Sunday Best – August 13, 2023
In the woods we return to reason and faith. – Emerson
I was hiking with my favorite twelve year old in a glorious redwood forest, where we saw trees sprouting from trees sprouting from trees. Upon seeing a largish spruce that was rooted in a fallen redwood, he wondered how many long-ago layers lie beneath our feet, how many millennia were cushioning our every step.
Friends, how lucky we are to stand atop such history – in our forests and mountains and libraries and families and communities.
May we recognize the seeds and sprouts of our time.
May we give thanks for all that came before,
the layers that support our reason,
inspire our faith,
cushion our steps,
and bring us into being.
Sunday Best – August 6, 2023
I took a little art break this week, and one of the museum cards stopped me in my tracks. Instead of “Artist unknown,” it said,
“Artist once known.”
Woah. So much pain and so much honor is packed into those three tiny words, that one momentous edit.
Dear ones, what have we lost that was once known?
In our quiet deep-down moments,
what is known still?
Sunday Best – July 30, 2023
Do you ever wake up in the morning thinking of all the things you wish you’d done the day before?
Yes, every day is a gift, and it is wonderful to live in the moment.
Yet sometimes, those twinges can be teachers.
These thoughts led me down a little carpe diem rabbit hole, where I learned that “carpe” means something more like “harvest” than “seize.”
Well, that’s a horse of a different color!
Harvest does not say, take all you can, squeeze ‘til it hurts, run run run, more more more!
Harvest asks, what is ready? What has come of all we’ve planted and tended? What part of the season has passed? What weather is on the horizon?
Seizing is desperation. Harvest is discernment.
Dear ones,
Today is tomorrow’s yesterday.
Carpe diem.
Sunday Best – July 23, 2023
I just met this little visitor outside my window, so clearly there is only one possible way to greet this lovely Sunday morning.
Dear friends,
Here’s to the wild.
Here’s to the precious.
THE SUMMER DAY
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
—Mary Oliver
Sunday Best – July 16, 2023
Music is the shorthand of emotion.
– Leo Tolstoy
The first time I heard live music post-pandemic, I was surprised to find tears welling up in my eyes. And the second time, and the third… at this point it seems to be a lasting condition.
Sometimes it’s hard to take in the bigness of the world, its joys and wonders and sorrows and pains. It can be easier to tiptoe past, to keep a little distance, to box it all up for another day.
Music doesn’t care if we’re glancing awkwardly away from our own lives. The wistful chorus is every lost moment. The soaring melody is every great love. The zinging finale is every jubilant victory.
Thank goodness for these shortcuts,
bringing us home to ourselves.