To Kneel Down in the Grass and More

Yesterday morning I went to the place of deep thinking and had the pleasure of hearing a fantastic sermon entitled "To Kneel Down in the Grass" by Rev. Bonnie Vegiard. If you care to listen, click here. It is one of the best sermons I have heard in a long time. The sermon was based on a poem by Mary Oliver entitled "The Summer Day." I wish they would record the entire service to hear, as the call to worship and other awesome moments aren't on the recording, but it's still pretty fantastic.

The Summer Day by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

I charge you to consider her questions. Who made the world? Certainly not man. God or big bang theory? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? God or evolution? Tell me, what else should I have done? To know how to be idle, blessed, and connected with nature seems all-encompassing. Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? At last, yes. Too soon, sometimes. It is a fact that everyone and everything will eventually perish. I love her last question... "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life"? 

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday one of our pride band members unearthed our last concert and put it on YouTube. With the loss of our director about a month ago, people weren't sure if we would be able to find the recording, but it was found and voiced over top of the video recording. The piece I conducted, "Women of the Podium", can be watched/listened to here. I was excited and honored (and a bit scared too) when Skip asked me to conduct the piece at the women-themed concert. I smiled watching the video and seeing him playing flute. Miss him.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I got to spend two sizable chunks of my day with a friend who means a lot to me yesterday. We had the chance to sit down and just talk and just "be". We had the chance to interact and enjoy each other's company with patience and joy and had the chance to both listen and talk. We tossed around a lot of ideas about life, what happens after we die, and morality. (I found an interesting writing about why this author believes Hell does not exist.) We also talked about silly and goofy things and had the chance to just laugh. I miss this friend a lot and hope we can keep in touch, even when it's difficult sometimes. Maybe someday we can listen to Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 1 and see some stars. :-)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I leave you with some words by Walt Whitman. This is from the preface of Leaves of Grass: 

This is what you shall do

“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”Walt Whitman

<3 KMS