Mary Oliver: Poet and Teacher

Today, American poet Mary Oliver passed away into the Great Unknown. While it is sad and we grieve her death, she leaves behind a plethora of lessons for all of us. Progressive Christians have found in Mary Oliver a teacher, a guide, and a coach. She has gifted us with her words, but also with her spirit of curiosity, her vulnerability, and her steadfast insistence on the goodness of the created world. 

Although her poems are vast and each one bears its own gifts to its hearers, we want to highlight a few of her poems and the import they have on our lives and our spirituality. 

“The Summer Day” 

When faith deconstruction happens, for some people it feels as if everything goes away. For people who are moving out of a conservative, evangelical religious group to a more open-minded existence, it can be challenging to have faith practices that you once held onto slip away with the beliefs you no longer hold.

Prayer is usually something that quietly slips into the deconstructed abyss. When we venture out of our tribes that hold prayer so central, we let go of it because we don’t know how to transform it in a positive way. 

But Mary Oliver teaches us that we can still pray. She says, 

“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?” 

The Summer Day

We can pray without knowing exactly what prayer is. We can still pray without really knowing how to reintegrate it into a progressive spirituality. Thanks to Mary Oliver, we know what to do. All we must do is pay attention. We must revere the ground that we walk upon. We must kneel down in the grass and thank it, for it has held us up. In paying attention, we are prayerfully grateful. 

“Instructions for Living Life” 

In her most simple, yet most profound poem, Mary Oliver lays out her “Instructions for Living Life:” 

Pay attention.

Be astonished. 

Tell about it. 

Instructions for Living a Life

There is no greater calling. Again we receive this lesson in paying attention from a great teacher. How much do you think the world would change if we actually let ourselves be astonished by something? 

The last time there was a corporate astonishment was the total solar eclipse on August 21, 2017. People traveled for hundreds of miles just to put themselves in the path of the total eclipse so that they could be astonished for 2 minutes. It was amazing. For a few minutes that day, communities came together. 

Progressive people of faith don’t do enough of these three activities. We have tendencies to deconstruct rather than allow them to astonish us. We definitely don’t know how to tell about what we’ve seen because we don’t want to be perceived as being “evangelical.” We have lost our ability to do these three tasks together, but it can be restored. 

“Wild Geese”

We live in a time in which it is easy for us to lose our way and lose a sense of belonging, especially if you are a progressive person who has left a community of faith (either on your own or by the urging of that community). We have loud voices telling us that we don’t belong in different groups: churches, families, towns, states, countries, workplaces. The list could go on. 

Mary Oliver reminds us that everyone and everything has a place in this world in her poem “Wild Geese:” 

“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

The world offers itself to your imagination,

Calls you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting, 

Over and over announcing your place, 

In the family of things.” 

“Wild Geese”

In this beautifully written piece, Mary Oliver tells us that there is no one who doesn’t have a place. Everyone and everything belongs. Despite the loudest voices, despite the voice in our heads, despite feeling alone, you have a place. You belong. 

Here at The Holy Craft, we seek to live these principles. We seek to pay attention. We seek to be astonished. And we seek to create space where people feel like they belong. We owe this in part to Mary Oliver. 

May she rest in peace.