On a soft, snowy morning I read a poem by Mary Oliver. And in the afternoon, it came to me, a notice of her death. Too soon! I thought. Too soon to lose a talent of this magnitude. My heart rocked in grief for several minutes. But then I re-read the poem from the morning called “Bazougey” (Dog Songs, 2013), about the death of a beloved dog. It begins,

Where goes he now, that dark little dog
who used to come down the road barking and shining?
He’s gone now, from the world of particulars, 
the singular, the visible. 

So, that deepest sting: sorrow. Still, 
is he gone from us entirely, or is he
a part of that other world, everywhere? 

I now think of Mary Oliver as in this poem, no longer part of the singular, the visible, the world of particulars, but rather “a part of that other world, everywhere.” . . . . read more

The Adventurer of the Universe starts with the dream and reaps tragic Beauty.— Alfred North Whitehead

I have a friend named David who can see things others can’t. He has visions. I don’t mean David has “second sight” or any psychic ability; rather, it’s more of an artist’s vision of seeing things that are not there, but that might be. With a gestalt sensibility, he can see something whole that is now in parts, broken, and crying out to be either put out of its misery or loved back into life. David is a woodworker, restorer, and artist. He mainly works with discarded and unwanted pieces of furniture, like the lonely chair left out on the curbside by someone in a rush to move, or the abandoned table at the side of the dumpster, or a battered antique trunk hoping to be discovered on the last day of an estate sale when everything is 75% off. David grabs what others pass up, or gathers odd pieces and makes something completely novel like the “Frankenstein” table as he jokingly called it: a stunning dining set created from disparate parts he found “here and there.”

What a gift! To see possibility among the discarded, to save the landfills by remaking something that lasts, and to add beauty to the world.

I think this is the way God dreams in the world. . . . Click here to read the entire post 🙂