March 11 Thought for Reflection
Friends in Holy Covenant,
At worship on Sunday evening, I spoke about Lent as a time in the wilderness where nothing really grows, where everything is barren. I wondered aloud if it was the austerity, the desolation of that place, that transformed Jesus (and could transform us). Since I preached, I’ve been reading (again) the poetry of Wendell Berry. Berry believes that wilderness can transform us, too, but in a very different way. Enjoy this poem in season of wilderness wondering and wandering. May you come out on the other side different from how you are now.
Peace,
Pastor Trey Hall
The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
