October 29: It's Just Life, Grace, "The Peace of Wild Things"

Those who study the complex interplay of cause and effect in the history of the Universe say that this sort of thing is going on all the time, but that we are powerless to prevent it.

"It's just life," they say.

It's very easy--when life seems a little or a lot out of control--to simply walk through the day with blinders on.  I do it all the time, moving from one job to another, never taking a moment to breathe or relax or look around.  Even when I crawl into bed at night, my mind isn't focused on sleep.  It's focused on what I have to do the next day.

For the most part, there's not a whole lot of time for reflection in my daily life.  These blog posts are the closest I come.  Reflection is for people who have just one job that pays all the bills and leaves a little spending money behind.  Even with my four jobs, I don't seem to ever have spending money.  There's no such thing as "extra" cash in my household.

I'm not complaining.  I'm explaining why I always feel so driven every day.  It's how I survive my weird, hectic schedule.  Well, that and a whole lot of therapy.  In fact, I just had a session with my therapist this afternoon.  I'm not going to delve too deeply into what we discussed, but it was difficult stuff.  At the end of our time together, my therapist handed me a poem by Wendell Berry, because of a comment I made about never having a minute to rest.

This is the poem:

The Peace of Wild Things

by:  Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief.  I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light.  For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

After I was done reading this poem, I was in tears.  Again, my problems are complicated, and they are not the subject of this post.  The subject of this post is grace.  Every person deserves to rest "in the grace of the world" some time during the day.  For me, this poem is a reminder that grace is always available.  God sends us still water many times during a day.  Most of us--myself included--just don't take the time to notice it.

Tonight, however, I am going to try to hold off my despair for the world.  Instead, I will find some place where the wood drake rests and great heron feeds.  In my imagination.  In the stillness of my home.  In the wild places of my heart.

Saint Marty will be free for a few, fleeting minutes tonight.