"When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free."
Wendell Berry
Yesterday I made my way to the place of wild things….away from the city, into the brilliant white of the country side. The still waters that surrounded me were frozen. Colorful ice houses dotted the surface of the clear, blue stationary waves. Leafless trees created a lacy background for the gray winter sky.It was a welcome, and needed, retreat from the concrete of the urban streets, from scheduled days,from the belief that I had much, too much, to do.
Being in this setting provided perspective. That is one of the amazing gifts of the natural world. If we allow ourselves to be present to its wisdom, the internal, silent rhythm of the Earth, teaches us. For all our scurrying about, for all our pressing deadlines, a day in the woods can tell us the truth. When we allow ourselves to look and listen to the movement of the work present in soil, water, air, sunlight, we are so small in the scheme of things.
This may not be a comforting thought to some but it is to me. The reminder that all my worries and despair are trumped by the work of a Creation and a Creator that so surpasses any little thing I can do somehow helps me to slow down, to come "into the peace of wild things." My heart rate slows, my blood pressure lessens, my breath becomes deeper, my eyes open wider, my heart is filled with a deep knowing: It is good, very, very good…..and it is not of MY doing.
And so today I come back to a day that has many tasks that need to be done. Calls to be returned, visits to be made, words to be written, laundry to be done, groceries to be purchased. But I approach those tasks today with a renewed sense of energy and freedom because there is much greater work being done by unseen forces. I will walk out of my door, get into my cold car, turn the key and begin again to live the life that is mine. But I will do so with a lighter step and a gentler heart because yesterday I rested in the grace of the world.
It promises to be a very cold weekend. And yet I still make this suggestion: Put on some layers and walk out your door. Feel the cold wind on your cheeks and breathe in its goodness. Open your eyes to the miracles that are all around just waiting to offer the perspective through their silent, effortless, grace-filled work.
Have a glorious weekend………………….
"O God, how majestic is your name in all the earth! When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established, what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God…….O God, how majestic is your name in all the earth!" Psalm 8