January 18, 2019

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

The other morning I was getting dressed in the dark and I realized that I couldn't see the color of my t-shirt. I've been in cave tours before where, deep in the bowels of the earth, the lights are turned off. I remember feeling frightened. It was so dark that I couldn't see my hand in front of my face, and the uncertainty that surrounded me felt heavy and oppressive. I've always known that without light it's impossible to see anything, but the understanding that I need light in order to see color came like an epiphany the other day. With the state of the world as it is today, I often feel like I'm fumbling around in the dark looking for a safe way out. I may not be able to find one, but if I generate just a bit of light, and if you light a candle, too; if we all shed light on the darkness of our world, then who knows what might happen. Even if a safe and sane way out of this mess isn't readily available, we can still see the beauty of each other's faces. We can take joy in the beautiful colors that make up our world. 

Mary Oliver, a poet who taught me much about paying attention, died this past week. Her poetry illuminated the beauty of even the simplest creatures, like a grasshopper on a blade of grass. For most of our species' existence, we have believed that we were the center of the universe, but now we understand that we lead a treacherous and perilous existence on what is essential a speck of dust. Our cosmos contains unfathomable distances and I'm not sure, but I think time probably bends around back on itself, too. In the face of this, I can only stand in silence, but I am so thankful that Mary Oliver, whose work is infused with a deep spirituality, has made it possible for me to find some connection to the mysteries of the universe. 
 

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When Death Comes

—Mary Oliver 

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse 
 
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox
 
when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
 
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
 
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
 
and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,
 
and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,
 
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.
 
When it's over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
 
When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
 
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
 
I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.