Prayerfully Attending this Wild and Precious LIfe

Dear Friends,

These glorious pre-summer days recall Mary Oliver’s lovely poem, “The Summer Day”:

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?

After posing one of life’s big questions, “Who made the world?” she bids us to consider the grasshopper, with a keen sense of attention. Perhaps the key phrase is “I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention”. That strikes me as the invitation while at Mercy by the Sea, to fall into the grass, to be idle and stroll along the beach and then to listen deeply to what one ought do with their wild and precious life! 

As we celebrate the beginning of summer, please know you are welcome to come and be idle and blessed on the grounds these summer days. And we would love for you to join us for the June 25th Mercy Gathering.

For what else should you do?

With Mercy,

Sr. Anne Curtis
Executive Director