I want to be in partnership with the universe
like the tiger lily poking up its gorgeous head
among the so-called useless weeds in the uncultivated fields
that still abide. But it's okay if, after all,
I'm not a lily, but only grass in a clutch of curly grass
waving in the wind, staring sunward: one of those sweet, abrasive blades.
I wonder if Mary knows that the translation of the words lilies and grasses to English is very similar in the Christian Scriptures. When Jesus then asks us to "consider the lilies" we are also "considering the grasses."
We have been trained all our lives to be the rising star, and the emerging lily. We know that there is something beautiful inside of us.
We have been trained all our lives to be the course, abrasive grass. We know there is something fundamentally wrong inside of us.
What if we are neither beautiful or wrong, and are both?
Today I saw a sick squirrel on our outside water bath. S/he looked weak and had a hard time walking. We agonized in our family what to do besides throwing out some peanuts for the squirrel. Do we take the squirrel into captivity, only to have its last hours probably interlaced with heavy stress as we do invasive and manipulatory procedures to determine diagnosis and implement treatment? Or do we let the squirrel be in her/his home yard, with friends and home trees and nests, and let the owl take her/him hopefully quickly?
In the midst of such suffering and beauty, how can anything I do or not do be anything but wrong, for I cannot assure that beauty never dies or lessens?
But if I am wrong, then so too is the owl and the squirrel.
I want to live in a world beyond wrongdoing and rightdoing, which means being fully partnered with the universe and all of what we are, and can be!
How do you wish to partner today?
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