A Poem from Last Week's Meeting for Worship

As I sat down in worship last First Day, I felt tired. Had lots of weight on my shoulders. I realized, or God halped me to see, that I was, once again, struggling with control issues. So I started listing all the things I DON'T control. Endless list. Then I opened my Wendell Berry poetry book randomly, as I've been doing for the past month. After I read the poem below, I felt clear and light. I almost laughed out loud in Meeting for Worship. I caught myself, but as I thought about it later, it didn't seem like God would mind. In fact God would love it if I laughed.


So, the poem:


The Clear Days

The dogs of inecision
Cross and cross the field of vision.

A cloud, a buzzing fly
distract the lover's eye.

Until the heart has found
its native piece of ground.

The day withholds its light,
The eye must stray unlit.

The ground's the body's bride,
Who will not be denied.

Not until all is given
Comes the thought of heaven.

When the minds's an empty room
The clear days come.

Wendell Berry

The Want of Peace

Today in Meeting, I was quite upset about the SWAT team raids in St Paul, and wondered where Spirit takes us, perhaps especially when the experience of Spirit, at that time, is unpleasant. When ugly and horrible things happen like devastating hurricanes, genocide and the SWAT team raids, is this what God wants? Is this Spirit moving? I rose and shared, then sat down in pain and rather dazed. After a few minutes had passed, I opened my book of Wendell Berry poems to this:


The Want of Peace

All goes back to the earth,
and so I do not desire
pride of excess or power,
but the contenments made
by men who have hd little:
the fisherman's silence
receiving the river's grace,
the gardener's musing on rows.

I lack the peace of simple things.
I am never wholly in place.
I find no peace or grace.
We sell the world to buy fire,
our way lighted by burning men,
and that has bent my mind
and made me think of darkness
and wish for the dumb life of roots.

Grace

In Meeting for Worship yesterday, I opened my Wendell Berry book to this poem.

It's introduced as being "for Gurney Norman,quoting him". Not sure who Gurney Norman might be, but here it is...


The woods is shining this morning.
Red, gold and green, the leaves
lie on the ground, or fall,
or hang full of light in the air still.
Perfect in its rise and in its fall, it takes
the place it has been coming to forever.
It has not hastened here, or lagged.
See how surely it has sought itslf,
its roots passing lordly through the earh.
See how without confusion it is
all that it is, and how flawless
its grace is. Runing or walking, the way
is the same. be still. Be still.
"He moves your bones, and the way is clear."

Do Not Be Ashamed

Ahh, I wish I had read (and understood) this poem many years ago. How different my life would have been. But I understand it now and there's still time.....although I don't know how long....


You will be walking some night
in the comfortable dark of your yard
and suddenly a great light will shine
round about you, and behind you
will be a wall you never saw before.
It will be clear to you suddenly
that you were about to escape,
and that you are guilty: you misread
the complex instructions, you are not
a member, you lost your card
or never had one. And you will know
that they have been there all along,
their eyes on your letters and books,
their hands in your pockedts,
their ears wired to your bed.
Though you have done nothing shameful,
the will want you to be ashamed.
They will want you to kneel and weep
and say you should have been like them.
And once you say you are ashamed,
reading the page they hold out to you,
then such light as you have made
in your history will leave you.
They will no longer need to pursue you.
You will pursue them, begging forgiveness.
They will not forgive you.
There is no power against them.
It is only candor that is aloof from them,
only an inward clarity, unashamed
that they cannot reach. Be ready.
When their light has picked you out
and their questions are asked, say to them:
"I am not ashamed." A sure horizon
will come around you. The heron will begin
his evening flight from the hilltop.

--Wendell Berry