I suspect we all have moments in our lives (some moments last for years) where there is a heaviness that sits with you. This weight is weightier in the mornings for me. I’m no good at this, but I know the best medicine many times is a walk — taking time to be with nature. Centuries of saints have said it: the land beneath us if so often the balm our spirits need.
I “dared to pray” today, as Mary Oliver would say. The healing salve of spring is all around and while I’m not completely mended up, at least I dared to pray today.
Enjoy this lovely poem by a soul mother, Mary Oliver, titled “Morning Poem:”
Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange
sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again
and fasten themselves to the high branches —
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands
of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails
for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it
the thorn
that is heavier than lead —
if it’s all you can do
to keep on trudging —
there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted —
each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,
whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.
–from Dream Work (1986), Mary Oliver











The pictures were all taken with my phone around Selica United Methodist Church this morning.
-Grace & Peace, Cole
Thanks for the poem. Love you Dad