A poor life this, if full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
These are the closing lines of W H Davies’s so simple poem, Leisure.
I bet I’m not the only one to be brought up sharp by this. Could this be a Lenten discipline: to take time?
Mary Oliver’s simple lines in Praying might help us to take time in the everyday – just to wonder and wander in prayer. Prayer doesn’t have to be difficult.
It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.
Photo credit: Vilseskogen
Grits and Grains 