this wild, precious, and connected life
© "Beloved Community," Syracuse Cultural Workers, Used by permission
April 23, 2023 • Third Sunday of Easter
Reading: “The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver
Rev. Jeff Wells
[You can view the full worship video recording at: https://youtu.be/k9iz43pqD0E]
This particular poem makes me think of my dog, Sadie. No matter what she is doing, she lives in the moment and seeks the fullest experience of life possible. And I do my best to make that possible for her. I can also tell you the girl knows what she likes and what she wants to do next. The first photo below is of Sadie helping me to write this message yesterday. The second is of Sadie lying by the river.
It’s hard to see, but at her feet is a bright orange ball with blue stripes. One of her favorite activities in life is to chase after those balls. Sometimes I make her wait before throwing the ball. She crouches down excitedly and gets ready to spring forward and race after the ball as fast as she can go. And the epitome of her joy is to leap up and catch the ball in mid-air. She also loves to hang out with her best friend, Kirby. And to sleep – on just about any comfortable spot she can find.
In early June 1975, I was one of four commencement speakers at my high school graduation ceremony. The main point of my message was to encourage my fellow students to live for the moment. I read them a poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, titled, “The World Is a Beautiful Place,” [1] which begins with this stanza:
The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don’t mind happiness
not always being
so very much fun
if you don’t mind a touch of hell
now and then
just when everything is fine
because even in heaven
they don’t sing
all the time
There are two other stanzas in the same vein. Then, he ends with this:
Yes the world is the best place of all
for a lot of such things as
making the fun scene
and making the love scene
and making the sad scene
and singing low songs of having
inspirations
and walking around
looking at everything
and smelling flowers
and goosing statues
and even thinking
and kissing people and
making babies and wearing pants
and waving hats and
dancing
and going swimming in rivers
on picnics
in the middle of the summer
and just generally
‘living it up’
Yes
but then right in the middle of it
comes the smiling
mortician
At 18 years old, I was urging my classmates to seize the day! “Life is short, so make the most of it!” I know – maybe a bit too serious for a bunch of high school kids.
A few years later, and for a long time afterward, I came to regret that stance. I became convinced that there was something wrong with living for the moment because it diverts us from taking seriously the ills of this world and working for a better future for all.
However, eventually, I came to the realization that living for the moment and striving for a better world are both crucial aspects of a life well lived. Being mindful of what is happening right now does not preclude us being attentive to injustice or harm or suffering. Sometimes, seizing the moment means taking action against oppression or environmental degradation. Sometimes it means expressing love and care for someone who is ill, hurt, or even dying. Other times, living in the moment means being fully present and engaged with a friend, a spouse, a lover, or a community such as ours. Often, living for and fully in the moment can mean laughing, eating together, relaxing, playing with a child or a beloved pet, or observing a grasshopper with curiosity and wonder.
Our lives are busy – often overly busy – so we tend to rush past the moments of our lives, not noticing, not paying sufficient attention, not taking the time to stop and talk to someone in need or just to get to know someone, and therefore, missing out on so much.
It is so important to cherish life – in all its varied aspects. Over my years as a pastor, I have had the extraordinary privilege of hearing and sometimes participating in dozens of peoples stories of joy, challenge, grief, sorrow, and suffering. I have learned to take time. To listen deeply. To listen more than I speak. Some of my most profound moments are in counseling sessions or conversations over coffee or lunch during which I experience a deep emotional and spiritual connection walking with people through the highs and lows of life – through the fullness of life. You don’t have to be a pastor or a psychotherapist or any kind of counselor to have this experience. You just have to show up and be as present as possible for another person or a group of people.
Jesus himself declared that a crucial aspect of his mission was to help us “have life and have it abundantly.” He did not mean material abundance. He meant abundant curiosity, learning, and growing. Abundant caring, sharing, and self-giving. Abundant friendships, relationships, and community building. Abundant love, justice, and inclusivity.
God is constantly luring us to a life that is abundant and full, not small and stingy. Too often, we close ourselves off from others and thereby diminish our own lives as well as theirs. The Spirit calls us to generous and mutual connection, generous and mutual love and caring.
One of the greatest sins of racism and other forms of oppression is that they damage our potential to experience deep connection with other people, especially those who may have very different life experiences from us. Therefore, oppression prevents both oppressors and oppressed from experiencing the potential fullness of life.
Of course, we are not going to feel happy or joyful or comfortable or contented all the time. We are not going to avoid conflict or even completely avoid hurting one another. We cannot escape pain and suffering and challenges in this life – many of us more than others. Yet, even in those moments, one can choose to smile, to laugh, to love, to be grateful for what one has and what one can still do.
I am inspired by many members of our community who face very significant challenges. Yet, who over the past several years has increasingly found meaning, purpose, and life abundant in persevering to reestablish himself in various vocations, to find ways to offer his creative gifts to the world, and to be an active member of our community.
I am also thinking of an older man in the congregation I served for ten years on Long Island. He was learning disabled from eating lead paint when he was a child. So he lived on public assistance in subsidized housing. He did not have much material wealth. Yet, he had a job for many years bagging groceries at a supermarket, so he had a small pension to help out. And he had learned to play piano and organ by ear when he was young, so he had the gift of music that gave him great joy and which he generously offered occasionally to the church. His surviving family were not very attentive to him, but the congregation did its best to lovingly help him experience as full a life as possible.
Mary Oliver’s poem moves us to be attentive to fullness of life for creatures beyond humans as well. From her description, she cared not only about her own abundant experience of life, but also for the life of the grass and the grasshopper.
Over the past few years, our church community has expanded our definition of community and our understanding of what it means to “love our neighbors.” We have come to believe that “our neighbors” includes all living beings. And we have begun to put that into practice.
We have come to see that insects, plants, birds, mammals, humans – not only each species, but each individual has intrinsic value and is beloved by God. And for humans and beyond human creatures, we each have only this one wild and precious life to make the most of. And because we are all precious and we are all connected, God desires that we each find the fullest possible expression of our being and also contribute in the fullest ways possible to the community of life.
An inspiring example of that attitude toward life is Francis of Assisi, an Italian Catholic Franciscan friar, mystic, and itinerant preacher. He preached and practiced a deep connection of all of nature. He would be so inspired by the glorious plants and animals around him that he would break out in song. He would preach to flowers. And he called every creature and even the sun, moon, fire and water his sister or brother.
This ethos may turn out to be key to saving the Earth and the life upon it. To fall in love with, to recognize the inherent value of, and to genuinely care for all of life and all the elements of the ecosphere. Just as with our connectedness to other human beings, it begins with slowing down, listening, learning about, and caring for the grasshopper, maple tree, chickadee, deer, and the bear. It starts with calling them siblings and inviting them into our chosen family. Perhaps this attitude can even help us humans to learn to appreciate and experience the fullness and abundance of life and help each other experience it.
So, friends, what are you going to do with your one wild and precious life? What are we going to do with our one wild and precious life together in this beloved community?
Copyright (c) 2023 - Jeff Wells
All rights reserved.