"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul." - Muir
This is, I think,
what holiness is:
the natural world,
where every moment is full
of the passion to keep moving.
Inside every mind
there's a hermit's cave
full of light,
full of snow,
full of concentration.
I've knelt there,
and so have you,
hanging on
to what you love,
to what is lovely.
The lake's
shining sheets
don't make a ripple now,
and the stars
are going off to their blue sleep,
but the words are in place --
and the fish leaps, and leaps again
from the black plush of the poem,
that breathless space.
~ Mary Oliver ~
Summer is winding down with only a little over a week until school starts. We got back this weekend from a little get away to the woods. I went with a bunch of moms and a bigger bunch of kids. We were very outnumbered. It was everything summer should be. A multitude of sun- kissed happy kids swam and boated and fished in the lake all day. The cabins were filled with kitschy art work with a large screened porch for meals and board games. There was lantern -light card games, smores around campfires, nature walks and rope-swinging.
Some of the highlights were...
~the talent show the last night where Juden shyly announced that he made his song up and played his harmonica and the little girls did ballet
~late night conversations with a dear friend over stringing bead necklaces and exhausted laughter
~ watching Juden being so big and independent, fearless on the rope swing, paddle boating by himself and anchoring boats
~ holding a tired Naya while laying on blankets and star-gazing when she asked, "can we reach up and touch them?"
~ being with so many friends
~ the noise and the chaos and the few stolen moments of stillness on the dock at twilight
~ the smell of fire and pine trees and the songs of crickets at night
~ being held in the embrace of God's boundless artistry
The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
