Beloved Friends-
As I sit down to write to you this week the words of one of my favorite Mary Oliver poems comes to me:
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Lately, I have been reminded of the deep wisdom and truth that emerges whenever we show up fully and embrace this beautiful question from Oliver’s lovely poem. Life is such a beautiful and sometimes precarious gift; just waiting to be recognized as both wild and precious in each and every moment. Over the past few weeks, we have seen new life, and death in our community. We have come together to offer God’s love in the form of a mobile food pantry, making lunches to share, gifting each other small bottles of water as symbols of our call to attend to those in need, and, we have played together on our newly, almost done, refurbished plaza. All of it, every single bit is a sign of life that extends beyond the small confines of any one of us alone.
Of the many challenges the church as an institution faces, I believe we are richly blessed with the kindness, compassion and love that binds us together creating a rich foundation for weaving our many “wild and precious lives” together along the way. For though our individual journeys may often be just that, individual, our willingness to connect to God and each other weaves us together in order to be more together than we ever could alone; in short, we become the Body of Christ in and for the world.
One of those opportunities of coming together will be starting this Sunday following the Trinity@316 in-person worship as we start gathering to plan and prepare for being God’s love made real at the Toledo Pride celebration on Saturday, August 19th. This year, for the first time, we will also be gathering on Friday evening (August 18th) for a family friendly gathering on the plaza- a time to come together to celebrate and play together; stay tuned for details, but come help us plan and prepare however you can.
Each of our lives is a brief moment on the continuum of eternity. The speed of life can’t be controlled, but lately, in between these sacred moments, I have found myself feeling so grateful for the brilliant companionship we have discovered together along the way. I give thanks today for the wideness of God’s love and mercy.
I invite you today to pay close attention to God’s grace in your life so that together we can continue to show up for this community and each other and keep asking together, “…what is it WE plan to do with OUR one wild and precious life?”
May you never forget that you are loved.
Lisa
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?