…And what we see is a world that cannot cherish us,
but which we cherish.
And what we see is our life moving like that
along the dark edges of everything,
headlights sweeping the blackness,
believing in a thousand fragile and unprovable things.
Looking out for sorrow,
slowing down for happiness,
making all the right turns
right down to the thumping barriers to the sea,
the swirling waves,
the narrow streets, the houses,
the past, the future,
the doorway that belongs
to you and me.
~Mary Oliver, excerpt ‘Coming Home’

It started out as an ordinary day. I had completed the majority of tasks on my ‘to do’ list and run the errands that needed attention. So, I decided to treat myself to a cup of coffee and some time with a book I was reading at my local coffee shop. I was reading away when I saw a young man lift his phone toward the crossroads just outside the window. The woman with him was also looking and soon two other people in nearby chairs were doing the same. I followed their lead to see a male deer standing at the corner as if waiting for the light to change, his antlers held high. But, of course, he was not waiting. He was trying to make sense of where he was and how to escape the predicament in which he found himself. Cars slowed, stopped, watched, drivers likely pulling out their phones as well, as we all watched this beautiful, huge animal try to make his way to safety. I held my breath hoping he wouldn’t try to cross at an inopportune time and be hit by a surprised motorist who had been paying less attention than they might have. Soon we all watched as the beautiful, brown animal jumped across the street and headed toward the nearby park and the woods and the river that lay beneath. We all breathed a sigh of relief. An accident had been averted, one in which we would have all been helpless bystanders.

Not long after I was sitting in my living room and there was an urgent knock on the door. I opened it to a man who said there was a runaway dog that he had corralled in my backyard. The man seemed so caring and shared that he had recently had to put his own dog down after it had become ill. I could see the concern and grief lined on his face. I went to the backyard to see this sweet, young black lab bouncing about and trying to figure out either his luck in finding freedom or his fear in the danger of being loose in a world without his caring owners. I tried to remain as calm as possible and slowly the dog came to me and I talked to him and we were able to read the tags on his collar. After some time of quiet talking, he allowed  the man to hold his collar while I fetched some rope to create a leash. Calls to the vet on his tags soon had him reunited with his owners. I then learned that ‘he’ was really a ‘she’ and his owners had been frantically searching for their beloved pet. 

These two experiences had me thinking about the fragility of life. A deer misplaced, a dog lost, confronted with what can be a harsh world. Certainly over the last months, years now really, we have become aware of the fragility each of us wears like a scratchy sweater. Mostly we don’t want to think about it, this fragile, precarious nature of our living. But then there is an illness, an injury, a virus, a mistake, a loss, a death, a broken bone or heart, and we are propelled into the truth of our own fragility. Things can change in a moment and what was will never be again. Circumstances arise and we are called upon to see the world with new eyes, a fresh perspective, often without really wanting to. We find ourselves ‘believing in a thousand fragile and unprovable things.’

What does it mean to live with all this? How do we continue to put one foot in front of the other and show up in this life for which we have been blessed to have another day?  Perhaps it starts with tenderness toward all living beings and, especially, ourselves. This might be followed by offering grace upon grace, forgiveness even when carrying a grudge seems so much easier and fulfilling. All this might be held in the precious knowledge that ‘we are all just walking each other home’ as Ram Dass said with such wisdom. That goes for the two legged and the four legged, those with wings and fins, those with limbs and petals. And, of course, our dear Earth home. That we are linked through invisible lines of connection in this Universe can help us each remember to walk gently, care deeply speak compassionately, as we help build a nest for all the fragile creatures.

Sometimes it just stuns you
like an arrow flung from some angel’s wing.
Sometimes it hastily scribbles
a list in the air: black coffee,
thick new books,
your pillow’s cool underside
the quirky family you married into.

It is content with so little really;
even the ink of your pen along
the watery lines of your dimestore notebook
could be a swiftly moving prayer.
~Andrea Potos

We are in that season when words like gratitude and thankfulness become the stars of the stage. This poem called ‘Essential Gratitude’ came across my reading plate this past week. The word ‘essential’ has been bandied about a lot over the last months and when it appears it brings about all kinds of questions within me. What does it even mean? Who can say what is and isn’t essential? Everyone’s life is so very different and to try to define what is essential for anyone of us seems an audacious act. In this conversation about essential we became confronted with all the people who plant, grow, harvest, sell, serve our food. All essential and most underpaid and under appreciated. Certainly, during these last months, we were reminded in ways we so easily forget that those who offer health care, elder care, child care, respite care, just plain everyday care, are certainly essential to our daily living. And then there are the teachers who welcome the young ones, witness to their lives, teach them skills they will need, inspire them with kindness and a sense of belonging, work hours longer than any of us would endure…essential all…and worthy of our thanks.

When I think back over the last months I am stunned at the many ways I have been bathed with a sense of gratitude. Certainly there is deep gratefulness for all those I have mentioned and also for the other numbers of people who have surrounded me and others I know with attention, phone calls, notes, ways of connecting that have lessened the isolation we have all felt from time to time. I have been grateful for the creativity of so many as they dreamed and brought to reality new ways of doing every thing from church to education to exercise. Aren’t we all astounded by what we have learned in the midst of this pandemic? And, of course, paramount is the gratitude for the scientists who came together to solve problems I cannot understand to create a vaccine that has helped us breathe a little easier. So many people to be grateful toward.

And yet, I think the poet is pushing us further. “Black coffee, thick books, the cool underside of the pillow, ink, cheap notebooks.” As I look out my window on this cold, November morning, I see the brown of the leaves from the trees that now make a winter blanket for my garden plants. Earlier in the summer these same leaves brought brilliant green to my yard and shade from the Sun’s rays. The wind is doing its work to bring the hangers-on to the ground to join their limb neighbors, a wind that is strong and cold and also reminds me of how the Spirit moves in our lives, unseen yet powerful nonetheless. A butterfly who lifeless body I found in June still adorns flowers on my kitchen table, its beauty a visual of what was and what will be again when summer returns. The Sun is slanting across the bowl of fruit that sits nearby and the colors of orange, yellow, red and green give my eyes a show. 

What is essential? What isn’t really? Important questions to consider. Essential gratitude? And how to cultivates its importance in our lives. Every day is filled with so much that I had nothing to do with bringing about but which serves my life and begs me to notice. Perhaps that is the true act of gratitude…the pausing, the noticing, the naming, as it becomes the ‘swiftily moving prayer’.