Paying Attention

 

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

    The essence of prayer is paying attention, as my spiritual director, taught me. Mary Oliver paid attention and captured that on which she focused with sublime poetry. Poet I am not, but I do try to pay attention. 

    "My" egret is still daily inhabiting the far corner of "my" little pond. Seeing him/her there every days delights me. When autumn comes she/he will migrate south and when spring comes I'll wait to see if she/he returns to that same sport. If she/he does I will rejoice.

   I remain well and grateful. Daily outdoor tasks and nice walks buoy my spirits as do phone calls that comfortably fill my people bladders. 

Takk for alt,

Al

     Singsass Lutheran Church, where Joanne's great grandparents are buried and my grandfather baptized Joanne's maternal grandmother. (In S.D. near Hendricks, MN)