Storage

What do Matthew the gospel writer, Mary Oliver the poet, and Marie Kondo the author have in common? They all have some profound things to say about stuff. What kind of stuff? Well it depends on your perspective. As George Carlin noted, "You have sh*t. I have stuff."

Let's start with the sublime and work our way down to the ridiculous. "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matthew 19:21). If this sentiment ran the world, it would fix all our social and economic ills. Some things seem important to me not based on their merit, but because I do them. Do people really need to know a lot of calculus and statistics? Well, because I treasure my career teaching those topics, it sure does seem like they need to know. My heart is definitely there. What if we put our treasure into improving health care, living conditions, nutrition, and other worthy things to show that our heart is with the welfare of our fellow humans?  I don't know if Matthew was suggesting such a virtuous lifestyle or simply stating the fact that if people did it, it would be really great.

Mary Oliver describes moving and not having room for all of her stuff. She rented a storage unit and left her possessions there for years. Then, "As I grew older the things I cared about grew fewer, but were more important" so one day she called a trash man to to come take everything away then she wrote the poem "Storage" about it. It reminded me of the weird feelings of both sadness and relief as I watched my parents' estate sale offer up millions of items. There's no way to transfer sentimentality, which turns valuation on its head. Seeing mementos of fun times sold for a quarter can be jarring to say the least, but I was also very happy to know that I wasn't going to have to assume the care and dusting of all that stuff. Which brings us to Marie Kondo. As a side note, I bought her book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up immediately after I read the first review of it, and this was long before Netflix found her. Not that this matters, but it kind of does to me. Anyway, her ideas of holding on loosely to our possessions and keeping only the ones that "spark joy" struck a chord with me. When parting with the ones that don't make the cut, her suggestion is to be grateful even to the point of thanking the item for serving whatever purpose it was that brought it into the house in the first place. Spring cleaning with gratitude seems like an excellent plan to me. Or as Mary Oliver put it, "Make a beautiful fire!"

Praying with Matthew and Mary Oliver

According to Matthew, Jesus was annoyed by showy public prayers and much preferred the secret, solitary kind (Matthew 6:5-14). I always want to mention these verses when I hear someone say something like, "We didn't have terrible things like [fill in the blank] until they took prayer out of the schools." I think Jesus might have equated athletic fields with street corners in his instructions if he had anticipated the fondness some people feel for prayer before football games. I love Jeff Foxworthy's, "Lord, prepare them for the butt kicking they are about to receive" version of football prayer. I have no intention of wading into the hornet's nest of kneeling on the football field for prayer or protest or crediting God with sports victories. I'm just making the point that the Bible suggests going alone into a room, shutting the door, and using natural language for prayer.

Mary Oliver's poem "Praying" is so short, that I'll just type it out below.

It doesn't have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don't try
to make them elaborate, this isn't
a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence in which 
another voice may speak.

Oh my goodness, she is so right. Wandering around alone (or with a dog) outside has a lot in common with going into a room and closing the door. Cecil and I pass beautiful lawns and flowers and woodsy vacant lots with weeds on our daily walks, and honestly, at times the abundance of life overwhelms me with gratitude and awe. Sometimes I patch a simple prayer together and sometimes I let the birds and frogs do it. I highly recommend taking a daily walk through the doorway into thanks.

Lent with Mary Oliver: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.

I have been rummaging through my books and bookmarked websites thinking about whether I wanted to do anything of substance for Lent this year. As I walked into church this morning, Carolyn Padgett was handing out The Poetry of Lent, A Lenten Companion to Mary Oliver's Devotions. Joy, joy! The idea had Lin Veasey and Chelsea Thornton written all over it, and sure enough, they are as usual the thoughtful, organized ones who got everything ordered, compiled, and distributed.

I am a total dunce when it comes to poetry, and not for lack of trying. I get impatient when I try to read it, and can't focus on much of anything beyond Shel Silverstein. (Although I did read a lot of him when my girls were young.) I've asked for suggestions from literary people. I even took a creative writing class and thought maybe I could approach it backwards by writing it first and then understanding it later. That didn't work. There is one exception to this sad, sad story.... Mary Oliver.

When I read Mary Oliver's poems, I think, Yes!, that's exactly what I think. In fact, I sometimes wonder how it's possible that I didn't write it first. Could it be that she's the poet for dunces? I mean that in the most complimentary way possible. I sometimes feel that my strength as a math professor has always been that I can talk about math to people who aren't quantitative thinkers. In fact, I've frequently gotten feedback to that effect. "This is the most verbal math class I've ever taken. I loved it!" and "This is the most verbal math class I've ever taken. I hated it!" I can't ever remember getting, "I was awed by the theoretical brilliance of Dr. Case." That's not my thing. But it is satisfying to hear that someone appreciates a mathematical concept in a new way for the first time.

Judging by the wild popularity of Oliver's poetry, she's probably had the same effect on millions of other readers that she has on me. She, however, is also admired by people who actually know something about poetry. And she loves dogs. Can't wait to spend Lent with her.