The Mystery and The Miracle of Being Here

This is a fine post from Jim Gordon at Living Wittily on "Denise Levertov and Why Questions are as Much a Means of Grace as Answers," from which this extract below is taken, and one that helps me in trying to visualise what unity might mean in this week of praying for it ! There are other images I'm exploring too and maybe, or maybe not (!) I will post on them later in the week.

I was struck by the phrase "songbird eggs" and an image of thousands of eggs from around the world in a collection from here, also helped me realise how precious each song of faith is.

In his post, Jim Gordon says this Levertov poem "is pointing to a via negativa, not of theology, but of how we cherish, hold and pay gentle attention to the mystery and miracle of being here.

 The title uses the indefinite article - this is not once for all gift, it is gift in the present continuous. 

The "Yes, perhaps is neither question nor answer, but an affirmation of that wonderful place in between, in which as human beings we live, and move, and have our being."
                                                                         
                                                                                 
                                                                               A Gift
Just when you seem to yourself
nothing but a flimsy web
of questions, you are given
the questions of others to hold
in the emptiness of your hands,
songbird eggs that can still hatch
if you keep them warm,
butterflies opening and closing themselves
in your cupped palms, trusting you not to injure
their scintillant fur, their dust.
You are given the questions of others
as if they were answers
to all you ask. Yes, perhaps
this gift is your answer.




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