Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, August 11, 2024

What do we say to God?

A friend recommended a book of poems, Bucolics by Maurice Manning.  I trust their recommendations so I purchased it. I didn’t appreciate the poems until I started reading them out loud. These poems are one side of a conversation between the poet and Creation or God.  Reading them out loud made me pay attention. This is the poet talking to God or creation – what he calls “Boss” – without including God’s response. 

I’m going to read a few poems and some sections of poems in this message – I will read each poem twice.

O boss of ashes boss of dust
you bother with what floats above
the chimney what settles to the ground

you wake the motes from sleep
you make them curtsy in a ray of sun
they hold their tiny breath as if
they’re waiting for the little name
of the dance that’s coming next then they
will take their places Boss if I
were smaller I would join them O
I’d cut a rug or two I’d slap
my hand against my shoe if that’s
the kind of fuss you’re raising Boss
you know I never know for sure
I only know you bother me
from time to time you’ve caught my breath

a time or two you’ve stirred me up
before which makes me want to tell
you Boss I wouldn’t mind it if
you bothered me a little more

What leaps out is the clarity that the poet knows that Boss is present in each moment, each small event is significant, and that the poet feels invited to observe, comment and feels bold enough to make suggestions to Boss. This is an intimate, reciprocal relationship. The speaker is curious about Boss,  and sees themselves as a collaborator with Boss.  And Boss knows the poet fully.  By sharing their half of the conversation, we are invited into this wonderful relationship.  The poet is engaged in a ceaseless conversation and is sharing what they have learned about God from their experience.  

Am I your helper Boss or am

I not do I bring in the Hay

For me or you or only for

The horse I help the horse he helps

Me too why sometimes Boss he hooks

His head across my shoulder just

To rest it there he’ll heave a sigh

As if he’s tuckered he always makes

me laugh he knows I know he wants

an apple Boss his heavy head

on me it helps it helps so much

it helps to hear him sigh a sigh

he doesn’t really mean he means

another thing is that the way

you mean to mean another Boss

another thing beyond the thing

you want from me you see the horse

gives me a weary sigh when he’s

not sleepy Boss he doesn’t want

to hear sweet dreams from me he wants

to hear you want an apple hoss

I mean we help each other Boss

—————-

Fragments:

 … O everything gets carried Boss, / even if it never moves / I wonder if you ever notice/ but sometimes Boss I carry you.

How big is your hand Boss hold it up / to show me if you can I need / to know you know I need to know/ so many things …

I guess you’ve got a lot / of hands though I’m just one / of many Boss  I’ll turn / the earth I’ll shock the corn / O Boss whatever else / you need I’ll pitch it in …

In reading these poems, I found myself paying attention to what I say to God – beyond the intentional forms of praise and gratitude and listening. ..  I recognized that when I am asked how spirit is with me,  I’m more apt to share what I felt or heard from God then to share my side of the conversation.   Talking with God is prayer. 

In The Sermon on The Mount, Jesus is giving direct and clear guidance to his followers – to preach, to share all things in common, to heal.  But he has to teach his followers how to pray – they know how to do all the other things, but they did not know how to pray.  The prayer he talk, as it comes to us after many translations is a prayer that includes permission to make demands on God “Give us our Daily Bread”…

When I pray each morning I start singing “Praise God from whom all blessings flow..”  The way I talk to God reveals how I see God, what I know from my experience. Do I see God as playful, inviting, distant, funny, known or a mystery? Do I see God as a Savior, a Father, a constant companion? As separate from me or as something I am a part of? The other day in my morning prayers, after singing “Praise God” and noticing all that I had to be grateful for since the day before, I realized that the meadow where I go each morning was so full of bees and other pollinators that I could hear it hum.  It was this that I talked to God about through the rest of the day – not the gratitude or the praise or the petitions.  

The query that I bring is what do you say to God? Are you bold enough to make suggestions? Are you paying the close attention that creation warrants? Are you paying attention to the dance of the dust motes.  What do you say to God and how does that inform you of what you know of God?

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Here is a poem I did not read that I find particularly delightful and close to some of my conversations with God.

I  like the weaving bees I like

The purple clover blossoms the way

The pasture runs away I like

In winter sinking lambs in straw

How I like bearing buckets full

of water waking up the sun

I like making up a little song

O looking at the sky I close

One eye I hold my hand in the air

I let the red hawk tip my fingers

Every day I pretend I am

A tree in your pasture Boss a tree …