Lent - Days 7 and 8

I stayed up waaaaay too late night before last.  But with good reason.  I watched The Bachelorette season finale.  It's my guilty pleasure.  Only thing is, I don't even feel that guilty about it.  I unashamedly love watching the drama of others without having to enter it, especially drama surrounding finding love.  I know it's real people, real lives.  I know that.  But I also feel like they each signed up for it, and it really does make for such good TV.

So, I was absent in this space yesterday.  Which I actually do feel badly about, as I'm trying very hard to be consistent here each day.  But, here I am again, nonetheless.

There are ideas spinning around in me.  But I'm not sure they have their words attached to them yet.  The best words I've found for them so far are in the form of a poem sent to me by my kindred friend, Natalie.  So, I share it with you:

***

From Sonnets to Orpheus  - Rilke

To praise in the whole thing. A man who can praise 

comes toward us like ore out of the silences of rock. 

His heart, that dies, presses out for others a wine 

that is fresh forever.  

When the god's image takes hold of him, 

his voice never collapses in the dust. 

Everything turns to vineyards, everything turns 

to grapes, made ready for harvest by his powerful south.  

The mold in the catacomb of the king 

does not suggest his praising is lies,

nor does the fact that the gods cast shadows. 

He is one of the servants who does not go away, 

who still stands at the door of the tomb with trays 

of shining fruit.  

***

I want to praise in the whole thing ... such that, with my life, I might be a part of that process, where everything turns to vineyards, everything turns to grapes.  I want to be a part of growth, even when it means that I must be squeezed, sometimes crushed.  Everything turns to vineyards.  I want to be holding out fruit, next to the door of a tomb, proclaiming life.

May it be so.

Amen.