Dear Friends,
In honor of the summer, I wanted to share a reading from my UU ministerial colleague, the Rev Kathleen McTigue:
Summer Sabbath
by Rev. Kathleen McTigue
Go someplace you haven’t seen before,
where no one knows you, where you don’t think twice
about what to wear, how to look, or who might be watching
as you let your body ease out into the sun and bask, lazy as a cat.
Untether yourself from the engines of busyness, one by one–
laptop, desktop, wristwatch, scribbled lists,
even the telephone,
especially the one you carry everywhere,
the little tyrant.
This will all feel unnatural
but it’s not.
Sit by water–
a place where the sea comes in
warm as a breath,
where the crest of each nighttime wave catches the moon
and spreads it out again, lavish, on the sand;
or a little stream in the mountains
where a hundred tumbling voices burble and blend
in your quieting mind until behind them
you almost hear a choir of wood angels, humming;
or a still lake outside your grandfather’s cabin,
water lapping so lightly
you can barely make out its tongue rasping the sand,
shores ringed by pine and sweet cedar
and beyond them high mountains in their silence.
Go and don’t think about time:
how much you’ve got left,
how to pass, fill, use or spend it,
whether you might accidentally lose or waste it,
and certainly never entertain the thought that time
is money. It’s not.
Instead, consider your life–
who you love, and why,
how blessed you are to be here, resting
under a shower of birdsong,
or what strange bright luck it is to the the owner,
for a few years, of this beating heart,
these wondering eyes, the ears
into which the kingfisher spills her small chuckle
as she dips across the water.
You might ponder these things, but you could also let
the whole creaking apparatus of thought come to a halt.
You might surrender, and let the world spill in
through the five gates,
no sentry standing surly watch,
no one left to resist or defend.
The innermost courtyard stands empty then,
a clear fountain singing at the center.
I hope everyone is able to hear some singing at the center this summer.
I will be back in the office on Monday, August 20. There are wonderful speakers planned for this month so come and enjoy!
See you at 4 Cleaves St
Rev Susan