My beloved Mt. Tam Church,
This poem has been my mantra for the past 10 days—of course, a Mary Oliver writing that begins:
“I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers flow in the right direction, will the earth turn as it was taught,
and if not how shall I correct it?”
How will the earth turn properly if I am not there to correct it? I want to be able to control it, change it, and make it better. We feel out-of-control as we watch violence unfold in the sacred halls of democracy, led by elected officials who have turned over their power to greed, evil, and a viral pandemic that has claimed millions of lives rages among us without those leaders even pausing to remember the dead or thank God for the living. How can I correct this river of injustice, this garden of greed? Is the earth turning toward the wrong? In these times, beyond the comfort of poetry, I hear these words of wisdom: “The greatest power we have is the power to choose to whom we will give the power over our lives.” My choice, by faith, is to turn over that power to the God who is always with us, who bends the arc of history toward justice, and calls us into the bending. We start with prayer and follow with courageous witness. We vote, we write, and we sing. In the face of the death of gay activist Harvey Milk in 1978, as thousands of distraught and angry people walked in candlelight down Market Street to City Hall, they sang a song composed that day by Holly Near. This is what they sang:
“We are a gentle, angry people, and we are singing, singing for our lives!
We are a gentle, angry people and we are singing, singing for our lives!”
Note how Oliver’s poem ends (found below). In the midst of the chaos and fear, in grief, sorrow, and helplessness, we can sing—sing for justice, sing of God’s mercy, and sing with thanksgiving for peace as we make it. Thanks be to God!
“Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven, can I do better?
Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows can do it and I am,
well, hopeless.
Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it, am I going to get rheumatism, lockjaw, dementia?
Finally, I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And gave it up. And took my old body and went out into
the morning, and sang.”
Peace,
Pastor Kim
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