“Summer Blessings: Praise”
Psalm 150, as rendered by Nan C. Merrill
“Six Recognitions of the Lord,” by Mary Oliver
“The Poet Speaks of Praising,” by Rainer Maria Rilke
The truth is that Mary Oliver could have named almost every single one of her poems some number of recognitions of the Holy. That’s what most of them are about. Truly, that’s what most of her 22 books of poetry and prose are about.
Then again, who would read a poem called “439 Recognitions of the Lord”?
It’s the same with the psalms—every one of these 150 hymns could have been a praise song, and they still wouldn’t have covered all the goodness in the world, all the Holy in every moment. And, because life is more than goodness, we also have psalms of lament and repentance, psalms of faith and psalms of doubt.
And still, both the psalms and much of Mary Oliver’s poetry invite us to step away from our self-absorbed thoughts and feelings and to, at least occasionally, recognize and praise the Holy that is all around us and always with us.
Praise God for the poets, the artists, the musicians, the teachers, the writers, and other creatives who encourage us to pay attention, who invite us to see and celebrate love, beauty, joy, and connection. They, like the Holy itself, are everywhere—even on social media.
Consider for a moment these tiny little joys, observations of everyday kindness and goodness, shared on Instagram by Jasmine Wilder:
A woman drops a bottle of pasta sauce in the grocery store. It shatters. She closes her eyes like she might cry. A worker walks over with a mop and says, “Happens daily. You’re good. Let me get you a new one.”
A boy waves at a plane overhead. The woman next to him asks who he’s waving at. He says he’s waving “just in case someone up there is looking down.” She waves too.
You’re standing on a planet with molten lava in the middle. Your heart is beating without you asking. There’s a moon in the sky and bugs that glow. The whole thing is absurdly beautiful.
You woke up this morning. Your lungs worked. The sun showed up again. A million things went right before your feet even hit the floor.
The Earth literally tilts just right so we get seasons. Bees communicate through dancing. Northern lights exist.
The same water that is in your body has been in rivers, clouds, and glaciers. You’re part rainstorm. Part mountain. Part ocean wave. No wonder you feel everything.
A girl petting a dog whispers, “You’re my best friend and you don’t even know it.” The dog definitely knows.
Yes, the news is loud. But so is the laughter in kitchens. The hugs in driveways. The toddlers yelling “LOOK!” That’s the world, too.
You cried at a commercial? Good. You said “I love you” too early? Lovely. You felt joy like it was fire? Perfect. The world is numb enough.
Earth didn’t have to smell like rain, or make strawberries sweet, or fill forests with birds that literally sing. But it did. And you’re here to witness it.
And how great is all that?
Speaking of singing, some of you may have noticed that I changed the theme of this fourth and final Sunday in our “Summer Blessings” series from singing to praise. I have nothing against singing, of course—in fact, I’ve spent some recent Thursday evenings at community sing-alongs. But I came to feel that sing or singing was too narrow to convey the breadth and depth of the natural—by which I mean Spirit-seeded—feelings and responses that pour forth from us when our open hearts come into full communion with the Holy in all its manifestations, with the wonder and beauty of life on this earth.
Singing is one way we can express and share those feelings—and there are many more. Worshipping is another. Other ways include, but are by no means limited to, crying, dancing, writing, giving thanks, drawing or painting, clapping, jumping, shouting, praying, cooking, knitting, gardening, sharing what we have, giving ourselves over to joy, expressing our love, showing up to life with our full, authentic selves.
You may call it something else, but for the purposes of our “Summer Blessings” series, I have chosen to call it praise—because praise feels inclusive to me. It contains multitudes of forms of expression, of which singing is just one. And the word praise, like our other “Summer Blessings” themes—Rest, Trust, and Play—is both noun and verb, reminding us, I hope, that blessing comes not only in doing but also in being, that a blessing is, above all, something we are given.
A blessing, it seems to me, begins with receiving and noticing what we’ve been given—not because we are good, not because we’ve earned it, not because we deserve it, but simply because we are. We are blessed precisely because we and everyone and everything that came before us were created in Love, by Love, and for love; because everything we need is here, and because God wants us to know peace, joy, wholeness, and abundance.
Praise is what happens when we slow down enough to remember and notice that. Praise is what happens when we let God’s goodness heal and change us. Praise is what happens when we are able to see ourselves, all people, all creatures, all creation, and all situations through the loving eyes of God.
And praise, as the poet Rilke reminds us, is what can keep us grounded when the world is going to hell in a hand basket, when our lives are filled with more pain than we think we can bear, when the worst of humanity is on full display, when the human capacity for cruelty seems limitless, when hope is hard to find, when getting through each day is a struggle.
For, as Robert Hayden, the first Black U.S. poet laureate said: “We must not be frightened or cajoled into accepting evil as our deliverance from evil. We must go on struggling to be human, though monsters of abstraction threaten and police us.”
Hayden went on, using some derogatory, racist terms that I will not repeat here, to exhort his readers to “reclaim now, now renew the vision of a human world where godliness is possible and [humans are] neither [this racist characterization or that dehumanizing term] but [humans] permitted to be [human.]
Humans, I would add, made in the image of God. Humans made to love and rest and trust and play and praise. Humans made to live together in peace. Humans made to share so that everyone has enough. Humans made to notice and appreciate the world and all its creatures that were made for them to care for. Humans made to praise the Giver.
Just as our bodies are born with all the muscles they will need for a life of movement and strength, so the capacity for praise and thanksgiving is baked into our souls. And just as our muscles must be used, trained, and developed for us to know the fullness of our physical potential, so our souls must practice paying attention and living with intention for us to discover the healing, life-giving power of praise.
Praise God that every moment presents us with opportunities to practice, whether it’s weeping with joy over the birth of a grandchild, being carried away by the sublime beauty of a piece of music, gasping at the intricate wonder of a flower, marveling at the kindness of someone who suffers, delighting in the sweet coldness of an ice cream cone, or melting into the arms of our beloved.
May we have eyes open to see. May we have the discipline to slow down and pay attention. May we have the courage to open our hearts. May we have the freedom to rejoice.
And may we always remember that every blessing—including rest, trust, play, and praise—is available to us not only in summer but in every moment, all year ‘round.
Praise be.
