Praying
“It
doesn't have to be
the blue
iris, it could be
weeds in a
vacant lot, or a few
small
stones; just
pay
attention, then patch
a few
words together and don't try
to make
them elaborate, this isn't
a contest
but the doorway
into
thanks, and a silence in which
another
voice may speak.”
Mary
Oliver (“Praying” Thirst, p.37)
How often do you give
something your undivided attention? Something besides your cell
phone, that is. Most of us attend to several things at
once—we're cooking, or working, or driving, while the radio, or a
podcast, or a book on CD is playing at the same time. I'm as guilty
as anyone else. Some of us keep the TV on whether we're actually
watching it or not. It's background sound to fill the silence that
for some reason is unnerving to us. For whatever reason, we rarely
focus intensely or listen without distraction.
One of the reasons I
write this blog is to break that pattern—at least for an hour or so
each day. I sit and focus and write. For that hour I am not juggling
thoughts or making plans or replaying yesterday's conversations. It
gives my mind a rest. Prayer is like that, too. It does not need to
be composed of words, does not have to start out, “Dear God,” and
then list your requests or ask for blessing this or that person. It
can simply be giving your full attention in that moment to one thing.
My friend, Garvice, gave
me a new book of Mary Oliver's poetry, for which I am deeply grateful.
Mary Oliver demonstrated over and over again how paying close
attention is a form of prayer. She mentions, in the poem above, the
blue iris, or a few stones, but it could just as easily be the soft
call of mourning dove, or the purple-throat of morning glory, or the
way the red wasp hangs in mid-air to find its way into a groove in
the eaves where its nest is built. Remember when you were a child,
free as a bird this time of year, and you spent precious idle time
watching ants rescue their babies, and reconstruct their mound after
you had knocked the top off? Or, spent hours flipping over rocks in the
creek to see what lived underneath? That kind of attention is prayer.
It takes into account that other beings, however tiny, share this
sacred earth with us.
In her book, Thirst,
Mary Oliver poetically recorded her experience when deer came to a
creek to drink and found her sitting there, quiet and still. Instead
of bolting away as deer usually do, they walked up to her and one
nuzzled her hand. For twenty years she went every day to the same
woods, but that moment of grace was never repeated. She wrote,
because of that encounter, “...I live in the house near the
corner, which I have named Gratitude.” (“The Place I Want to Get
Back To” Thirst, p.35-36)
Take a moment today to
stop and focus, to become still and silent. Perhaps the small, quiet
voice of the Divine will whisper a blessing in your ear. Maybe, if
you're lucky, it will be in the trill of a nesting wren, or simply, pure grace floating by on the breeze.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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