"I look upon everything as a brotherhood and a sisterhood, and I look upon time as no more than an idea, and I consider eternity as another possibility ... When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms ... I don't want to end up simply having visited this world. - Mary Oliver, from her poem "When Death Comes""
It's coming on Christmas, that wonderful time of year when light enters our lives midst the cold of winter. I'm not quite ready because my gifts, a letter to each of my children and grandchildren, are not yet written. What to say, I ask during busy days of doing the things I'm responsible for and those tasks I've taken on with that sense of call I've always had. I liked Mary Oliver's poem quote, taken from a daily missive I receive from Sojourners, a Christian website and magazine that addresses the issues of the day. Mostly I agree. Yeah, I'm a liberal Christian, believing that the congregation of God is open to all of God's created people. Those of us who've opened the door to God are given a great task, many tasks really. But all are part of the concept of amazement that Oliver wonders at, all of us are empowered to really make a difference in the world if we but step out and do it.
When I was a little girl on a small farm in east central Illinois, I often dreamed of great things ... well I thought my prince would come and take me off to the magnificent heights of a wonderful life! But when I examined the clouds while laying in the hayfield and pondering the future, I always knew I would be making a difference somewhere, sometime. Like Oliver, I don't want to be remembered as just visiting this world.
Don't confuse this with doing good as a goal for my life. God has always been there at the intersections, guiding the decisions, pushing in the right direction, helping me to see success even in failure. Perhaps that's because God doesn't measure success in the way our society does. God, after all, came to die on a cross. Just how much of a model of success could that be? Instead, doing is the calling. Visiting is not an option.
So when I write those letters, my heart will remember the poem ... and God's gift to me. I pray I can share that truth in a meaningful way. Merry Christmas!
