Montclair Presbyterian Church

The miracles of the church seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always. – Willa Cather, (1873 -1947) U.S. novelist, poet and journalist

Growing up on the southern plains in the Texas panhandle, I have always appreciated the insights of Willa Cather. What she describes in such a plain and understandable way can also be described as the process of hermeneutics or the ways we account for our own view of the world in relationship to a text or situation.

We all have the ability to perceive things differently if we take into account the way our experiences, education, and current life situation affect our ability to make sense of the world. When we become completely aware of our own lenses and biases, then we can make shifts in perception in the same way that a painter may make use of a microscopic view or a scientist a telescopic view.

Over the years I have laughed at art critics and historians talk about the abstract expressionism of the great painter of the Southwest Georgia O’Keefe. Her paintings seem quite realistic to me because I have spent a lot of time in the high deserts where she painted things pretty much the way they actually look, albeit from different perspectives. For her flowers, she zooms in on the minute details, while her landscapes are sweeping vistas replete with the amazing colors of New Mexico.  If you aren’t familiar with O’Keefe’s work, don’t miss the new exhibit opening at the De Young Museum in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park on February 15, 2014.

Poets are also prone to hermeneutical acrobatics. By zooming in (or way out), a poem can illuminate a particular aspect of life in a startling new way. And more often than not, such revelations become vehicles for spiritual growth.

Jane Hirshfield wrote a wonderful article about poetry and spirituality that issues a great invitation. She suggests that anyone seeking enlightenment or answers to a difficult question or some sort of spiritual intervention can simply take any anthology of poetry and let it fall open as it will and see what that random poem might say to the situation. “Any poetry worth the ink will work”, Hirschfield claims. In the article, she also identifies a number of poems that she has found spiritually enlivening. In our Grief and Spirituality group this past week at Montclair Presbyterian Church, we used the ancient Benedictine practice of lectio divina on Mary Oliver’s wonderful poem:

“The Summer Day”

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

from New and Selected Poems, 1992
Beacon Press, Boston, MA

I’ve done this exercise with the Bible too and have often been amazed at how my perceptions shift when I simply stop, look, and read something differently.  If you find yourself a bit stuck, grab the Bible, a book of poetry and give it a try.