Ancient Wisdom: Modern Prophet—Mary Oliver 8-31-14

God, teach us the miracle of living each day as if it is our first and last at the same time.  Teach us gratitude and wonder.  Deliver us from refusing joy.  Amen

            Once upon a time there was a young child, full of wonder and amazement at just about everything.  We’ll call this child “Curiosity” and let her tell us of the journey of a young life.  Curiosity rose early every day so she could run into the fields while the dew was still on the grass.  She loved the way the wetness swept across her ankles and how the higher grass tickled her knees.  But most of all she loved the quiet because this was when she talked to God.  Now this God didn’t look like any God she learned about in Sunday School or Church.  No, this God looked more like the wind or rather the leaves in the trees when the wind was blowing on them.  And this God said very different things from anything her teachers told her.  This God didn’t tell her to “do the right thing” or to “work hard” in school.  No, this God told her all about the wonder of creation and how much God wanted her to treasure and love every created thing.

            One morning as she was running toward some trees, God stopped her and told her to sit awhile on the rock at the edge of the forest.  God sat down, too, and asked her if there was anything she really wanted to know.  She said to God, “I want to know why so many people in the world are so unhappy; and, why so few seem to see the beauty in the world like I do.”  God told Curiosity all about growing up and reminded her how much taller she was this year that she had been last.  God reminded her of all the things she had learned in school and how the books she could read this year were so much bigger and longer than the books she could read last year.  Curiosity, confused for the first time ever, said to God, “I don’t see what one thing has to do with the other.  Oops, God, didn’t mean to talk back, but can you explain what you mean?”  God chuckled and said, asking me a question is not being disrespectful and I wish a whole lot of people would talk back to me.  I’d a lot rather have questions than people just turning away.

            So God explained that when people’s heads got fuller and fuller of things they had to remember, that many times, there wasn’t any room left for seeing the awesomeness of life right in front of them.  Curiosity said, “well, I’m not going to let that happen to me.  There will always be room for you, God.  You and beauty, and joy and happiness.”  God smiled and said, “I hope so, Curiosity, I hope so.”

            Curiosity set out from that very day to work on ways not only to keep God fresh and alive in her life but also in the lives of others.  So, day after day, Curiosity wandered through the countryside making sure to stop and see all the amazing things that God put in her path each day.  Even though she was learning other things as well, like how to add and subtract, and how to write a real sentence, she made sure to visit God as often as she could.  Suddenly, one day, God has an extra surprise for her when she reached their special ‘talking rock’ at the edge of the forest.  God said, “It’s time for you to learn something very important.  It’s time for you to know that all those things that make you smile or maybe make you cry, are just ways that I interrupt your life and say, ‘I love you’”.  “But, I know you love me,” she said.  And God said, “but most people don’t, so I try very hard to show them in so many ways.”  Curiosity was very sad and thought it might break her heart that other people didn’t know what she knew about God. 

            Curiosity asked a lot of grown-ups she knew about God and did they know that God loved them.  Most of them said things like, “I guess so”, and even, “why, of course”.  A few actually told her they didn’t know or didn’t think so and so she took on the job of making sure that everyone would know.  Curiosity took it upon herself to tell as many people as she could about God and nature and that every flower, tree, and river was just God’s expression of love.  Curiosity wrote a poem why she likes to wake up early and it goes like this:

Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who made the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety – 

best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light –
good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.” 

            Now she got to thinking about how different the world would be if everyone woke up, at least some of the time, like she does.  She remembered that Jesus told his disciples that faith was just like that pine nut.  Jesus said, “you plant that pine nut and eventually it grows so tall that big birds, maybe even eagles, can build their nests in it.”  And, she said, all of a sudden—I get it, I get that waking up and saying “good morning” to the world and to God is the same kind of faith that Jesus was describing.  And that if one person started to do it, just like a farmer planted one pine nut that the faith would grow.  Eventually, the tree would be so tall that birds of all kinds could build their nests right in the branches.  She determined to find enough people who would plant this faith with her that it would grow and grow and change the world. 

            People talked to Curiosity and told her they didn’t know how to do what she wanted them to do—that they didn’t even know how to pray, much less did they know how to have faith in God and in the wonder of creation.  This time she wrote another poem and the last part of it said:

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?

            Curiosity said to them—“this is it.  This is your one wild and precious life.  God wants to know what you will do with it.”  Some laughed, some cried, and most just turned way saying, “This is too hard.”  So, Curiosity went out to walk the fields that gave her strength.  These words came to her:

On a summer morning

I sat down

on a hillside

to think about God -

a worthy pastime.

Near me, I saw

a single cricket;

it was moving the grains of the hillside

this way and that way.

How great was its energy,

how humble its effort.

Let us hope

it will always be like this,

each of us going on

in our inexplicable ways

building the universe.

            Curiosity was now much older and thought in much more mature ways.  But she never forgot to visit the rock at the edge of the forest.  One day she and God talked about how to live a good life.  God asked Curiosity what she thought.  Pausing for a while as she soaked up the sunshine and gentle breeze on her face, she suddenly said, “Why it’s simple.  Here are the “Instructions for living a life.  1. Pay attention.  2.  Be astonished.   3. Tell about it.”   And, suddenly she knew that she had, in fact, made a very good start at living a good life.  She paid attention, even though it was tempting to give her energy to other things.  And, when she paid attention, every single day she was astonished by something.  And, as her astonishment spilled over into her day to day encounters with others, she told everyone who would listen. 

            Is this not the Gospel itself?—that God longs to fill us all with awe each time we look with intention.  Curiosity, who we now call poet and prophet, Mary Oliver, says this:  “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?”   Amen and amen and Namaste.