“. . . the sorrow, whose name is doubt,
is thus subdued, and not through the weaponry
       of reason, 
but of pure submission. Tell me, what else 
could beauty be for?”
       (Mary Oliver, “Terns,” New And Selected
       Poems: Volume Two, Beacon Press, 2005,
       pp. 34-35.)

Last Thursday, needing something blossoming to plant, a reminder each morning, a bright assurance, I wandered the aisles of a local nursery, maybe a word of hope, and discovered the grey, nondescript, almost invisible cat curled asleep among the red, orange, and white impatiens on the table in the bedding plant area. She did not respond to my “Hello,” not even a whisker or a paw twitch, eyelids at peace, no thought of tomorrow nor the sufficient sorrow of today.

A widow, faithful, sits vigil at her only child’s hospital bed. His physician, having done all that medical skill can sustain, now leaves the young man in the hands of God, a miracle not out of the question.

At City Light Community Ministries, a man I do not recognize from the streets, bypasses the noonday meal to ask me, “Do you do faith healing?” I say, “No.” Then he asks what about a laying-on-of-hands prayer. He has AIDS and cancer and heart trouble. I think of the apostle Mark’s Gospel account of the father of an epileptic son whose body sometimes casts him into the fire, sometimes into waters, so asks Jesus, “If thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us and help us” (Mark 9: 22, KJV). That big “If.” He needs me to be worthy of a petition to God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit for a miracle, all that is left for him. I place my hand on his shoulder and pray, hoping sincerity counts for faith. “Thank you,” he says, then takes a sack lunch and leaves.

My neighbor three houses up, grieving the death of his only companion, Lucky, the dog he rescued from the street, stands on his porch and calls her name. We wave as I drive past each morning, this my silent prayer for him, for all of us: Holy Spirit touch us with belief, beauty, even if only that of a cat napping in a circle of bright flowers.

“. . . . And you find, for hours,

you cannot even remember the questions
that weigh so in your mind.”
       (Mary Oliver, “Terns,” New And Selected
       Poems: Volume Two, Beacon Press, 2005,
       pp. 34-35.)