Presentation Sisters Union North East Ireland Union of Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
It is past mid-summer. Our lives seem in these days to be juxta-positioned as part of a profound and challenging landscape of suffering humanity. Perhaps we have never been so inter-connected and so interwoven into the lives of others by the very separation we endure in this COVID-19 environment, that it challenges us to love and care for the other person as we would for ourselves and those we love. This poem written by Ana Lisa De Jong reminded me of how beauty feeds us.
Communion with the Universe and all the beauty it has to share (if we have the eyes to see) sustains Life, Hope and Light, affirming who we are. It is a creation out of Love that begets and affirms the Love we are and have to share.
BEAUTY AS BREAD
We need beauty as much as bread.
Perhaps, in a sense
beauty is its own form of bread.
One we do not arrive at hungry again.
But a kind of bread that sustains.
Nourishes, that the smallest morsel,
can shine as a jewel against the dark,
can make all our days.
What is a room with shutters closed,
compared to an open arched
window framed, revealing how
the humblest view can widen our vision.
And what is beauty but
a singular type of promise,
potential distilled to its most basic,
invigorating essence.
A kind of boundless optimism.
Beauty, just because.
Because in a seed, in an ear of wheat,
is all its grain.
No wonder we are filled.
Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
August 2020
The evolving legacy of Nano Nagle inspires us to live today as she did feeding the body, mind and hearts of those made poor through circumstance. See HERE
(Note: Ana Lisa de Jong is a poet and inspirational writer, mother and wife, and Chaplains Administrator for the New Zealand Defence Force. Not always in that order).