Do not try to save the whole world
Clearing by Martha Postlewaite
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create a clearing
in the dense forest of your life
and wait there patiently,
until the song that is your life falls
into your own cupped hands
and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know
how to give yourself to this world
so worthy of rescue.
There is so much saving needed in this world of ours. Especially in this moment. Which is why this call for
clearings and cupped hands seems so odd and out of place. Doesn’t this dear poet understand the urgency of
the moment? Doesn’t she understand that we need to be lifting up our voices as loudly as we can, not carving
out space for quiet? Doesn’t she understand that we need engaged hands not cupped hands, with all of us
pushing as hard as we can against the tide and madly mending a world that is about to be torn in two?
Well, yes, she certainly could be clueless. But it’s also clear that she thinks we are the wrong-headed ones. Hers
is an invitation to see that our urgent, muscular mode of saving is just not what the world needs.
And of course she is correct. In our better and clearer moments, we know the world needs us to be grounded
and centered before rushing into battle. We need those cupped hands to catch our breath before we cover
them with boxing gloves and engage the fight.
We also know that creating clearings is never a waste of time. The dense forest homes we so carefully cultivate
keep us safe and comfortable, but they also make it hard to see the horizon and the newly rising sun. Clearings
let that new light in and in turn help us notice when we are applying old ways of being and thinking to a world
that isn’t here anymore.
Ah, that seems right. A good place to leave it. With us thanking the poet for her invitation to better understand
what the world needs.
But there’s that pesky piece about the world handing our song back to us. That complicates things. It means this
isn’t just an invitation to see what the world needs, but also an invitation to notice that the world sees us in
need and is trying to give us a gift; an invitation to notice that the world is also an actor in this precious play, not
just an object we are acting upon; an invitation to notice that while we are focused on saving the world, the
world is also focused on saving us.
Or to put it another way, maybe the world is trying to love us. And we are being invited to let it.
Maybe that is what this talk of cupped hands is all about.
And if so, what a way to begin this new church year! And maybe even what a way to travel through our lives all
the time! With cupped hands, remembering and open to receiving the love of the world.