Pay Be Tell

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

"Sometimes", § 4, by Mary Oliver

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Dear Kate,

There are books I wish I had never read.

So that I can read them today, this very morning, at sunrise, and hear the good news anew.

In particular during this Lent season I am thinking about Rowan Williams's "Resurrection: Interpreting the Easter Gospel."  Of course, with that thought, I could and would and did consider Williams's every other book the same way, not to variegated degrees, but versicolored astonishment.

Or maybe I've read enough.

It's now my turn to pay attention to things particular and astonishing in and around me, to write the next section.

Two or three times in my life I discovered love.
Each time it seemed to solve everything.
Each time it solved a great many things
but not everything.
Yet left me as grateful as if it had indeed, and
thoroughly, solved everything.

"Sometimes", § 5.

Yours, Alex