ED: Note. For the summer, our Ministerial intern Brigitta Vieyra will be taking over Reverend Christine’s Notes From Your Dance Partner column, and as per her request, the column name has temporarily changed to Field Notes From Your Ministerial Intern.
This week, I saw my first intense dust storm, or haboob, here in the Valley of the Sun, which was astonishing. There are so many ways in which the desert interrupts my daily work and demands I pay attention to forces larger than me. I am learning to be astonished. This week, I offer you a poem, The Messenger, by Mary Oliver, for deeper reflection. May these words settle into your heart and may you find sweetness in the wonders of life as we do our work to love the world.
My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.
Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,
which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,
which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.
-Brigitta Vieyra