Every day I’m still looking for God
and I’m still finding him everywhere,
in the dust, in the flowerbeds.
Certainly in the oceans,
in the islands that lay in the distance
continents of ice, countries of sand
each with its own set of creatures
and God, by whatever name.
How perfect to be aboard a ship with
maybe a hundred years still in my pocket.
But it’s late, for all of us,
and in truth the only ship there is
is the ship we are all on
burning the world as we go.
— Mary Oliver, On Traveling to Beautiful Places

It’s late for all us. We can see this when we pay attention to such things. We can see the world burning as we go, we see the games of distraction that keep the masses occupied while the power brokers pad their pockets, and apparently we can’t do all that much about it. As I’ve said before, all we can really do is build resiliency and beauty into our own lives. But maybe we can do a little more. Maybe we can help others, lost in the darkness, find their way to beauty too.

To be aboard a ship with maybe a hundred years still in my pocket… Ah the places we’d go! We’ve only got this one go at things, and it’s late for all of us. Where shall we go today? The more I see, the more I come back to where I started. Our life’s work is ourselves, and as Michelangelo put it, seeing the angel in the marble and carving until we set him free. Yes, it’s getting late for all of us, but we may still keep carving to release the angels.

I’m not particularly religious (when you see the power brokers for who they are you see them everywhere), but there’s an undercurrent of spirituality running through me that is best expressed in empathy and reverence. Perhaps you feel that too. What’s beautiful in this world is realizing the connection. We’re all in the same boat, spinning through the universe, infinitesimal yet infinite all at once. Isn’t that miraculous?