Miracles are the blessings you count

Last week, I welcomed you to the season of miracles. But then, I quickly took that away by pointing out that miracles are not confined to November and December. Still, this is a time of year to celebrate, and those celebrations – whether religious, secular or mythic – are undeniably grounded in stories of miracles. So, let’s go there.

I said last week that miracles are the blessing you count. The late W.S. Merwin, U.S. poet laureate in 2010 and a winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, among his many awards, accolades and accomplishments, knew how to find blessings wherever he looked. He wrote this poem about a creed; that is, a faith, a set of beliefs that guide your actions, a guiding principle. We may think of a creed as something very concrete, very well-established, very traditional. But Merwin reminds us that we may find a creed in something just witnessed.

Maybe there’s a new awareness you just keyed into this week; maybe you will realize something fundamental in a moment that is coming. Whatever creed you follow or seek or find, here is Merwin’s in-the-moment, non-dualistic perspective in his poem A Momentary Creed.

A Momentary Creed

I believe in the ordinary day that is here at this moment and is me

I do not see it going its own way but I never saw how it came to me

it extends beyond whatever I may think I know and all that is real to me

it is the present that it bears away where has it gone when it has gone from me

there is no place I know outside today except for the unknown all around me

the only presence that appears to stay everything that I call mine it lent me

even the way that I believe the day for as long as it is here and is me

— W.S. Merwin, from his Pulitzer-Prize winning book The Shadow of Sirius (Copper Canyon Press, 2008)

May the week ahead be one of peace and love for you.