First Lenten Sabbath: Wendell Berry

February 18, 2024

During the Lenten Season, before Easter Sunday, “regular” Sundays, like today, are not included in the 40-day count of preparation because they are considered “mini resurrections.” So, instead of sharing a meditation on one of the many quotations I have procured this past year, I will share a poem that matches the mood of Sabbath-keeping. May you find time to sit with it and allow the words to sink into your soul.

Blessings ~ Rosemary

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
.

(From The Peace of Wild Things, Wendell Berry, Penguin Books, 2018)

Published by remcmahan

Poet, writer, minister, wanderer, traveler on the way, Light-seeker ~ hoping others will join me on the journey of discovering who we are and were meant to be. You can reach me at 20rosepoet20@gmail.com or at my blog, Spirit-reflections.org.

6 thoughts on “First Lenten Sabbath: Wendell Berry

  1. A beautiful poem indeed as we take our rest this Sabbath day, despite the gloom of a typical day in the Canadian northwest. I love too, “I rest in the grace of the world”. Bare trees, grey skies and grey earth are still “graced” in beauty. 

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