I can't find the words to say how much I need things to be better in 2021.
When I can't find my words, I turn to the poet Mary Oliver. Her words whisper gentle truths in my ear, they ease my troubled mind, they curl up in a corner of my heart.
If you, like me, really need this new year to bring you more light and peace and joy and gladness than the old one, then I offer you this poem from Mary. Write her words on a piece of paper, take them into the trees, and speak them. When you get to the very last verse, I hope you feel a sense of possibility, and hints of gladness.
When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you, too, have come
into the world to do this,
to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine."
This week, go easy, be filled with light, and shine. Remember we are still together, even when we're apart. And the best news is that all of us are loved, all the time.
-- MZ Smith, Community News editor
