RevGals Friday Five: Touching Holiness
Sally over at RevGals posts this Friday Five Meme: How about you, where do you find God's peace and presence, is there:
1. A place that holds a special memory?
This is a photo of the view from my backyard of a monsoon rain over the Santa Rita mountains. In the desert, rain is sign of God's grace. This place will always hold a special memory for me because of the panoramic view.
2. A song that seems to usher you into the Holy of Holies? Taize: sung prayer with candle light, plants, and an icon or two, especially:
3.A book/ poem/ prayer that says what you cannot?
The Summer Day
Mary Oliver
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
Mary Oliver
from New and Selected Poems, 1992
Beacon Press, Boston, MA
I love poetry, Mary Oliver in particular, has a wonderful way of bringing a deep faith into the ordinary.
4. How do you remind yourself of these things at times when God seems far away? I blog. Really. God has seemed so very far away for so long. Blogging connects me to people who are not in the same void I feel I am in, and by the love and grace of those I blog with, I continue to be reminded of God's abiding presence.
5.Post a picture/ poem or song that speaks of where you are right now in your relationship with God...
I'm in the desert and it's a little barren at the moment...
1. A place that holds a special memory?
This is a photo of the view from my backyard of a monsoon rain over the Santa Rita mountains. In the desert, rain is sign of God's grace. This place will always hold a special memory for me because of the panoramic view.
2. A song that seems to usher you into the Holy of Holies? Taize: sung prayer with candle light, plants, and an icon or two, especially:
3.A book/ poem/ prayer that says what you cannot?
The Summer Day
Mary Oliver
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
Mary Oliver
from New and Selected Poems, 1992
Beacon Press, Boston, MA
I love poetry, Mary Oliver in particular, has a wonderful way of bringing a deep faith into the ordinary.
4. How do you remind yourself of these things at times when God seems far away? I blog. Really. God has seemed so very far away for so long. Blogging connects me to people who are not in the same void I feel I am in, and by the love and grace of those I blog with, I continue to be reminded of God's abiding presence.
5.Post a picture/ poem or song that speaks of where you are right now in your relationship with God...
I'm in the desert and it's a little barren at the moment...
Comments
even in the desert, lovely answers.
the color will come to the (interior) desert... it just takes a while to arrive. but you're gifted at paying attention to those things... you'll see it, i have no doubt.
prayers for fresh spiritual rain bringing life to the desert places for you
Continued prayers for sustenance, and the refreshment of rain on your face.