I’m in the middle of harvest festivals at the various churches at which I serve and a friend recently sent me this poem by EE Cummings. It speaks to me.
I am a little church (no great cathedral) far from the splendour and squalor of hurrying cities
– I do not worry if briefer days grow briefest I not sorry when sun and rain make April
my life is the life of the reaper and the sower;
my prayers are prayers of the earth’s own clumsy striving
(finding and losing and laughing and crying) children
whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness.
Around them surges a miracle of unceasing birth and glory in death and resurrection:
over my sleeping self float flaming symbols of hope, and I wake to a perfect patience of mountains
IÂ am a little church (far from the frantic world with its rapture and anguish)at peace with nature
– I do not worry if longer nights grow longest;
IÂ am not sorry when silence becomes singing winter by spring, IÂ lift my diminutive spire to merciful Him Whose only now is forever:
standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence
(welcoming humbly His light and proudly His darkness)