such wild love

"The Sun" by Mary Oliver

Have you ever seen 

anything 

in your life

more wonderful

than the way the sun,

every evening,

relaxed and easy,

floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or the hills,

or the rumpled sea,

and is gone - 

and how it slides again

out of the blackness,

every morning,

on the other side of the world,

like a red flower

streaming upward on its heavenly oils,

say, on a morning in early summer,

at its perfect imperial distance -  

and have you ever felt for anything

such wild love - 

do you think there is anywhere, in any language,

a word billowing enough

for the pleasure

that fills you,

as the sun

reaches out,

as it warms you

as you stand there,

empty-handed - 

or have you too

turned from this world - 

or have you too

gone crazy

for power,

for things?

---

This poem articulates for me the beauty of this season I'm in.  A season of in-between-ness, of sabbath, of not earning a paycheck, of going deep, of paying attention, of discernment.

It is a season in which I "stand empty-handed" - in awe at the sun, the elements, in awe at the ways God works in the world, in awe at the generosity and support that have been outpoured to me, in awe at my own strength and the depth available to me.  

This standing empty-handed, this awe, comes with both abounding gratitude and abounding vulnerability.  And I'm grateful for the space to stand in wonder at the magnitude and strength that runs through creation and in each of us - and for the space to touch the vulnerability and smallness that also runs through each of us.  

These are a couple of photos of my most recent companions, and models really, for this standing empty-handed, warmed by the sun.  Fay, Steve, and Oliver (and Jolene - the one in brown) at Green Bough.  I cherish all the bits of time I've had privilege to make retreat and sabbatical there, and I'm especially grateful for these most recent months to revel in the particular ways the sun warms a person there.