Mary Oliver has slipped away, and it’s strange to me that she will not be on the planet anymore. Her book, Devotions, was on my lap the moment I read that she died.
Her words fill my head when I travel, walk a trail, show up to mountains or ocean hoping to feel small, and when I just walk to my car and look up to see the sunrise.
In a world where God is thought of as “up there” while we exist alone, but together, “down here,” I strongly sensed Mary Oliver was in on the truth.
God is everywhere, right now. He’s in the aspen trees whispers, the sunsets that we miss most days, the snow that quiets noise, the wildlife and stirrings that work to find space around us. God meant for us to live in community with not only humans but nature. Mary Oliver understood this in a peculiar, lonely, beautiful way. While we travel to receive these gifts, she felt them surrounding her always.
Mary Oliver was a dedicated walker, and she hid pencils in trees so when we needed to write about her surroundings, she could. Can you imagine how much God delighted in that? Her obsession with His masterpiece?
Mary Oliver was a lifeline. The below poem, The Journey, will always take space in my heart. The first time it mattered was when I left home for college. As the new year came closer, I needed it again.
Today, my mood is sad but crazy grateful that we will continue to be served by the gift and ministry of her words.
The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice –
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late enough,
and wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly recognised
as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do –
determined to save
the only life you could save.