Wednesday, July 20, 2011

The thread

I know, I'm all about the poems lately. I do appreciate the good use of words. His use of 'thread' is a bit less cruel than Suzanne Vega's. I wonder about the thread I follow as much as other people might, but I know that it's my thread - we define each other, as David Whyte explains - and I can see that while I hold it I can't get lost.

This comes from this website:


The Way It Is
There's a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn't change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can't get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time's unfolding.
You don't ever let go of the thread.
~ William Stafford (1914–1993)

3 comments:

Sue said...

Oh, the thread. It's golden to me. It's a golden thread. He knows about the thread! He's talking about the thread! :P

I have sort of lost hold of it recently. I'm in a period of questioning everything. I don't know even if I believe in God anymore, and I never thought I'd say *THAT*.

BUT, despite all of that, despite the fact I don't know anything, I know how it feels to have picked up the thread again. When you've got hold of that, you may want to know the answers to things but you don't necessarily NEED to know them. :)

E.Louise said...

I told someone the other day that we (Christians) tend to forget that life is about discovering the right questions not unearthing the correct answers.
I then found a similar thing attributed to Richard Rohr but I'm pretty sure I got it from reading either Henri Nouwen (have you read his books?) or Frederick Buechner. While I'm here, I also recommend Care of the Soul by Thomas Moore.
I also recommend a glass of wine at sunset.

Sue said...

What you say about discovering the right questions not the correct answers ... it's amazing how different those two landscapes are. One is expectancy, and the other expectation.

That sounds very Rohrian, doesn't it. I think that's what I love about what he speaks about, the inclusivity of everything, the embracing of the dark instead of suppressing it. No, I haven't read any Nouwen yet but I want to. I've read bits and pieces of him on the net and just love what I see.

Haha, love that last paragraph :)

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