Words of Hope: How to Live in a Broken World
It is a serious thing
Just to be alive
On this fresh morning
In the broken world
This poem by Mary Oliver brings me back to my center. What is required of me? Gratitude and praise for the world around me. Thanksgiving to God for this gratuitous beauty.
I consider Mary Oliver’s poem in light of the scripture passage I meditate on which speaks of suffering and the end of the world. It tells of the time the sun will turn black, and the stars fall from the sky.
This can be a very frightening contemplation depending on where I put my attention. Do I focus on the broken aspect of the world, the blackened sun and falling stars or the One coming on the clouds of glory?
This is always the choice.
I consider those eminent choices as I contemplate Psalm 1. “Blessed is the one who does not sit with scoffers.” I never thought about it, but the news is often a bastion of scoffing. Sitting and imbibing this negative, rude rhetoric leads to fear, anger, and misalignment.
I ask God how we should live in such a broken time? How do we live aware of the times but not in abject fear?
The reminder is immediate. Live in the present. Not in the past of bitterness or complaint. Not in the future of fear but in the gratitude and wonder of the here and now.
This is the serious work of Thanksgiving.
“But immediately after the suffering of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.” – Matthew 24:29-30
