One of my favorite poets is Mary Oliver. Every morning, Oliver would go outside to welcome the sunrise, listen to the birds, and wake up alongside the natural world. She disciplined herself to writing every day, her observations of nature guiding her poetry. One of her most famous poems is Wild Geese, a poem that she says just came to her one still morning. Today, read this poem and let it seep into your soul. What comfort do you find in these words today? What challenges you? What gives you hope?

Wild Geese, Mary Oliver

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.

May you find peace, and grounding this day and this weekend. May you find assurance that you are a unique expression of God and you have an important place in the family of things.