BLESS THIS REST
Liz Ullery Swenson
Holy One,
God who creates.
God who rests.
Formed in your image,
we are created to create and
created to rest.
7th day.
7th year.
A Holy Sabbath
A sacred cycle of be-ing
When we are stuck between;
do, create, produce and
pause, rest, be.
Guide us towards simply be-ing.
Bless this rest.
Bless the empty space on the calendar and
the blank to-do list.
And bless us when we struggle to throw the lists in the trash.
Bless our “no” to what is draining.
Bless our “yes” to what is filling.
Bless the boring,
because the boring is where our imagination comes alive.
Bless our daydreams,
our zoned-out, and the thoughts that get lost.
Bless our sleep.
Bless the snooze button and the silence of the alarm.
Bless the silly, the lazy,
but mostly bless the unproductive.
Holy One,
Hold us accountable when the impulse to-do creeps in,
and forgive us for the guilt over not do-ing.
Bless this breath,
and this one,
and this one,
and each one that loosens the tightness in our chest.
Holy One,
bless this rest.
Amen.
SUMMER DAY
Mary Oliver
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
From House of Light, by Mary Oliver.
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