The Gift of the Unattainable

 

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 ~

Texts:

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18

Judges 2:16-23

Acts 13:16-25

Whether or not we dared to be happy, whether or not we dared to pray, whether or not we remembered that we exist by God's hand and by God's grace, breathing in each moment as a gift, it arrives.  It arrives despite - or maybe even because of - our selfishness, our lonliness, and our self-doubt.

Sometimes, it's easier to create gods than to live as a creature, as created.  It's easier to fashion gods in our own images, who bend to our will and tell us what we want to hear.  For a time, it is deeply fulfilling to chase after the wind.  Ultimately it will make us tired, weary, and lonesome.  It invites us to go to war against ourselves, self-destruction in its wake.  It tells us that we must earn the Gift of each day, as though it is a payment for something we did or a punishment for something we didn't do.

"O LORD, you have searched me and known me.  

You know when I sit down and when I rise up;

You discern my thoughts from far away.

You search out my path and my lying down,

And are acquainted with all of my ways.  

Even before a word is on my tongue,

O LORD, you know it completely.

You hem me in, behind and before,

And lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

It is so high I cannot attain it." 

Psalm 139:1-6

It is so high we cannot attain it, yet it is given.  From Creator to creature, the days come as gift - whether or not we say 'thank you', whether or not we fall on our knees at the realization of how small yet how beloved we are.  Grace is not attainable; it comes as gift, in the form of breath, in the form of life, in the form of forgiveness, in the form of salvation.