WILD GEESE

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Mary Oliver

Oliver reminds us that nature is a tireless, patient teacher. “The soft animal” of our bodies’ loving what it loves is an instinctual, visceral pursuit—meaning what cannot not pursue what we love, albeit partially and imperfectly. If we learn to lean into that, there is animal-like instinctual wisdom and imagination.

Loving what we love is like going home, a home to our true selves. This love, in the end, reflects all-encompassing, unconditional love of God. As we are and meant to be what we love, going home means discerning what we love, which was already given. Additionally, loving what we love offers clues and pieces of the puzzle that help us understand how to live our lives, unrepeatably unique to ourselves. Love is our destination and the only rite of passage toward home. Because we pursue what we love, we experience a range of emotions, including despair, loneliness, harshness, and excitement, all wrapped up in one. Loving what we love announces our place in the family of things, according to Oliver. That is how we belong in the world.

The sun, the rain, the prairies, the trees, and the wild geese all embody and understand “despair, lonely, harsh, and exciting” facets of our lives. It is almost as if nature is whispering or sometimes loudly declaring to us that everything is normal, everything belongs. The word “meanwhile” is a subtle yet stark reminder that the world is happening all around us, serving as an invitation to pay attention.

After returning home from our recent trip to the Philippines, my heart kept returning to the tender shared moments at Coffee Keeper. As the Christ in me witnessed Christ in others in poverty of heart and mind, I marveled at the different shades of God’s goodness and mercy. There were all these emotions: joy, excitement, despair, loneliness, harshness, and hope. We were all on the same yet different journeys of going home, like wild geese.

The poverty of heart and mind is a gift from God. As it is the recognition of our desperate void, the emptiness that can only be filled by God, the poverty is God’s way of wooing us back to God, like a mother hen ready to embrace.