Morning Meditation

 

Finally, today, I share a poem and prayer by Wendell Berry, How to Be a Poet ~ but the wonderful truth hidden in plain sight of this poem ~ is that it is an instruction manual for writing poetry but for living. Berry is telling and teaching us how to be in the wayless way in a world that we cannot control, where the facts of life are that we cannot change everything, and it is difficult to change anyone ~ especially ourselves.  Where we practice hospitality ~ welcoming the stranger to our door of life, even when the stranger is unexpected and unwanted.  That we do not know where we are going and find it difficult to be here/now, but we long to live our one wild and precious life with grace and love.  Please pray these words with me:

(to remind myself)

i   

Make a place to sit down.   

Sit down. Be quiet.   

You must depend upon   

affection, reading, knowledge,   

skill—more of each   

than you have—inspiration,   

work, growing older, patience,   

for patience joins time   

to eternity. Any readers   

who like your poems,   

doubt their judgment.   

 

ii   

Breathe with unconditional breath   

the unconditioned air.   

Shun electric wire.   

Communicate slowly. Live   

a three-dimensioned life;   

stay away from screens.   

Stay away from anything   

that obscures the place it is in.   

There are no unsacred places;   

there are only sacred places   

and desecrated places.   

 

iii   

Accept what comes from silence.   

Make the best you can of it.   

Of the little words that come   

out of the silence, like prayers   

prayed back to the one who prays,   

make a poem that does not disturb   

the silence from which it came.

I pray we will live these words each day.  Amen and Amen.