OPreach
Dominican Preaching through Word and Image
Easter Thursday- What to Remember When Waking
Today’s Easter Poem is by one of my favorite poets, David Whyte. I heard him recently at the Religious Education Congress in Southern California. It is wonderful just to hear him recite poetry. What a wonderful experience!
What to Remember When Waking
In that first
hardly noticed
moment
in which you wake,
coming back
to this life
from the other
more secret,
moveable
and frighteningly
honest
world
where everything
began,
there is a small
opening
into the day
which closes
the moment
you begin
your plans.
What you can plan
is too small
for you to live.
What you can live wholeheart-
edly
will make plans
enough for the vitality
To be human
is to become visible,
while carrying
what is hidden
as a gift to others.
To remember
the other world
in
this world
is to live in your
true inheritance.
You are not
a troubled guest
on this earth, you are not
an accident
amidst other accidents,
you were invited
from another and greater
night
than the one
from which
you have just emerged.
Now, looking through
the slanting light
of the morning
window toward
the mountain
presence
of everything
that can be,
what urgency
calls you to your
one love? What shape
waits in the seed
of you to grow
and spread
its branches
against a future sky?
Is it waiting
in the fertile sea?
In the trees
beyond the house?
In the life
you can imagine
for yourself?
In the open
and lovely
white page
on the waiting desk?
Source: House of Belonging, by David Whyte.
Langley, WA: Many RiversPress, 1996. p. 26
Langley, WA: Many RiversPress, 1996. p. 26
I met David when he came to Vancouver to speak at a Mental Health conference. His story serves to confirm that we must follow our calling. I agree – he has a marvelous way of speaking the words.
Thank you for your comment, Rebecca!
another beauty – both photo and poem!! Vegetation is different but the ocean and topography looks the same as here. I have heard Richard Rohr talk of David Whyte.
Thanks, Keith. Isn’t it amazing that no matter where you go on this earth, that beauty can just take your breath away! Pat