“The World I Live In” by Mary Oliver
I have refused to live
locked in the orderly house of
reasons and proofs.
The world I live in and believe in
is wider than that. And anyway,
what’s wrong with Maybe?
You wouldn’t believe what once or
twice I have seen. I’ll just
tell you this:
only if there are angels in your head will you
ever, possibly, see one.
+ Mary Oliver
I have always been a very analytically minded person, someone who wanted to know the why and the how behind the what, someone who would be thinking, “prove it.” We learn a lot that way.
Somewhere along the way, I also learned to ask the question Mary Oliver is pointing to in this poem, “I wonder if that was God?”
Sometimes it is nice to celebrate without needing to explain. And when we finally do explain, my guess is, we will find life no less holy or miraculous.
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Alan