Welcome to February, Beloved!

This month, we remember that love, connection, and belonging is part of the fabric of our humanity, and that these needs must be lifted up and honored in our faith communities. Whether we honor these needs around the communion table, in our homes, in our streets, loving, connecting and belonging help us stay human and whole.

Mary Oliver was a much beloved poet who won the National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize. Her poetry has drawn people back to faith, to nature, to their most authentic selves. In the poem we are about to read, we hear Oliver bear witness to transformation, both within communion, and herself, and in her understanding of her faith. How is it that we, through breaking bread, through bearing witness, through paying attention to God’s presence among us, could be transformed, too? Can we be made more whole through the belonging and connectedness we share? Let us contemplate these words from Mary Oliver.

The Vast Ocean Begins Just Outside Our Church: The Eucharist

Something has happened
To the bread
And the wine.

They have been blessed.
What now?
The body leans forward

To receive the gift
From the priest’s hand,
Then the chalice.

They are something else now
From what they were
Before this began.

I want
To see Jesus,
Maybe in the clouds

Or on the shore,
Just walking,
Beautiful man

And clearly
Someone else
Besides.

On the hard days
I ask myself
If I ever will.

Also there are times
My body whispers to me
That I have.

—Mary Oliver