Bleak Week
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Looking for the Blessings, Those Tiny Things
”… We walk sightless among miracles.
Fill our eyes with seeing and our minds with knowing;
Let there be moments when Your Presence,
Like lightning,
Illumines the darkness in which we walk.
Help us to see, wherever we gaze… holiness,
and exclaim in wonder:
‘How filled with awe is this place, and we did not know it!’”
Jewish Shabbat Prayer
Edited Lightly
I always looked for
The Big One.
The Flashing Light.
The Burning Bush.
The drama,
Thunder-clapping-
Voices.
The
Dramatic
Miracle,
With
High production value.
I have had one or two of them,
Yes,
I have.
But that is not
Of which
I talk
Today.
Today I talk
Of the
Tiny things.
The absolutely
Almost
Insignificant
Yet
Glorious,
Those
Blasts of beauty.
The
Sunrise,
The
Sunset,
Streaks
Of light
Playing
Across
The
Winter
Afternoon
Grey.
~~~
It has been
A
Bleak
Week.
What a time
For a Miracles-Challenge!
It has been
Freezing cold.
The ice storm from hell
(wait, that makes no sense)
The ice storm from
The depths
Of horridness
Locked us in,
We
Who are already
Somewhat
Locked down,
Locked
Us
In
More.
It seemed unfair.
Writing has been
Gloomy
And
UGHHH.
It’s hard for me
To drop
Into
The
Negative.
Do I
Fear
Not
Finding
My way
Back?
I’m practicing
Acknowledging
And
Refocusing…..
Acknowledging
And
Refocusing.
And to write
About miracles
What a time to write
About miracles!
Aruni!
What
The
Heck?
~~
Emerging from my heaviness about writing, here is an early-morning podcast for you. My hope is that, in it, you find what only you might find, only what you need to find. Humor? Perspective? Reminders? Ideas? Practice? Nothing? Whatever. It is yours to peruse:
~~~
And here is Mary Oliver, who lands it with effortless imagery and ease for us:
This Morning
This morning the redbirds’ eggs
have hatched and already the chicks
are chirping for food. They don’t
know where it’s coming from, they
just keep shouting, “More! More!”
As to anything else, they haven’t
had a single thought. Their eyes
haven’t yet opened, they know nothing
about the sky that’s waiting. Or
the thousands, the millions of trees.
They don’t even know they have wings.
And just like that, like a simple
neighborhood event, a miracle is
taking place.
~~
For absolutely no thematic reason to be identified, I found myself singing this song in the car this morning. Music carries so many memories!
Girl Scout Camp, 1964, sophomore in high school, sitting by the Marines’ unit houseboat, the Hey-You—Ruthie Nearing, our oh, so cool counselor, taught us this song. It was—so cool, so alive, so true.
And here I find Sam Cooke in 1964, singing the same song, which was written by Pete Seger and Lee Hays in 1949. Oh, 1964, 500 years ago, the year I learned this song, the year Sam Cook was murdered in circumstances never resolved. Civil rights advocate, the official “King of Soul”, to Sam.
I love this song, I especially love this version—its relevancy lives profoundly in this moment:
~~
Dear Friends,
How do you surf with your negativity?
Has the weather permeated your positivity?
Do you find yourself doom-scrolling, creeping through news for crappy headlines?
How do you manage with your negativity, the heaviness of it, all?
Dear Friends,
Look for the beauty.
Look for the grace.
Look for the sunrise.
Ask for help.
Breathe into the sunset.
Say thank you.
Find a bird.
Check it out.
Be found by a squirrel.
Cuddle with a dog.
Look for the beauty.
Look for the grace.
Not separate from—
But right there
In
The
Middle
Of
Bleak
Week.
We are blessed.
Be safe and well—
To you and yours,
Aruni