Morning's Praise

This is one of the mornings when I woke quickly with no sense of weariness or reluctance.  I came downstairs to make some tea and discovered that it was not yet 4:00 a.m.  Surprised but undaunted, I continued. The tea is delicious, and in the quiet of the morning, I hear the train, a sound I love. One needs silence to hear it, so it is a gift of rising early.   

   

If you like Facebook, I suggest going to Parker Palmer's page with some regularity.  There you find wisdom and much good poetry.  This morning he shared a poem of a Quaker poet, Jeanne Lohmann.  I was not familiar with her work.  He also mentioned she has just passed at the age of 93. I am grateful to learn of her.  

This morning I ponder beautiful works, passing trains, one sleeping dog, and another cup of tea.  Life is rich.

Praise What Comes

Surprising as unplanned kisses, all you haven't deserved

of days and solitude, your body's immoderate good health

that lets you work in many kinds of weather. Praise
talk with just about anyone. And quiet intervals, books
that are your food and your hunger; nightfall and walks
before sleep. Praising these for practice, perhaps
you will come at last to praise grief and the wrongs
you never intended. At the end there may be no answers
and only a few very simple questions: did I love,
finish my task in the world? Learn at least one
of the many names of God? At the intersections,
the boundaries where one life began and another
ended, the jumping-off places between fear and
possibility, at the ragged edges of pain,
did I catch the smallest glimpse of the holy?