Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who make the morning 
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows, of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety –

best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light-
good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start my day
in happiness, in kindness.

This beautiful poem by the beloved Mary Oliver, is a piercing reminder of the fullness of the nest in which we find ourselves. This thing called life holds the macro experience of being alive in the vastness of the whole universe…the Sun which opens to us every morning, the darkness that can threaten to overwhelm us. It also contains the micro…the faces of tulips, the surprise of opening morning glories. Each day we walk the balance beam of both the enormous and the minuscule.

At this time of year, I try to have tulips in my house at all times. They are one of the first signals that the season is turning and their color keeps on telling me to calm down, all shall be well. The truth is they were the first flowers my husband ever gave me and so have always held a special place in my heart. Right now there are orange and yellow ones in the living room and red ones in the kitchen. Their minute petals hold a whole world within if you have the time to look at them. A sunrise in the center of their unfolding.

Lately I have been thinking of this macro/micro world we inhabit. My ability to hold the pain and suffering across the world has limits. Watching as families flee the horrific devastation in Ukraine is too heart breaking for words. The anger and despair that accompanies those feelings could undo any ability to move in any ordinary day. And the privilege with which I say this, not being in their shoes, observing from such a distance is not lost on me.

And yet…and yet…I walk by those tulips and I am drawn to their beauty and their grounding. I try, if only for a few minutes, to stand with what they have to offer in one hand and my feelings for those so far away moving across uncertain paths in the other. Those two outstretched hands form a prayer that is filled with both gratitude and lament. To be human is to live in both worlds, macro and micro. We hold out our hands and our hearts to the beauty and the terror and pray that somehow our intention makes some measure of difference. 

As the poet says…’Good morning, good morning, good morning.Watch, now, how I start my day in happiness, in kindness.’ Here we are, all of us, held ‘in the great hands of light.’ Again. And again.