p>\n<p>Advent blessings open me to joy even during recent mean and frightened language that doesn\u2019t wear just on me, \u00a0perhaps on us all? \u00a0 You may have read Mary Oliver here before. \u00a0Best to read her poetry slowly, with pauses, anticipating surprise.<\/p>\n<p>Blessings on your work week.<\/p>\n<p>john sj<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Today\u2019s Post\u00a0\u00a0\u201cWage Peace\u201d \u00a0(1st posted December 2, 2013)<\/p>\n<p>Last Friday, November 29, was the anniversary of Bill Pauly\u2019s 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 Before Pine\u00a0Ridge,\u00a0Bill was pastor in a South Milwaukee Hispanic parish. Bill is a soul friend and I miss him 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<p>Welcome to these last days of Term One.<\/p>\n<p>john sj<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWage Peace\u201d \u00a0&#8211; \u00a0Mary Oliver<\/p>\n<p>Wage peace with your breath.<br \/>\nBreathe in firemen and rubble,<br \/>\nbreathe out whole buildings and flocks of red wing blackbirds.<br \/>\nBreathe in terrorists and breathe out sleeping children and fresh mown<br \/>\nfields.<\/p>\n<p>Breathe in confusion and breathe out maple trees.<br \/>\nBreathe in the fallen and breathe out lifelong friendships intact.<br \/>\nWage peace with your listening: hearing sirens, pray loud.<br \/>\nRemember your tools: flower seeds, clothes pins, clean rivers.<br \/>\nMake soup.<\/p>\n<p>Play music, learn the word for thank you in three languages.<br \/>\nLearn to knit, and make a hat.<br \/>\nThink of chaos as dancing raspberries,<br \/>\nimagine grief as the outbreath of beauty or the gesture of fish.<br \/>\nSwim for the other side.<br \/>\nWage peace.<\/p>\n<p>Never has the world seemed so fresh and precious.<br \/>\nHave a cup of tea and rejoice.<br \/>\nAct as if armistice has already arrived.<br \/>\nDon\u2019t wait another minute.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/170\/2015\/01\/Mary-Oliver.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1123\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/170\/2015\/01\/Mary-Oliver.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"98\" height=\"121\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Mary Oliver<\/p>\n<p>September 10, 1935<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>p.s.\u00a0 Today would be the birthday of one other soul friend, Art McGovern, sj would turn 88 today; \u00a0he died in May 2000 of cancer. \u00a0I miss him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Monday, December 4 \u2014 Advent\u2019s 1st week These first days of Advent \u00a0\u2014 4 weeks that dare us to imagine hope without denying violence, loss, and fear. \u00a0Year\u00a0by year, they stir my blood and fill me with wonder\u00a0\u2014 \u00a0work day &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/2017\/12\/04\/dec-4-bill-paulysj-and-mary-oliver-wage-peace\/\">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\/2474"}],"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=2474"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2475,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2474\/revisions\/2475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}