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Bride of Amazement

Recently I bumped into a poem by Mary Oliver. I like poetry, but I don’t spend as much time as I would like reading poetry. But I found this poem of Oliver’s arresting. It is entitled, “When Death Comes.” The title is self-explanatory.

I don’t want to share the whole thing. But I would like to focus in on a particular few lines that grabbed me. At one point in the poem, Oliver says, “When it's over, I want to say all my life I was a bride married to amazement.” Of course, I have never literally been a bride…wrong gender for that. But metaphorically, it is easy to imagine. Oliver’s line is one way to imagine it.

I, too, would love to say that when it is over, I want my life to have been married to amazement.” If I am honest, I confess that at one level, I have blown it. I have already lived too much of life without amazement. I have too many days that were anything but amazing. It would be easy, therefore, to throw up my hands in self-disgust and give up.

But maybe the trick is not to understand correctly the word, amazement. Basically, I know that the word means something like “wonder” or “astounding.” I prefer these synonyms. I know many folks would be drawn to another word, like “spectacular.” Spectacular sounds too much like Hollywood to me. I prefer “wonder” language. To me the language of wonder is spiritual language.

If I were married to amazement, if I were related daily to wonder, then every day would come with the opportunity to be wonderful…full of wonder. Again, on the surface this does not seem to be the case with me. But the good news is, I am not dead! I still have a chance. What can I do?

It starts with waking up. I want to wake up and feel the wonder of graciously being given a new day. I don’t have to be perfect for the day to be wonderful. I don’t have to win, as if the day were a game against all competitors. No, the new day is a gift from God, the Giver.

Maybe wonder begins with my appreciation and uttered, “thanks.” And then wonder continues as I climb out of bed to engage the day---to engage life. Obviously, that means different things to different people. In my case I have a chance to make a difference in a few lives. They are not all college students. I encounter the same few faces every morning on my coffee stop. I vow to be a wonder to them and allow them to be wonderful to me.

I suspect amazement and wonder come, for the most part, in small things---in the details of life. They need not be spectacular. I want to appreciate a smile, the sunshine, and the serenity of peace. The key is to engage. How else would one be a bride married to amazement? We have to engage to become brides!

To engage my life and the world in which I live is the secret. To participate, to dig in, to get dirty with details is the secret lived out. I want to participate so deeply that I get tired---but it will be a wonderful tired.

I think this is what Mary Oliver means at the end of the poem when she says, “I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.” I don’t want to be a visitor either. I want to live. I want it to be a life of amazement, a life of wonder. It begins today. Today is the rest of my life!

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