Seeking Authentic Voice

My seminary advisor and New Testament professor spent time "counseling" me in academics. He was the sort of man who could never look a person in the eye, always had his gaze to ceiling, as if in deep thought. This made conversing with him a little disconcerting. It was especially odd when he preached, his gaze ever heavenward.  I have a clear memory of him instructing the student body on the correct manner of receiving communion. "Never touch the bowl of the chalice. If you must touch it, guide it from the base of the stem...." Apparently we were touching the bowl and mucking it up with our finger prints... I remember him gazing to the ceiling while he told us off. In his office, cramped and small, sitting across the desk from him,  planning my academic career was no less bizarre. His eyes perpetually gazing some where beyond my head, as he made pronouncements about what classes I should take and why. He was a very well thought of and intelligent professor. He jus...

Is the soul solid, like iron? Or is it tender and breakable, like the wings of a moth in the beak of the owl? Who has it, and who doesn't? I keep looking around me. The face of the moose is as sad as the face of Jesus. The swan opens her white wings slowly. In the fall, the black bear carries leaves into the darkness. Our question leads to another. Does it have a shape? Like an iceberg? Like the eye of a hummingbird? Does it have one lung, like the snake and the scallop? Why should I have it, and not the anteater who loves her children? Why should I have it, and not the camel? Come to think of it, what about the maple trees? What about the blue iris? What about all the little stones, sitting alone in the moonlight? What about roses, and lemons, and their shining leaves? What about the grass? (Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems, Beacon Press, 1992)

See my previous post for more about Pablo Neruda's poems... XXXIII And why is the sun such a bad companion to the traveler in the desert? And why is the sun so congenial in the hospital garden? Are they birds or fish in these nets of moonlight? Was it where they lost me that I finally found myself?