Learning to be astonished

I know I have life only insofar as I have love.

I have no love except it come from Thee.

Help me, please, to carry this candle against the wind. 

-from Leavings, Wendell Berry

I awoke this morning to discover these beautiful flowers as the centerpiece of our kitchen table; a gift from my kind and generous friend of 37 years. There were pancakes that tasted like doughnuts (Jared could not find the whole wheat flour) awaiting my arrival and a table full of giddy children who could not wait to belt out "Happy Birthday" and hand me my presents. There was a promise by one of my sick children, Russell, (yes, the twins have been vomiting) to later draw me a card and there was the reception of the gifts: a lovely wooden basket from our local fair trade store stashed full with a package of Ethiopian coffee; icons of two of my favorite saints, St. Maria of Paris and St. Xenia of Petersburg; a copy of Wendell Berry's work Leavings, as well as a copy of his prose, The Unsettling of America, which I hold with holy fear, sensing that the fleshing out of his words in my life to be transformational; and the promise of one of my favorite movies, Babbette's Feast to be soon arriving. Soon I will leave for the cemetery to visit my father and later there will be a dinner of pizza and buttercream frosted birthday cake with my mother.  I have been terribly spoiled on this day with gifts and cards and phone calls and messages and singing from near and far. As my husband said, "You only turn 40 once." And on this first day of my fortieth year, I am thankful for the amazing gift of life with all its robustness and fragility, its beauty and ugliness, its peace and chaos, its hope and despair. I am deeply grateful for you all, for your constant love, your forgiveness, your friendship. Unquestionably, my life is richer, fuller, and more filled with the divine because of you. Peace and goodness and love, dear ones. 

Messenger

Mary Oliver

My work is loving the world.

Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird-

equal seekers of sweetness.

Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.

Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?

Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me

keep my mind on what matters,

which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be

astonished.

The phoebe, the delphinium.

The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.

Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here.

which is gratitude, to be give a mind and a heart

and these body-clothes,

a mouth with which to give shouts of joy

to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,

telling them all, over and over, how it is

that we live forever.