The Gospel of Mary Oliver (1935 – 2019) – a documentary film
This article is a review by Rev Jim Burklo on a recent website article circulated early August. Mary Oliver was a mystic poet and lover of nature. The title of the film, Savedby the beauty of the world, is a line from one of her poems. Utube will download this film. In the following article the writer will use Roman typeface for Jim Burklo’s words and italicised typeface for the words of Mary Oliver. Subheadings will highlight the different sections.Introduction
Mary Oliver died in 2019, her passing hastened no doubt by her long addictions to cigarettes and alcohol. She did not fit the stereotypes of sainthood. After her long time partner died she attended an Episcopal church in Provincetown on Cape Cod for a while – but her friends said the main reason she went was because she had the hots for the woman who was the priest! She wasn’t religious in any format sense.
Mary Oliver once said ‘attention is the beginning of devotion’. In the little poem , ‘Instructions for beginning a life’ she wrote ‘Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.’ That’s the gospel of Mary Oliver in three short sentences. Here’s three verses of a poem.
Poem: Mockingbirds
This morning
two mockingbirds
In the green field
were spinning and tossing
the white ribbons
of their songs
into the air
I had nothing
better to do
than listen
I mean this
seriously
Be Attentive
Those among us with infirmities and limitations that make us useless as cogs in the great Machine of production and consumption still have the supreme ability to be attentive. To watch, to appreciate, to notice. This is what makes us the crowns of creation – that, as Mary Oliver wrote , we have nothing better to do than stare at mockingbirds. Appreciatively listening to mockingbirds is why we are here. It is what we are for. It is the meaning of our lives. It is the culmination of the evolution of consciousness in the universal! Seriously, do we ever have something bettet to do than listen?
Quotations from three Poems
Black Oaks
For there I am, in the mossy shadows, under the trees.
And to tell the truth I don’t want to let go of the wrists
of idleness. I don’t want to sell my life for money.
I don’t even want to come in out of the rain.
The Sun
Do you think there is anywhere
in any language
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure
that fills you
as the sun
reaches out
as it warms you
as you stand there,
empty- handed -
or have you too
turned from this world –
or have you too
gone crazy
for power
for things?
Row for your life
You are young.So you know everything. You leap
into the boat and begin rowing. But listen to me.
Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without
any doubt. I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me.
Lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and
your heart and heart’s little intelligence, and listen to
me There is life without love. It is not worth a bent
penny or a scuffed shoe It is not worth the body of a
dead dog nine days unburied. When you hear, a mile
away and still out of sight, the churn of the water
as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the
sharp rocks- when you hear that unmistakable
pounding- when you feel the mist on your mouth
and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls
plunging and steaming –then row, row for your life
toward it.
The poem could have been an abbot’s advice imparted to a young monk, thirsty for union with the Divine, in a stone hut in the Egyptian desert in the fourth century. The boat isn’t just for rowing, it is for sitting and contemplating, attending to the water’s flow – and only then, at full speed, rowing toward the sound of the water churning, falling in love with the mist in your mouth, falling in love with steam, taking the plunge of love.
Summing Up
The documentary of her life reveals that for most of her years, Mary Oliver succeeded in not selling her life for money and, as a result, she had hardly any of it. She tried hard to break into the literary world. Her biggest problem was the fact that her writing was so readable, so relatable for most people. I get the New Yorker magazine, and every now and again it will run a poem that makes sense to me, but most of its poetry is so obscure in reference and structure that I’m left cold. It’s for insiders. Mary Oliver infuriated the literary establishment by becoming so popular. But once she came into fame, those protestations fell on deaf ears. She was and remains one of the most important literary figures, she didn’t want to come in out of the rain, she didn’t go crazy for power, for things, and we.re better for it. She went into the woods and saved the only life she could save by attending deeply to the lives of birds and fish and foxes. In the quietude of the forest she could begin to hear her own inner voice. Her relationship with nature made possible her relationship with herself.
Note on Rev. Jim Burklo: - lecturer in the University of Southern Carlifornia . Focus on Progressive Christianity, mindfulness and religion in politics Email: Burklo@use.edu Publishes regularly from website.
-- John Thornley