I had a professor this past semester who passed away at around the age of fifty. This never happened to me before so I was quiet shocked when I had heard about it. He was a good person and in many ways he taught me things that I would have never learned from a book.
This professor was an interesting one because he was a lawyer and he liked poetry. I remember walking into his law class and wondering if I was in the wrong room. He walked into the class and before introducing himself he read a poem from a book. The poem was A Summer Day by Mary Oliver. The poem is as follows:
“Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
-Mary Oliver
As I look back to this poem and remember my professor the one word that resounds in my mind is Gratitude. I realize how much I love my professor despite hardly knowing him and how thankful I am to the Lord for allowing us to cross paths. I am reminded of the countless blessings in my life and how easy it is to forget what the Lord has given me.
To pass through life without being grateful for what the Lord has given you is really one of the greatest tragedies.
All victories, challenges, and encounters are blessings to be thankful for, and to walk with Christ is to be in a constant state of gratefulness as we traverse this life.
Lord I am truly thankful for everything that has made this very moment possible. Amen
