This week feels disrupted, shaken up by a day in Lakeland, a surgery on Thursday, and a friend visiting from Michigan. I figured it’s a good week to let a pro do the heavy lifting. But also: this is one of my favorite things. A favorite poem, sure, but even beyond the category, it moves me. Please take a moment with e e cummings’ “i thank You God for most this amazing”.
i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any—lifted from the no
of all nothing—human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
This almost always manages to open my eyes and ears and heart. The joy of the day, of new life and vision, possible even for those so lost they feel dead. That the beauty of creation can share truth, can speak it, show it, invite us into it.
As I’ve read the poem over the years, different parts have hit harder for me. This week it has been “lifted from the no / of all nothing”. That likely speaks of the theological concept of ex nihilo, or “out of nothing” as we consider creation (see Genesis 1), but I think it’s also a profession that the work of God happens even in the depths of wherever we are. Following the stanza of birth after death, of new life and love, the poet finds “tasting touching hearing seeing
/ breathing” as expressions of that new day, and wonders how anyone could doubt God’s hand in creation, of the lifting up out of death into that glorious experience.
But that isn’t by happenstance, and it isn’t by “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps”. It is a part of God’s creative work, a part of God’s love and grace, that we are “lifted” out of nothing into something glorious. God is at work, ever at work, to move us to abundance.
I share this poem because it speaks to my journey. Of a call to ministry in the life of someone who thought that wasn’t possible. Of ears awakened and eyes opened to the world in new ways, and a growing appreciation for everything “which is infinite which is yes”.
I pray this poem invites you into a celebration of this day, or if you aren’t in a place where joy feels available, perhaps you receive hope for a new day of life and love. And if I or First Bonita can come alongside you on the way, that would be our privilege.
See you Sunday,
Rev. Ben Richards
