A video version follows the text
The Messenger
by Mary Oliver
My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.
Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect?
Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,
which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,
which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.
Sometimes a sermon is about nothing.
You know, like Seinfeld
was a television show about nothing.
Like today’s readings are about nothing,
at least nothing
in any concrete sense
that you can collect or build or decorate with.
The something that this sermon
and these readings are about
is gone
the very moment we recognize it.
It is more like air
than water.
The psalm, the poem, the gospel
are all about merger.
“The Father and I are one,” says Jesus.
The world and I are one,
and you too — Mary Oliver’s metaphors proclaim.
The green pasture, death’s shadow,
and the table God spreads
even in the presence of our enemies,
are all enfolded
within the goodness
of God, says the psalmist.
Merger, melding, oneness…
it is all about the momentary collapse of boundaries.
This is William James’ famous definition of religion:
“the feelings, acts, and experiences
of individual (people) in their solitude,
so far as they apprehend themselves
to stand in relation to whatever
they may consider the divine.”
It is that moment of oneness
or being in the presence of
something or someone
that melts the boundary
between them and us
or it and us.
It can be nature,
as Mary Oliver describes
in so many of her poems.
It can be another person
when we fall in love —
that intensely romantic phase
in which the boundaries between us
feel as though they fall into one another
and we are consumed
in that unique moment of intimacy.
It can be a different intimacy
when a conversation between friends,
or even an encounter between a professional
with client or patient,
suddenly distills into a joint recognition
of an experience and its meaning.
And I dare say, with God,
when we enter the moment with
the Holy Spirit or Jesus or Krishna or Mary
or whoever the perceived agent might be,
and there we are for an instant,
as William James explained,
”standing in our solitude” and yet
with something that is no longer “other”
but we in it and it in us.
I know darn well
that everyone in hearing of my words
knows this experience I am trying to describe.
It is the collapse of boundaries
between us and someone or something else.
Religious and non-religious people
will ascribe different causes and meanings
to the experience,
but it is a universal human experience.
At least I think it is.
But what I am most interested in
is not the moment of merger
but what happens
after that moment.
After the boundaries have collapsed
and we have merged
through a powerful suspension of individuality —
what happens next?
If we do not re-collect ourselves
and re-assert the boundaries
that were momentarily
penetrated,
we will loose connectivity
with the other people and elements
of the world around us.
We will loose perspective and forget
who we are
and what we are
and the full extend of to whom we belong.
We will get pulled like taffy
and the middle of us, which is our core, will sag
as we are stretched further and further
beyond our boundaries.
Eventually,
whether temporary of permanent,
we will go mad
because we are a Self
and Selfness lives within a particular body and soul.
Pull the Self away too far and too long
and we loose our minds
one way or another.
That happens sometimes
to some people
with religious experience,
just as it does
between individuals through
unsustainable intimacy.
Neither religion nor meaningful relationships
are for the feint of heart.
Both begin with a bang
and then,
well then, our boundaries
are supposed to snap back
and return to their original shape —
accommodating of course,
the new experience
or wisdom
or person.
It really is a wild and crazy ride —
religious experience,
falling in love,
or any kind of momentary intimacy.
So much so,
most of us live on-guard against it.
We would rather have predictability
and a semblance of control
than having our boundaries bent out of shape.
But here is the thing.
Religious experience
is like near-death experience.
It causes us to consider changing our lives
but in the aftermath,
as the experience recedes
in the rear view mirror,
we go on just as we were.
Our excited resolutions to be different
are like a balloon with the air
rushing out as it
snakes around the room.
So three dollars
and a mystical experience —
whether it is falling into God,
or “the phoebe and the delphinium,”
or the eyes of a lover —
is just enough
to buy us a large coffee
at Dunk’n Donuts.
But itself it won’t change us,
except in the moment.
And maybe that is okay —
just the experience.
Maybe just the moment of merger is enough
in and of itself?
But honestly, I think there is something else.
I want to go back to the Mary Oliver poem
because, of the three readings,
I relate to it best.
“My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.
Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect?
Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,
which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished…”
Can you,
with such simple clarity,
say what your work is?
I do not mean
what makes or made you money.
Most of us do not get paid
for the work of our soul,
or if there is a blending
of our job and our work
our work is never contained
by the limits of our job.
What, my friends,
is your work — the work of your soul?
I am not the judge of your experience
but I will say
that any time
I have had the experience of merger —
when my boundaries melted
and I slipped into a bigger reality —
it has always brought clarity
to my work.
That fact causes me to imagine
that experiences of merger —
what William James
called religious experience —
is for a purpose
more than it is for a pleasure.
It is not only Jesus and God who are one,
it is also you and I
who are one with the Creator of all that is.
We are one
and the green pastures we lie down in are one,
and so are the right pathways
and the shadow of death
and the cup running over.
All of it — all of us within it — are one.
We have all had glimpses of our oneness
and those glimpses,
those fractions of a second of recognition
are given to us as gifts
to bring clarity to us
about what our work is.
I would so love —
at least in my head —
for my work to be what Mary Oliver’s work was:
loving the world
and learning to be astonished.
I would — I would love that job.
But it is not mine.
I have other work,
and sometimes God grants me glimpses
of my oneness with all that is
so that I can receive greater clarity
about my work.
I hope that maybe
this rings true for you too.
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