I (Paul Welch) share a poem introduced to me by a dear friend, Bert Mobley, who first brought me to St. Gregory's in 2001:
Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota by James Wright
Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,
Asleep on the black trunk,
Blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
Down the ravine behind the empty house,
The cowbells follow one another
Into the distances of the afternoon.
To my right,
In a field of sunlight between two pines,
The droppings of last year’s horses
Blaze up into golden stones.
I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.
I have wasted my life.
As I considered my devotional, this poem kept returning to my thoughts. I felt called to share it because our days are worried by our obligations and responsibilities to each other, our families and our parish. We can sometimes get lost in them as well as the challenges of our days - both the personal and public. And it can be difficult to remember there is beauty in the world when there's so much ugliness. But it's there! We just need to be present and pay attention to see the wonderful all around us and understand that while the times seem fraught and awful, beauty and goodness persist and these times are not so bad after all. -- Paul D. Welch
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