This, again, is from the writers group.  We listened to a poem by Mary Oliver called “Wild Geese” (found in Dream Works) three times.  And then we ran with what we heard.  This is my write:

This is the invitation I hear.

Sometimes we make our spirituality so hard, walking on our knees for a hundred miles.  Sometimes we make our spirituality something that seems disconnected with the life we live and know.

But the world goes on, and we are part of it.  Like the harsh call of the wild geese, it calls to us.  And there is vitality and excitement in that call.

We can be lonely.  We will face despair.  But we are called to community.  I can name my own despair.  I can hear yours.  We are being called back home together — to a place where we belong.

What is really necessary is to truly love and cherish what we already love and value.  Our bodies are part of it.  That’s how we experience and process the world around us.

Rather than to deny ourselves and our lives, can we simply embrace them?  Can we reach out and touch and love what is already there?

That is the way home.  In all our brokeness, in the brokeness of our lives together, that is still where we will find life.

In fact, that may be the only place we can find life.  In our world.  In our lives.  In our bodies.  In our communities.  In the love we know and we naturally embrace.

There is no “oughtness” involved.  There is only what is.  You do not have to “try” to be good.  Taste.  Touch.  See.  Hear.  Love.  Live.  Find your way in your very own life and you will be home.