Curations: Wild Things
I've spent the past couple of days with some "wild things." I'm with some of the rising 4th, 5th, and 6th graders from our church at Camp Prism, where we've been playing and eating and learning and worshiping around the theme of creation. The Bible studies and worship times are centered on the creation story of Genesis, or "The Power of Our Beginnings."
So maybe that's why I was drawn to Wendell Berry's poem, "The Peace of Wild Things"...or, at least, drawn to it especially this week. (Berry is one of my favorite poets anyway.)
"The Peace of Wild Things" by Wendell Berry
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.
For as busy as these days are (filled with activities designed to wear out 9, 10, and 11 year olds), and for as despairing as things seem in our world (worrying about the world these children will inherit), there is a peace in pausing and considering creation. Or, even better, being in creation...getting out there and "resting in the grace of the world."
As I sit here in the mountains overlooking a lake, as I hear children learning the story of God's creative work and their call to be a part of it, I am resting in grace - the grace of a God who creates and redeems and who calls that world and work "good."
I encourage you this week - or anytime you are overwhelmed by fear and anxiety and despair - to get outside in "the peace of wild things," and see how you might experience the grace of the world.
GJD
P.S. And just for fun, here is a picture of one of the not-so-peaceful GaGa Ball games we've had this week. If you ask me if where I'm sore after playing, I'd have to say somewhere around here...
