While on vacation, instead of an original meditation I offer two gifts of wisdom from two great explorers of the soul. The first is from theologian Fredrick Boechner.
"Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and the pain of it no less than the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace."
The second is a poem from the great Wendell Berry called "The Peace of Wild Things." Berry speaks past the surface of our lives to our soul consciousness. He is not interested in our ego. He cares about our spirit...
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
