Water Lily World

In these days leading up to Thanksgiving, I am going to try to focus on what I have to be grateful for and keep any creeping thoughts of discontent at bay. My grateful heart can so easily be ambushed by comparisons and perceived slights. It takes discipline to maintain a grateful heart.

When I am grateful and find myself wanting to show God the depth of my gratitude, words don’t seem adequate. There never seems to be quite the right words to express the depth of that feeling of thanks.

The same is true for the depth of my feelings of thanks to all of you.

I am so grateful that God has built this loving and supportive community that is Firstfruits. I am so thankful to know that you are there. Whether in person, virtually on Zoom, or anonymously reading these blogs, I know you are there. Your presence is a constant reminder to me of God’s love and deep care.

I hope you feel the depth of my thanks.

Blessed Thanksgiving to you and all those you love,
Joan

Every summer the lilies rise
and open their white hands until they almost
cover the black waters of the pond. And I give
thanks but it does not seem like adequate thanks,
it doesn’t seem
festive enough or constant enough, nor does the
name of the Lord or the words of thanksgiving come
into it often enough. Everywhere I go I am
treated like royalty, which I am not. I thirst and
am given water. My eyes thirst and I am given
the white lilies on the black water. My heart
sings but the apparatus of singing doesn’t convey
half what it feels and means. In spring there’s hope,
in fall the exquisite, necessary diminishing, in
winter I am sleepy as any beast in its
leafy cave, but in summer there is
everywhere the luminous sprawl of gifts,
the hospitality of the Lord and my
inadequate answers as I row my beautiful, temporary body
through this water-lily world.
                                                                 Mary Oliver