Have You Ever Dared to Pray?

Sometimes the morning comes too soon, and sometimes it can’t come soon enough.

There’ve been times in my life where I’ve cried out to God in the despairing darkness of night.

Maybe you know of this place?

Sunrise always shows up. The illumination of our world, every morning, reminds me that life is never a repeat show, however stuck I feel in repetitive cycles or whatever stories I’ve learned that hold me back. This source ingredient for life, the light and heat from the sun, creates with us a constant newness.

In the poem I’m reminded that God, Source Energy, Divine Presence, however we choose to name the unnameable mystery, creates this ongoing manifestation of creation for us, through the artist Nature, every morning. As I speak and frame the words, my breath, tongue and lips interpret and shape a meaning; as I feel more deeply into her sense, I participate in the poet's creation. 

If you've ever read out loud, you'll know something of this.

What feelings does listening to the poem evoke in you? Where in your body do you feel this?

Reading Mary Oliver’s words helps me feel the prayers I dare not speak, and whatever my state of mind, happiness is something I can choose and learn to cultivate. Miracles are all around us. As well as our crying out, prayer is an embodied sense of an ongoing harmonious participation with creation.

What does the poem want you to know?

Morning Poem by Mary Oliver

Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches–
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it

the thorn
that is heavier than lead–
if it’s all you can do
to keep on trudging–

there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted–

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.