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I’ve been reading a lot of poetry lately and listening to novels when I walk or drive. The combination of reading, along with my classes has been good for my writing. One of my classes this quarter is all about using writing to heal in different ways. I’m in the midst of a research project right now about using writing to get to action in various parts of our lives.

All of this is running alongside my study for Lent and the daily devotion and scripture reading which always ends up leading me to poetry. Mary Oliver is one of my go-to poets, and her poem, “The Summer Day” really gets you to thinking about how you are using your life. Today, I wrote about a virtue I want to work on and I wrote about “…what [it is I] plan to do with [my] one wild and precious life” (Oliver).

We waste so much time waiting for the right time to do this or do that, to go here or go there, to meet this person or that person, to try this or try that, to be this or be that, to do

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this or do that, to experience this or experience that. Why? Are we that afraid to live our lives? To live the best life we can imagine? There really isn’t time for all of this waiting.

We have one “wild and precious” life to live. We should get after it, now, just do that next small thing to keep heading down that path to where we want to be. When we can do this with joy and humility, in love and with grace, those who are dragging their feet will be able to, eventually, catch on and catch up and figure out that this new place we’re going is full and rich and holds blessing for them too.