Morning Meditation

 

Yesterday, I shared with you one of my favorite prayers by Thomas Merton.  Today, we turn to the poet Mary Oliver.  I heard her once talk about her prayer practice of walking and noticing what was around her.  As a matter of fact, the experience she describes in the poem prayer below happened, she fed that grasshopper!  Please slowly and prayerfully ponder these words with me.

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 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?

May you, my friend, be awed at the mystery of life ~ the grass slowly growing, the rain falling, the mystery of clouds sailing and the warmth of a smile ~ as you ponder with me the question, what do you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?  Amen.