Daily Devotion

The Peace of the Wild Things by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

When I first read this poem by Wendell Berry, I thought about how I sometimes have sleepless nights where I worry about my life and what is happening around me.   In Berry’s beautiful words, I recognized my life.  I wonder if this sometimes happens to you too?  At first glance, this poem reminded me of the call to not worry about things, as Jesus encourages his followers, in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:25-34).  You might remember his words, “Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not of more value than they? (Mt. 6:26)

But as I sat with this poem longer, at least for me, it became a call to sabbath rest, to saying no to other things, so I could rest in God’s love and care, so I could rest in God’s grace.   I heard in the poem a call to a day, to a time, where more God was the only thing on the agenda.  It is a blessing to have only one thing to do in a day, isn’t it?  Barbara Taylor Brown writes this about sabbath, “Test the premise that you are worth more than what you can produce—that even if you spent one whole day being good for nothing you would still be precious in God’s sight and when you get anxious because you are convinced this is not so remember that your conviction is not required.  Your worth has already been established (by God) even when you are not working and worrying.  The purpose of the (Sabbath) commandment is to woo you to that same truth.”  In essence she is saying, we are all worthy and God’s love holds us and everything in the palm of God’s hand

Sabbath time is the counterbalance to all the worry which can gnaw away at us.  Sabbath time is where we find love, rest, freedom and the time to just be. 

How do the wild things bring you peace?

What does taking a sabbath mean to you and to those you love?