When I was ordained eight years ago, I received a beautiful card that I have kept on my book shelf all these years. A couple of days ago, I picked it up and reread the message inside. There I found this poem by Denise Levertov.
Lately, in the midst of the various tugs of ministry, I have felt a longing to return to the refuge of poetry. The rediscovery of this poem has me thinking that God might be feeling the same way. Perhaps we are both needing to simply pause and enjoy the wonder of it all.
Primary Wonder
Days pass when I forget the mystery.
Problems insoluble and problems offering
their own ignored solutions
jostle for my attention, they crowd its antechamber
along with a host of diversions, my courtiers, wearing
their colored clothes; cap and bells.
once more the quiet mystery
is present to me, the throng's clamor
recedes: the mystery
that there is anything, anything at all,
let alone cosmos, joy, memory, everything,
rather than void: and that, O Lord,
Creator, Hallowed One, You still,
hour by hour sustain it.
Problems insoluble and problems offering
their own ignored solutions
jostle for my attention, they crowd its antechamber
along with a host of diversions, my courtiers, wearing
their colored clothes; cap and bells.
once more the quiet mystery
is present to me, the throng's clamor
recedes: the mystery
that there is anything, anything at all,
let alone cosmos, joy, memory, everything,
rather than void: and that, O Lord,
Creator, Hallowed One, You still,
hour by hour sustain it.
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