Monday Meditation

happiness is provisional

The other day I had a serious fall due to a respiratory problem. My wife drove me to the emergency room, where I underwent many procedures: MRI, CAT, X-rays, EKG, etc. Thank goodness, all the test results were negative. Still, let’s just say my face was a bloody mess. So now I’m very grateful to be on the mend. After-the-fall, I’m aware this could have been much worse. And, honestly, the healing includes dealing with silly vanity over my smashed nose and black eyes. This too will pass. 

Living with a keen awareness of mortality does focus the mind and heart on what matters most. It will cause you to cherish the ordinary small things of this life that now appear as gifts that one day will vanish. “Savor the moment” can be more than sentimentality, it can be a way of life. A greater awareness of mortality can bring focus to a life purpose. I love the line of the Psalmist: “teach me O God to number my days, that I may present to you a heart of wisdom.” 

This much we all know: to be alive is sheer gift; always a gift given day by day, moment by moment, breath by breath. This poem, Of Being, by Denise Levertov, who was born on the day after the accident, describes the possibility of happiness that retains the quality of gift. It may be the only poem that ends with a colon, on the edge of the vast mystery of being. 
—————————
Of Being

I know this happiness is provisional:
the looming presences
—great suffering, great fear—
withdraw only into peripheral vision:
but ineluctable this shimmering
of wind in the blue leaves:
this flood of stillness widening
the lake of sky:
this need to dance, 
this need to kneel:
this mystery:

~ Denise Levertov ~
1923-1997

While visiting for a few days in Maine, we saw the abundant and quite common black-capped chickadee.  It’s considered rare in Maryland.