Days pass when I forget the mystery…
Days pass when I forget the mystery….
The mystery
that there is anything, anything at all,
let alone cosmos, joy, memory, everything,
rather than void: and that, O Lord,
Creator, Hallowed One, You still,
Hour by hour sustain it.
Denise Levertov
Image: Caitlin Connolly (American 1986-), An Earth So Quiet She Could Hear the Grass Grow, 2021
At the back of our brains, so to speak, there is a forgotten blaze or burst of astonishment at our own existence. The object of the artistic and spiritual life is to dig for this sunrise of wonder.
G.K. Chesterton
God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the sense of which is beyond all creation.
Dag Hammaskjold
…nothing (is) more needed by humanity today…than the recovery of a sense of ‘beyond-ness’ in the whole of life to revive the springs of wonder and adoration.
J.V. Taylor
Mary Oliver speaks of being ‘killed with delight’.
Where and when have you been ‘killed with delight’?
What moves you, what takes your breath away?
As you think about these things, is it possible that wonder has ceased to be part of your life?
What would/could bring it back?
Reflect on what might need to be in place –
what dispositions do you need –
to ‘revive the springs of wonder’?
Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less
kills me
with delight…
Mary Oliver
The drawings and paintings in this post are by American artist Caitlin Connolly. The image at the top of the post is called Little Dry Cloud Over Thirsty Earth that comes from her current project, Collaborate with Chaos, in which she works with her little twin boys to create beautiful drawings together.
VOCES8 performs Anton Bruckner’s motet Locus Iste at Les Dominicains de Haute-Alsace in Guebwiller, France.
Locus iste a Deo factus est,
inaestimabile sacramentum,
irreprehensibilis est.
This place was made by God,
a priceless sacrament;
it is without reproach
For a printable PDF of the text of this meditation please click on the link below.
