Lifting Up the Heart and Mind

"The snow had begun in the gloaming, and busily all the night had been heaping field and highway with a silence deep and white." James Russell

After having lived in the south (Florida, Mississippi, and Jamaica) for over 11 years, I was making an extended retreat in Allegany, NY in the fall and winter of 1977. One November morning I woke up to a snow-covered landscape. As I looked out the window at my first sight of the white stuff in a very long time, a few lines came to mind:

The snow had begun in the gloaming,
And busily all the night
Had been heaping field and highway
With a silence deep and white.

I was astounded! I had learned that poem (The First Snowfall by James Russell Lowell) in eighth grade and hadn’t thought of it since! It moved me to a grateful prayer for my memory and for good poetry.
 
When that same poem sprang into the forefront of my memory on a recent visit to Albany, NY (with another gorgeous snow that had “every pine and fir and hemlock [wearing] ermine too dear for an earl…”), I reflected on the great joy poetry has been in my life. It is not just the poems memorized under duress in grammar school, but the rich store of poems that offer themselves to us from varied and sometimes unlikely sources. 

I am not someone who writes poetry myself, but one for whom a few minutes with a book of poetry or a single poem can lift my spirits as does George Herbert’s Love III that speaks of God inviting me (any of us) to the table. Or sometimes a poem can challenge me to think of things in a new way. Phyllis McGinley’s simple A Choice of Weapons comes to mind:
 
Sticks and stones are hard on bones,
Aimed with angry art.
Words can sting like anything,
But silence breaks the heart.
 
An old definition of prayer is, “a lifting up of the mind and heart to God.” While we may not still think in terms of God being “up there” and us “down here,” that definition works in its simplicity. So we should do things that “lift up our minds and hearts.”

A walk along the beach, taking part in a hobby, reading poetry — all of these could “lift up” our minds and hearts, helping us to pray. Poetry certainly is at the top of my list! 

Join Cathy Cahill, OSF and Carol Mitchell, PhD for Poetry As A Prayer Practice on February 9 from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Franciscan Center. Bring a favorite poem with you if you like.