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Thursday, April 20, 2000
iommemtaffy
The Southern Cross, Page 5
Easter exalts the ordinary or the “dailiness” of life
Well Water
What a girl called “the dailiness of life”
(Adding an errand to your errand. Saying
“Since you’re up... ” Making you a means to
A means to a means to) is well water
Pumped from an old well at the bottom of the
world.
The pump you pump the water from is rusty
And hard to move and absurd, a squirrel-wheel
A sick squirrel turns slowly, through the sunny
Inexorable hours. And yet sometimes
The wheel turns of its own weight, the rusty
Pump pumps water over your sweating face the
clear
Water, cold, so cold! You cup your hands
And gulp from them the dailiness of life.
—Randall Jarrell
I found this poem as I was thumbing through
an anthology, searching for an idea for a col
umn. April is poetry month, and in recognition
of that, I wanted to write a column including
poetry. But I also wanted to write an Easter col
umn, and I was hoping to combine the two if I
found a good poem on spring. I almost included
A. E. Housman’s poem “Loveliest of Trees the
Cherry Now” which describes the ephemeral
beauty of cherry blossoms and Housman’s desire
to “seize the day” by appreciating spring’s beau
ty while it lasts.
We have a cherry tree in our yard, and it was
breathtaking—for three days. Now, after a night
of rain, its blossoms litter the grass like spilled
popcorn. Reading Housman’s poem and observ
Mary Hood
ing our tree, I am reminded how quickly
time passes and beauty fades, and how
urgently I must appreciate life.
I probably would have written
about that, but then I found this
poem. On the surface, it has noth
ing to do with Easter or spring. But
when I found it, I knew immediate
ly that I must write about it because
Easter, spring, and this poem are
about transformation.
Every week, before I sit down to
write this column, I spend time in
prayer and contemplation. Imagining I am the
Samaritan woman who encounters Jesus at the
well, I ask Jesus to provide me with the living
water he refers to when he tells her: “If only you
recognized God’s gift, and who it is that is ask
ing you for a drink, you would have asked him
instead, and he would have given you living
water.”
Each week, in prayer, I ask for that living
water as a way to find inspiration for my work
and to call upon the Holy Spirit for guidance.
This week, I came to my prayer and to my work
feeling tired, empty, and stale. I was approaching
the task of writing as if I were going about one
more errand in an endless routine. In my prayer
asking for help in writing about Easter, the most
miraculous of seasons, I approached Jesus at the
well as if I were performing one more mundane
chore. And in my meditation, as the Samaritan
woman, I began pumping water from a pump
“rusty and hard to move and absurd.” Like
Jarrell’s “sick squirrel” I was turning the
wheel of my daily life, slowly, arduously.
Yet something startling happened.
Through God’s grace, “The wheel
turns of its own weight, the rusty /
Pump pumps over your sweating face
the clear / Water, cold so cold!”
The connection between Jarrell’s
poem “Well Water” and Easter is that in
both a radical, astonishing change
occurs. Indeed through poetry, through
Hart spring, and, most significantly, through
Easter’s promise, the “rusty pump” of
our ordinary lives and “the dailiness of life”
become miraculous. This rusty pump becomes a
utensil (“a means to”) which conducts the cold,
clear water that refreshes and renews us, reawak
ening our senses and inspiring us to gulp the
“dailiness of life” from cupped hands.
Easter exalts the tedious, the mundane, the
ordinary. When we recognize it as God’s gift to
each one of us, the Resurrection transforms
every aspect of our lives—forever. Then, in the
course of our daily routine, when we go to the
well, we gulp from cupped hands to fill our
hearts with the water Jesus calls “a fountain ...
leaping up to provide eternal life.”
Mary Hood Hart lives with her husband and
four children in Sunset Beach, N.C.
<( God Sees the Heart
yy
By Rose Cisik
W e are all God’s children.
There is good in all of us.
God does not make junk; he sees
the hearts of brothers and sisters.
All of us have drawn conclusions
from a first impression. We can
make harsh judgments that can pro
duce false or even sinful feelings.
“But the Lord said to Samuel; ‘Do
not judge from his appearance or
from his lofty stature, because I
have rejected him. Not as man sees
does God see, because man sees the
appearance but the Lord looks into
the heart’” (7 Samuel 16:7).
There have been times in my life
that I had the wrong opinion of a
person. When we get to know peo
ple, we do see more deeply the
good in them. Through God, we
begin to see people as Jesus sees
them because we see through his
eyes.
We need childlike faith in God. It
is simple, sincere and from the
heart. Being childlike, we are free
from worldly ambition, able to see
clearly the signs and wonder of
God all around us. We see things
not at face value, but at faith value.
God knows us better than we
know ourselves, better than anyone
does. He knows our needs and
hurts. When we hurt, God hurts.
The only person that truly knows
what is in our hearts is God. There
are hurts that only God can heal,
there are burdens that only God can
lift, and there are fears that only
God can put to rest.
Our Lord can do the impossible
in the hearts of those whose minds
are alert and ready to receive his
word and accept Jesus into their
lives. During this Lenten season, let
us open our hearts and pray that the
Holy Spirit may enlighten us as to
how much we are still of the world
and about the truths concerning
ourselves, so that we may see the
world through the eyes of our Lord.
Let us make the changes that are
necessary in our lives to become
the persons God wants us to be.
Rose Cisik is a member of Saint
Mary on the Hill Parish, Augusta.
TV Mass Schedule
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Sundays
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Survival School!!
“A Vision of Ministry in the Church of Today”
July 23-28, 2000
Leader: Mr. Terry Temple and Team, Diocese of Phoenix
Survival School is designed for those who are entrusted with
responsibility for the management of church-related programs
staffed predominantly with volunteers. The workshop, now in its
22nd year, is presented by the Phoenix Diocesan Center tor
Religious Studies and Lay Ministry Formation (Kino Institute)
and is staffed by leaders with extensive experience in church
management, both at the parish and diocesan level.
Recommended especially for Coordinators of Religious Edu
cation, Youth Ministry, of Liturgy, Pastors, heads of parish orga
nizations or ministries.
Workshop begins on Sunday at 3:00 p.m.
and closes on Friday by 3:30 p.m.
Cost: $284 (Private) / $229 (Double) / $80 (Commuter) +
Tuition of $250. Registration Deadline: June 21, 2000
Contact: Marywood Center for Spirituality & Ministry
1714-5 State Road 13 • Jacksonville, Florida 32259-9253
(904) 287-2525