The Day(s) After

I’m writing this on Election Day not knowing the outcomes, while knowing you will read it the day, or days, after.  To some, whose candidates won, it is a time of relief, celebration, and anticipation. To others, whose candidates fell short, it is a time of melancholy and reflection, with retreating glimpses of what might have been.

Regardless of election outcomes, what really matters is our knowing who we are and how to live in the present moment, fully embracing our joy or sadness.

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

- Rilke, Book of Hours, I,59.  Translation, Barrows and Macy

                       

I heard this poem on the radio program / podcast “On Being with Krista Tippett” and strongly recommend you listen to or read the transcript of one of the most moving interviews I’ve heard there:  

A WILD LOVE FOR THE WORLD, a conversation with Joanna Macy, a philosopher of ecology, a Buddhist scholar, and translator of the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke.