Author: lcmleader

wild geese

Wild Geese, by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

Over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

Calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

As I drove to work this morning, four lanes of traffic were stopped at the North end of Lake Calhoun.  A flock of geese on their way South had wandered into the middle of Lake Street and wasn’t moving.  Cars honked their horns once or twice, but once it was clear the geese weren’t responding, everyone just stopped for a minute and enjoyed the moment.

These geese, assured of their place in the world, and their place on their journey, were taking their time as they headed home again.  Assured of their place in this world, they were absolutely unphased by all of our human rush and annoyance.  In their confidence, and in that pause, I was reminded again of the breadth of what I experience as Holy.

Lately I’ve been thinking about how insufficient the categories are that we ascribe to our experience of the Holy:  believers, unbelievers, spiritual, religious, practicing, secular, sacred.  I’ve become convinced that they create categories of insiders and outsiders, and though giving us language to describe our connection with God…or lack thereof…somehow these categories, these words, make the encounter with Mystery into something static, fixed, limited.  And they create artificial boundaries between us and other people.

We get so wound up in our definitions of ourselves and our communities that we forget the broader scheme of things, the life that exists outside of our human knowing, and in that lose sight of the fact that everyone, no matter who you are or what category you might currently be in, has a place in the family of things.

My prayer for our Christian community is that we might call out to all people(whether in our squawking, or in our waddling across Lake Street).  My prayer is that we embody the reality that all people have a place in the family of things.

-Pastor Kate

Time for Reflection

There gets to be a time for college students when you feel like every one of your classes is racing by at a hundred miles an hour, and you still haven’t left the parking lot.  It has been less than a month into school, and I have already begun to have similar feelings toward school.  Many of my classes move by at an extremely fast pace, and I often find myself struggling to keep up.  It is times like these that I am forced to plan out a homework and study schedule, just so that I can get my assignments completed on time.  When I make these tight schedules, I am regretfully forced to leave out time for myself, and often time for God.

The retreat this past weekend forced me to set aside all my burdens of school and really take some time for myself.  I was able to calm my mind and really reflect on my life.  I thought about why I am even in college and what I hoped to get out of it.  I was also able to see how worrying about all of my assignments and midterms and deadlines actually distracts me from my relationships with friends, family, and God.  Although it is important to keep these things in mind, our whole lives should not be devoted to tests and busy work.  We should be focusing on our relationships, and not worrying so much about the future.  Sometimes things happen that are out of our control, but it is up to us how we respond to them.

This retreat really helped me to put my life into perspective, because I was able to momentarily set aside the things that put a veil over the important aspects of life.  Though I am still not sure where I am headed for the rest of my years in college, I can rest assured that everything will be all right.  I need to worry less about what is beyond my control, and focus on how I can improve what is within my control.  My relationships with God, my friends, and family are all things that I can improve, and I will do my best to make sure that I keep them at the forefront of my life.

Joe Carlson