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Wild Geese (by Mary Oliver)



You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees 

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. 

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

I love to stare out over the blue water near my house in Centerport. There is something about watching bald eagles in the trees and the sky and wild geese on the lawn of Queen of Martyrs church. Wild Geese are even more fun to watch when they are flying home. They often start out in one direction and then get their bearings and all head in another direction. As the summer changes to fall, they are often on the move. Today’s Gospel is about getting salted with fire and then finding peace with one another.

For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another. (Mark 9:49-50)

Jesus is telling the disciples that they need to re-focus and turn in a new direction. After hearing that Jesus was headed for the cross, they argued about who was the greatest among them. Today’s words seem a little harsh, but they remind us to check and make sure we are headed in the right direction. The world is not at peace at this moment. We need to be salted with fire so that we are not at war with ourselves in this country and do not expand the conflicts in Ukraine and Israel to other nations. In the reading from James we are simply asked to pray. Please pray for peace with me at St. John’s, be salted by the words of Jesus, and live in peace with one another.

In Christ’s love,

Fr. Duncan