September 24 2018

As we’ve been talking about our monthly theme, Plan Ahead, I hope you heard the underlying message that holding death before us can help us embrace life now. I leave you this month with a poem by Mary Oliver, “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.
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 fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

What do you “plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Please join us at our Living Fully Now and/or Live, Love, Learn and Leave a Legacy programs to consider this question and learn more about Planning Ahead. Details can be found on our Monday’s Moments Gatherings & Events page.