Happy New Year everyone!
For someone like me who loves to read, receiving Christmas presents of new and interesting books is a delight. When I came home from our Christmas morning worship service, there were several beautifully wrapped books under our tree. I eagerly opened each with interest and curiosity. Although reading on a Kindle is nice, lately I have longed for the feel of a cover of book in my hands and whole sensory experience of reading a book. I’ve missed the sound and smell of opening a new book, the textures of the pages and admiring the choice of fonts. I’ve also missed the joy of sharing a gently loved book with others. The “Little Library” on our street corner is one of my favorite stops on my walk. It’s the little hut where our neighbors drop off and borrow whatever books they have read lately.
The “ohhh and ahh’s” spilled out of me when I opened Mary Oliver’s latest work entitled Upstream. The cover of the book has that soft, smooth feel to it and her writing on the back cover captured me. Oliver writes:
“Sometimes the desire to be lost again, as long ago, comes over me like a vapor. With growth into adulthood, responsibilities claimed me, so many heavy coats. I didn’t choose them, I don’t fault them, but it took time to reject them. Now in the spring I kneel, I put my face into the pockets of violets, the dampness, the freshness, the sense of ever-ness. Something is wrong, I know it, if I don’t keep my attention on eternity. May I be the tiniest nail in the house of the universe, tiny but useful. May I stay forever in the spring. May I look down upon the windflower and the bull thistle and the coreopsis with the greatest respect.”
As we enter 2017, I wish for us many things.
I wish for us all to experience the pockets of violets and that smell of the earth and the dampness.
I wish for us all to respect each other as we respect the windflower and the coreopsis.
I wish for us all, even the tiniest nails in the universe, to be useful.
I wish for us all a sense of ever-ness.
Happy 2017 to you and yours!
In faith,
Kären
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