Finding Faith And Calm Through Mary Oliver’s Poetry

A winter storm closed our doors, but not our hearts. We met from living rooms and kitchen tables, lit by lamps and laptop screens, to breathe, pray, and remember what steadies us when the world feels heavy. Guided by Mary Oliver’s poetry and the strength of Psalm 27, we explored how attention can become a kind of prayer—and how wonder can reshape the way we move through news, social media, and the long gray of cold days.

We began with “The Summer Day,” letting that final question—what will you do with your one wild and precious life—land in real time. From there, “Wild Geese” loosened the grip of striving and shame, reminding us that belonging does not hinge on perfection. “When Death Comes” turned our faces toward urgency and tenderness, asking us to be married to amazement rather than merely visiting this world. Along the way, we named gratitude for first responders, utility crews, shelter teams, and neighbors who keep one another warm and fed. Psalm 27 anchored us: fear is loud, but the Holy shelters, lifts, and teaches us to sing.

We prayed by name for those facing illness, grief, and job loss, making intercession a counter to doomscrolling. Oliver’s “I Worried” helped us set down anxiety and take our old bodies into the morning to sing. And we closed with a charge many of you know by heart: do justice now, love kindness now, walk humbly now. If you need a pocket of quiet courage, this is a warm cup for the cold. Press play, breathe with us, and consider one small way you might answer that wild and precious question today.

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Transcript

Safety, Snow, And Gathering At Home

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey neighbors, the Lord be with you.

SPEAKER_02 0:03

I'll be there we go.

Stop The Scroll: Faith And Media

Mary Oliver’s “The Summer Day”

“Wild Geese” And Belonging

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Uh Stephen and Hazel Grace, uh reporting from my office pre-recorded. If you are watching or listening to this, then you know that we have canceled worship in the interest of safety. So I hope that wherever you are this day, that you are safe and that you are warm. Um and let us be mindful these days for people who don't have a safe or a warm place to be. So we pray for all of our neighbors and especially um Hazel Grace and I are going to be praying this day for all of the helpers, right? All the people that are keeping us safe. So for people that are working to keep the streets clean, uh for uh people who are working at the shelters, like at Greensboro Urban Ministry, or the utility workers, uh, or first responders. Um so we are grateful this day that we can gather uh together and worship for this uh casual time of uh time of uh reflection. Uh we've been going through this sermon series called Stop the Scroll when we've been talking about our relationship with social media, artificial intelligence, news consumption as it pertains to our faith, our self-care, and our sanity. Um so we are talking a bit about that, and last week we got together for Theology on Tap and we explored the poetry of Mary Oliver. Mary Oliver is one of the way reading Mary Oliver rather is one of the ways that I stay grounded in these in these hectic and heavy days in which we live. So our time of worship this day is going to be uh uh is going to be accompanied by some poetry of Mary Oliver. So I hope wherever you are that you can get cozy, um, get a warm beverage, and let us uh worship together. Since it's so cold and nasty outside, I thought we would inject some summer into our um into our weekend. So we're going to be called to worship today by possibly Mary Oliver's most famous poem, The Summer Day. Who made the world? Who made the swan and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean. The one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down, who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open and floats away. I don't know exactly what a prayer is, but I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the field, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last end too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? Friends, let us worship God. You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile, the world goes on. Meanwhile, the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains, and the rivers. Meanwhile, the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls you like the wild geese harsh and exciting over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

We can share in God's redeeming grace. There's no room for doubt or fear. We can feel his breath on the tick.

SPEAKER_02 6:52

We put the bed We will go to bed. We will say God's light, we will be a fake. We will live as one as one times we may not understand anything, anything we may not see, we may not see all this time, we know we could start, we could say, that's not it.

“Don’t Hesitate” And The Fullness Of Joy

Psalm 27: Courage And Shelter

Prayers For Helpers And Neighbors

SPEAKER_00 10:09

When death comes like the hungry bear in autumn, when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse to buy me and snaps the purse shut, when death comes like the measlepox, when death comes like an iceberg between the shoulder blades, I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering what is it going to be like that cottage of darkness? And therefore, I look upon everything as a brotherhood and a sisterhood. And I look upon time as no more than an idea, and I consider eternity as another possibility. And I think of each life as a flower, as common as a field daisy, and as singular, and each name a comfortable music in the mouth, pretending, as all music does, towards silence, and each body a line of courage and something precious to the earth. When it's over, I want to say all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom taking the world into my arms. When it's over, I don't want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular and real. I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened or full of argument. I don't want to end up simply having visited this world. Don't hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. That sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything. Very likely you notice it in the incident when love begins. Anyway, that's often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don't be afraid of its plenity. Joy is not made to be a crumb. With the words of Psalm 27. The Lord is the stronghold of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? When evildoers assail me to devour my flesh, my adversaries and foes, they shall stumble and fall. Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war rise up against me, yet I will be confident. For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble, he will conceal me under the cover of his tent, he will set me high on a rock. Now my head is lifted up above my enemies all around me, and I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy. I will sing and make melody to the Lord. Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud, be gracious and answer me. Come, my heart says, See his face. Your face, O Lord, do I see? Do not hide your face from me. Do not turn your servant away in anger at you who have been my help. Do not cast me off. Do not forsake me, O God of my salvation. If my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me out. Teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me on a level path because of my enemies. Do not give me up to the will of my adversaries, for false witnesses have risen against me, and they are breathing out violence. And I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord and be strong and let your heart take courage. Wait for the Lord. Thanks be to God. All right, neighbors, let us go to God in prayer. This will be a responsive prayer, so when I pray God of light, I invite you to respond wherever you are by saying, Hear our prayer. So we'll practice that real quick. Let us pray to the Lord saying, God of light, hear our prayer. Loving God, your light reveals the needs of our world, and your salvation offers hope to the lost. Therefore we pray for our world and our community, for your holy church, that all the baptized may live in harmony with one another, and our pastors and teachers may be wise and gracious ministers of the gospel, the God of light to hear our prayer, for the world and all who suffer the rod of oppression, and break the yoke of violence, and free all people from the burden of war and domestic strife. And for the leaders of the nations, that they may be just and faithful in their duty and deserve the good of all creation, God of light, and hear our prayer. For those who suffer disease of body and mind, that they may know the power of your healing grace, God of light, hear our prayer. For those who have died, and for those who will die this day, that they may find eternal rest, and for those who care for the dying, that they may find peace and comfort, God of light, and we hear our prayer. We also lift up this day our neighbors here and abroad, especially in light of this winter storm. Be with all those who are working to keep us safe, to keep the roads clear, and we pray for our utility workers, our first responders, and we pray for those who are caring for our neighbors who are houseless this day. We also pray for those in our community, for our next door neighbors across the street, Frank and Helen, who are having some medical issues. We pray for David Haywood as he recovers from a heart procedure last week. We pray for those among us who are going through cancer treatments, for Miss Michelle at the preschool, for E.B. uh Taylor, and for Pat Winer and for others. We pray for Chad Cowgill and all those who are looking for uh employment. We pray for Tracy Thornton, for Bob Ewald as he recovers from a fall a few weeks ago, and for those who are mourning the loss of loved ones, especially the family and friends of Jim Tosco and Betty Brooks. Hear, O Lord, the cries of your people, be gracious to us and answer us, for you are our salvation. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, and thy kingdom come, and thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Forgive us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

SPEAKER_02 25:28

We walk by sight, no precious word from my soul as not necessarily, but we believe it from the same.

A Worry Set Down, A Song Begun

Charge, Benediction, And Peace

SPEAKER_00 27:13

I worried a lot. Will the gardens grow? Will the rivers flow in the right direction? Will the earth turn as it was hot? And if not, how shall I correct that? Was I right? Will I ever be able to do it? Am I just imagining it? Am I going to get ruined? Finally, I saw that worrying had come to nothing and gave it up. And took my old body and went out into the morning and sang. Friends, I hope that you have found this abridged worship service uh meaningful again. I pray that you may be safe and warm this weekend, and let us now um receive our charge and benediction, one that many of you know very well. Friends, do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justice now, love kindness now, and walk humbly now. We are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are we free to abandon it. In the name of God, the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, may all of us, God's beloved children, say Amen. Can you say Amen?

SPEAKER_02 28:35

Amen.

SPEAKER_00 28:36

Can you say go in peace?

SPEAKER_02 28:38

And go in peace.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

All right, bye, friends.