With summer in full swing, many of us look to slow down. Often that means being by the ocean, up on a mountain, out in the woods, or just lying down in the park - places that allow us to soak in this gloriously beautiful and astounding planet.
In her poem, ‘
The Summer Day’
, Mary Oliver reminds us to celebrate all that connects us to the natural world. Perhaps she is also nudging each of us to honor God and each other by caring for the shared home we call ‘Earth’?
Dan Quinlan
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?
Mary Oliver
