My most recent foray into traveling ministry ended on Sunday and I am grateful again for Robin M's post on re-entry. I think all traveling ministers should have a copy of this to read each time they come home. So I am trying to follow Robin's advice and be gentle with myself and others as I go back to "normal" life.
Today, this poem spoke to my condition. I thought I'd post it here for any other Mary Oliver fans out there (and there seem to be a lot of you).
Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting―
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
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