Opening Words:
"It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity."
— Albert Einstein quoted in Holy Clues by Stephen Kendrick
Check-in/Sharing
Topic:
Long Life is a collection of prose and poetry by poet Mary Oliver. In it, she offers what she calls "little alleluias" to nature, animals, soul, place and literature. In this excerpt, she recounts a moment of mystery.
"Once, years ago, I emerged from the woods in the early morning at the end of a walk and — it was the most casual of moments — as I stepped from under the trees into the mild, pouring-down sunlight I experienced a sudden impact, a seizure of happiness. It was not the drowning sort of happiness, rather the floating sort. I made no struggle toward it; it was given. Time seemed to vanish. Urgency vanished. Any important difference between myself and all other things vanished. I knew that I belonged to the world, and felt comfortably my own containment in the totality. I did not feel that I understood any mystery, not at all; rather that I could be happy and feel blessed within the perplexity — the summer morning, its gentleness, the sense of the great work being done though the grass where I stood scarcely trembled. As I say, it was the most casual of moments, not mystical as the word is usually meant, for there was no vision, or anything extraordinary at all, but only a sudden awareness of the citizenry of all things within one world: leaves, dust, thrushes and finches, men and women. And yet it was a moment I have never forgotten, and upon which I have based many decisions in the years since."
For Reflection/Journaling:
Reflect upon the things you just can't explain in your daily life, especially ones that you are having difficulty leaving alone.
Check-out/Likes and Wishes
Closing Words:
"Accustom your tongue to say, I do not know."
— The Talmud
To Practice This Thought: Take time to really see what is right in front of you, but don't try to add an explanation.
