Poems for Ave and Arnstein

As so often, a line from the tekst for the Sunday readings keeps lingering in my mind and finds new places to fit in. This time it seems the perfect entry to a blogpost I had intended to write for Ave and Arnstein for their wedding.

I had the wonderful privilege of being asked to share a poem at their celebration. 

And what a celebration it was! 3 whole days of adventure. Starting with a beautiful church ceremony, followed by a lovely party and two days of exploration in bright sunshine with a group of wonderful people to places that show coastal Northern Norway in all its glory.

So, I had the wonderful privilege of being asked to share a poem at their celebration. I chose a poem I have loved so much I translated it to English to read at my daughter’s wedding. It speaks of the small voice of love, which is so gentle we may need to stop and get completely still to notice it. 

As Ave and Arnstein both are conservationists, another poem declaring another kind of love surfaced. The poems are both below.

Love has so many voices. 

At the wedding ceremony we heard the words of St. Paul declaring the highest and pures of loves. The love that always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres…that never fails. 
The priest gave a beautiful sermon on love. 
And we could all see it, clear as day, the love Ave and Arnstein have for each other. 
Here is my small contribution to ponder this mystery called love. The strongest force in the universe, so strong people sacrifice and die by it…and live by it in the smallest fractions of our days. 

Do you love me more than these, asked he who had just sacrificed his life… ready to forgive, knowing love can “cover a multitude of sins”. We are also invited to take part in this wonderful gift.

Love is what makes us “live forever”, in the hearts of those who love us, in the world we gave our care to preserve and perhaps even in a hereafter……

The lights of life

Maybe we will encounter
Loneliness in the hereafter
Deeper loneliness, perhaps
Than we experience on earth.

The yearning for eternity
may pass after our passing
And then brief moments from our lives
will shine like stars, when we are dead.

It is not the times of glory
I expect a soul will long for
Not what generations treasure
From the lives that we have lived

Rather fleeting moments twinkle
Like the stars of early evenings
Barely visible, these hold
The essence of our days

Maybe lucent summer evenings
Happily one like the other
Will be the light that lingers
from the life that now is yours?

Summer evenings-
The road is like a peaceful river
flowing through the wheat fields
You are going home and you’re expected

You are expected-
Going home

Could there be anything better?
No, in death you will remember,
If you can remember.- this one feeling
You are expected, -going home.

There a special dish for dinner
tells you she was thinking of you
Maybe a few more thoughts
are seen in flowers by your plate

“Turn the lamp on? -We don’t need to.
Yes, -why not, just light a small one.”
See your wife, the lamp is saying
All is hers, and she is yours.

Are forget-me-nots forgotten since
Their blue blends with the skyline?
Happiness is a workday evening
Does that make life less meaningful?

If the dead can yearn for something
This could be what they are missing
No, I’m sure this would be their longing
and I know, long before I’m dead.

Reinterpreted from Livets Lys
by Gunnar Reiss Andersen

My work is loving the world.

by Mary Oliver

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird – 
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,

Which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.