a prophetic voice-

Spent some time with my favorite poet last evening, reading some of the "gems" from Mary Oliver's latest volume, A Thousand Mornings. And as I read the words of one of them, "Poem of the One World", I wept, the beauty of the words overtaking me, astounding me, aweing me, bringing me to my knees, for I was hearing the voice of God coming from the pen of this seventy-eight-year-old poet. Thanks be to God!   POEM OF THE ONE WORLD by Mary Oliver This morning the beautiful white heron was floating above the water and then into the sky of this the one world we all belong to where everything sooner or later is a part of everything else which thought made me feel for a little while quite beautiful myself.

"In the beginning was the Word..." "In the beginning...God said..." The Gospel of John reflecting back on the words of Genesis, valuing and venerating words...the spoken and the written and the lived out. And for all my life, I have been a "word" person...a reader and writer and speaker and singer, relishing and cherishing words, the delicious taste of them in my mouth and oozing from my pen; valuing highly the gift of the use of language. Words surround me in stacks of books and shelves of books and DVDs, in my journals and volumes of poetry, both read and written. But it has only been in recent years that I have begun to surround myself with words in other ways: wearing jewelry which "speaks", bearing words of encouragement and strength and power, as well as filling my living space with words which enlighten and inspire... yet another way in which the Word is fleshed out. And in this way, the phrase, "the Living Word" has tak...