I'm loving the summer weather and the delicious opportunities it affords to enjoy the beauty and wonder of the great outdoors--walking wooded trails, time in the garden, watching the busy wrens who have taken up residence in the bird house on my back fence, evenings on the patio, and so much more. Two days ago, I was able to get in a few hours of fishing with my friend, Kris. He caught a nice 5.5lb tiger muskie (not a fish I get to see very often).Next week, I'll be enjoying a couple days of fishing up near Mille Lacs with a few guys from church, which is always a good time. Then, in July, I'll be getting in some North Shore camping with my family.
In August I'll, be catching a few more days on the North Shore with friends from church, and then we've also got an all-church camping trip scheduled for a weekend at William O'Brien State Park. It's a full and delightful schedule of summer days!
Here is a lovely little summer poem I shared during my sermon at Valley last Sunday. I appreciate the gentle way it prompts me to solitude, simplicity, reflection, attentiveness, and purpose. So tell me, what do you plan to do with your one wild and precious summer?
The Summer Day
Mary Oliver
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
From New and Selected Poems, 1992 (Beacon Press).Copyright 1992 by Mary Oliver.
Woot!
ReplyDeleteI should have taken a picture of your crappie, which was good size...but you tossed it back too fast. ;-)
I took the kids out to one of the fishing docks on Marion after work yesterday. Saw lots of fish, none taken however. But the kids were delighted nonetheless to see the bluegills come and play with their jigs, cast and retrieve, cast and retrieve, and just to get out by the lake (if not on it). I always remind my kids, and practically everyone I fish with what my father taught me: "There is nothing in the definition of the word 'fishing' that requires one to actually catch a fish!"
There was a family there that landed a 3-4lb northern on a jig and a crappie minnow, along with a couple nice size crappies. It was dinner for them!
That poem is great, BTW. It was a nice touch to the last sermon of that series. :-)
It will be a fabulous summer, indeed, for the Pierson's. The north shore calls us this weekend for a campout. In July I am sure we will get out the tent again a couple times, as well as the fishing boat. In August we look forward to some more camping opportunities including the VCC trip. This, in addition to times much like Miss Oliver's poem - we love to take walks, and Sarah and I are eager to introduce the kids to the trails along the Minnesota River, where there is much strolling to be done among the beauty of nature.
Should be a wild and precious summer, indeed!