Mary Oliver was never the U.S. Poet Laureate.
Maybe she should have been.
Ms. Oliver’s works are respected—She won a National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize—and popular. We can measure “popularity” a number of ways, of course. It’s a pliable term. But if we go by whose works are bought the most, we can be confident in declaring Ms. Oliver our most popular poet.
But popularity, by itself, is not a basis for choosing a Poet Laureate.
Like Annie Dillard in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and Wendell Berry in any number of his works, Mary Oliver closely observed our natural world and filled her poetry with it. But she surpassed even those worthies in her ability to wait. Mary could be very, very still when observing creation. The story is told that she once sat so still a fox walked right by her without taking notice.
In her poetry, Mary advocated for us to wait and to watch, to be alert, to be fully awake. She modeled what she thought was the best way to do that: be still and know. This she believed was an excellent way for her to live what—in her poem “The Summer Day”—she called her “one wild and precious life.”
This aligns perfectly with the message of Advent in this week’s passage from 2 Peter. We are to wait and watch because no one knows when the day of the Lord will arrive. We are to be awake and alert, ready for that day. And in the time we have, we are to live into creation in purity and at peace.
Knowing this, we find that we, too, must answer the question Mary posed: “What will you do with your one wild and precious life?”
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IMAGE: Steve Orr and Adobe Express
About the churchless spiritual side of Mary Oliver:
https://www.ststephensphl.org/news/mary-oliver/10-2021?format=amp
On the death of Mary Oliver:
https://www.christiancentury.org/article/faith-matters/remembering-mary-oliver-and-her-prose
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Join us Friday morning for DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast. We meet at 8:00 on Zoom** and in person at Our Breakfast Place. Come and enjoy with some like-minded folk. We'll celebrate life and God's willingness to wait a while.
Blessings,
Steve
**Contact me for the Zoom link:
NOTE: Zoom allows you to mute the camera and the microphone if you don’t wish to be seen or heard.
SCRIPTURES FOR SUNDAY AND THE COMING WEEK
Find them here:
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=49
Print them from here:
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/pdf//Bx_SecondSundayofAdvent.pdf
Isaiah 40:1-11
Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Mark 1:1-8
Second Sunday of Advent (December 10, 2023)
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