Photo credit: Jennifer Watkins
We are in grief as well as expectation. The words for which Pope Francis is most famous are, “todos, todos, todos,” which means everyone, everyone, everyone, and, at the same time, everything, everything, everything. I think this means, inclusion, inclusion, inclusion.
I like the way American poet, Tom Hennen, in his poem, “Love for Other Things,” in his book, Darkness Sticks to Everything, shows the challenge in choosing to love everything:
It is easy to love a deer
But try to care about bugs and scrawny trees.
Love the puddle of lukewarm water
From last week’s rain…
Get close to things that slide away in the dark.
For me, choices about what we love call for contemplation and growth of a consciousness born of Love. I have heard from Roman Catholics that Pope Leo is spoken of as a man of contemplation who has a peaceful yet strong presence. Many people are thirsty for helpful words and prayers from all the traditions. We pray for leaders who are ready to serve. We are grateful and hopeful.
Roger Keyes is a poet who is also an art historian and scholar of East Asian Studies. He wrote the following poem about a famous Japanese artist of the late 18 th and early 19 th centuries. The subject of the poem is known for his images of landscapes and the natural world. You would probably recognize his images of waves.
Katsushika Hokusai Says
Hokusai says look carefully.
He says pay attention, notice…
It matters that you care.
It matters that you feel.
It matters that you notice.
It matters that life lives through you…
He says don’t be afraid.
Don’t be afraid.
Look, feel, let life take you by the hand.
Let life live through you.
We want to be open and vulnerable to others. We do want to be inclusive and make authentic connections with people we meet and people we already know. We want to listen carefully and lovingly to other people’s stories and to tell our stories in ways that are friendly.
Hannah Arendt, who lived through World War Two as a European Jew, is famous for her writing on the theory of totalitarianism, the philosophy of history and the philosophy of modernity. She wrote that friendship is one of the active modes of being alive. She highly valued love and friendship.
There is also helpful wisdom that comes down to us from Graham Greene, who wrote the novel, The Power and the Glory in 1940. I have heard this wisdom told many times throughout my life as advice about being lovingly present with persons who are from backgrounds different to ours. The idea is something like this:
When we notice the way another person’s eyes and mouth go up in times of gladness and down
in times of sadness, we recognize the other person as kindred to us, created as we are created.
We recognize them as fellow human beings.
These are challenging times for us. We would like to be open and vulnerable in ways that can be joyful and serious, ways that are friendly. I like these final lines of a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke which was published in 1918. The poem is “God speaks to each of us as he makes us,” and is from Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy.
…Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Give me your hand.
Here are some of my favourite lines of poetry. I don’t know what to say about them except I hope you who are reading this like them with me. They were written during the first half of the 20th century by English poet, e.e.cummings
Trust your heart if the seas catch fire,
Live by love though the stars walk backwards.
Love is with you. Don’t be afraid.
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