And that is just the point… how the world, moist and beautiful, calls to each of us to make a new and serious response.
That’s the big question, the one the world throws at you every morning.
“Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?”
Mary Oliver
The description does not describe them to you,
and tomorrow you arrive there, and know them by inhabiting them.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Christian calendar today remembers the story in the gospel of Matthew which tells how King Herod ordered the killing of all the children in an attempt to murder Jesus. It is striking that this feast day is celebrated just a few days after the celebration of Christmas, which is associated with joy. It draws attention to the reality of our changing experience, that sadness can follow joy very quickly, or disappointment come when least expected. Or maybe to the reality of the world, as many people experience violence and hatred every day, no matter what time of year.
To experience peace does not mean that your life is always blissful.
It means that you are capable of tapping into a blissful state of mind amidst the normal chaos of a hectic life.
Jill Boite Taylor, American neuroanatomist.
One way to have good perspective is to see the world through the eyes of a child. We innocently report. We accept how others think and feel. If something is had or sad, or we’re scared, we say that. We say how we feel and what we want and need. We know that when we’re tired, we see things out of focus. And when things get too difficult, we either go play in the park or we take a nap.
Somehow we know that everything will work out.
Melody Beattie
Our passing dramas stand in contrast to the enduring parts of nature, which goes back inside itself at this time of year, and then starts again.
The oak tree
loves patience,
the mountain is
still looking,
as it has for centuries,
for a word to say about
the gradual way it
slides itself
back to the
world below
to begin again,
in another life,
to be fertile.
When the wind blows
the grass
whistles and whispers
in myths and riddles
and not in our language
but one far older.
The sea is the sea is
always the sea.
These things
you can count on
as you walk about the world
happy or sad,
talky or silent, making
weapons, love, poems.
The briefest of fires.
Mary Oliver, Patience
Sometimes withdrawal and letting go is as much part of growth as is achievement and moving forward:
There is a tendency to want to hurry from autumn to spring, to avoid the long dark days that winter brings. But winter darkness has a positive side to it. As we gather to celebrate the first turn from winter to spring, we are invited to recognize and honor the beauty in the often unwanted season of winter. Let us invite our hearts to be glad for the courage winter proclaims. Let us be grateful for the wisdom winter brings in teaching us about the need for withdrawal as an essential part of renewal. Let us also encourage our spirits as Earth prepares to come forth from this time of withdrawal into a season filled with light.
Joyce Rupp and Macrina Wiederkehr, The Circle of Life
