Sabbath wandering...

Today was given over to Sabbath wandering: wandering the streets of Bennington, wandering the back roads of southern Vermont, wandering through the thoughts of our life together - and it was renewing.  It always is.  Always. 

During today's wandering I found the new collection of Robert Bly poems, Talking into the Ear of a Donkey, that includes:  Longing for the Acrobat.

There is so much sweetness in the children's voices,
And so much discontent at the end of the day,
And so much satisfaction when a train goes by.

I don't know why the rooster keeps on crying,
Nor why the elephant lifts his knobby trunk,
Nor why Hawthorne kept hearing trains at night.

A handsome child is a gift from God,
And a friend is a vein in the back of the hand,
And a wound is an inheritance from the wind.

Some say we are living at the end of time,
But I believe a thousand pagan ministers
Will arrive tomorrow to baptize the wind.

There's nothing we need to do about Saint John.
Whenever he laid his hands on earth
The well water was sweet for a hundred miles.

Everywhere people are longing for a deeper life.
Let's hope some acrobat will come by
And give us a hint how to get into heaven.

Bly's words ring true to me - everywhere people are longing for a deeper life - as one of the cards in a shop we also wandered into put it:  do not let the urgent interrupt the important.  This shop happened to be the only gallery where the block prints of Mary Azarian are sold.  Her work is brilliant - tender, witty, alive, earthy, simple and profound - all at the same time.  My daughter, Jesse, gave me a book with her block prints in it a few years back - The Man Who Lived Alone - by another Vermonter, Donald Hall.  After we return from Istanbul, I want to spend some more time back in this little shop sorting through which block print to bring to friends later this summer.

As you probably know, wandering is one of my spiritual disciplines - along with music making, laughing, feasting, reading and Eucharist - and I am slowly moving towards adding gardening - and maybe bread baking, too but it is going to take another few years to really work those two into they rhythm of my soul.  I still sometimes get confused by the urgent rather than the important, yes?

I like the way Mary Azarian put it in one of the block prints I saw today.  It is as sweet to me today as Bly's poem.  (For more on these block prints, go to her website and feast upon the beauty @ http://www.maryazarian.com/index.html) Blessed Sabbath wandering...