Monday Whatevers

June 27, 2022

Hello, Friend! 

It’s Monday, so… inspired by on one of my favorite bits of the Bible, let’s start every week off with a little bit of whatever’s good and noble in the world. Here are a few excellent and noteworthy things I’m seeing in the world right now. Some are beautiful, promising, and reassuring. Some are poignant, thought-provoking, and necessary. All of them add to a greater knowing of God’s presence in this world, within our humanity, and out in the great beyond. And, they all prove there’s an abundance of spectacular, breathtaking tangible and intangible cosmic matter between us. 

Please feel free to share in the comments whatever is good that you’re seeing in the world as well.  

Blessings,
Marcie 

---

Hello Friends,

This week I only want to share whatever is lovely paired with lovely words. I hope you will tell me which of these most moves you and makes you feel the loveliness that is in the world and inside yourself.

---

PLACES SO UNBELIEVABLE IT’S HARD TO BELIEVE THEY REALLY EXIST

Earth, I Thank You by Anne Spencer

Earth, I thank you
for the pleasure of your language
You’ve had a hard time
bringing it to me
from the ground
to grunt thru the noun
To all the way
feeling seeing smelling touching
--awareness
I am here!

---

SOUTH CAROLINA FALLS

Ask Me by William Stafford 

Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
my thought, and some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.
I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.

---

BIRDS TAKE FLIGHT

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver 

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

---

WOODLAND FOREST SOUNDS

The Wind in the Trees by Lulu W. Knight

The wind goes whispering
The leaves among;
It has a silken, 
A siren tongue. 

The leaves all listen 
Quivering there;
A thousand kisses
Caress the air. 

So stirs my heart
When he goes by:
Wind is a breath, 
Love is a sigh. 

---

FLOWERS IN BLOOM

Irises by Li Young Lee

In the night, in the wind, at the edge of rain,
I find five irises, and call them lovely.
As if a woman, once, lay by them awhile,
then woke, rose, went, the memory of hair
lingers on their sweet tongues.

I’d like to tear these petals with my teeth.
I’d like to investigate these hairy selves,
their beauty and indifference. They hold
their breath all their lives
and open, open.

---

WINTER IN MINNESOTA 

It Was Beginning Winter by Theodore Roethke 

It was beginning winter,
An in-between time,
The landscape still partly brown:
The bones of weeds kept swinging in the wind,
Above the blue snow.

It was beginning winter,
The light moved slowly over the frozen field,
Over the dry seed-crowns,
The beautiful surviving bones
Swinging in the wind.

Light traveled over the wide field;
Stayed.
The weeds stopped swinging.
The mind moved, not alone,
Through the clear air, in the silence.

Was it light?
Was it light within?
Was it light within light?
Stillness becoming alive,
Yet still?

A lively understandable spirit
Once entertained you.
It will come again.
Be still.
Wait.

---

May your week be filled with whatever is true, honest, just, pure, lovely, gracious, excellent, and worthy of praise.

Much Peace,
Marcie