This morning they mowed the grass on the church lawn. I was surprised to hear the whirr and moan of the mower. Fall has come, the leaves are flaming and drifting. I half imagined that everyone had stowed their mowers and readied their rakes. Not yet.
The sound of the mowers registered in my head, but the smell of the new-mown grass, as I walked along the path from the rectory to the church, overtook me bodily. (Why is smell so strong!) That sweet green odor, the earth’s perfume, intoxicated me on an October morning. It smelled of
charcoal and burger smoke
fireflies and mosquitoes and white moths clinging to screen doors
sweat
sprinklers popping in the morning
honeysuckle
thunder and rain
coconut-scented sunscreen
popsicles
oven-roasted car seats
sand and saltwater
baked asphalt
shade
I prayed this morning, and I am walking this path to a church. But this is all that matters, the smell of grass in October. I will not stop praying and I will always walk toward this church, but the point of all prayer, the end of all religion is to bring us to union, to that place where everything belongs and so do we, where everything including darkness and suffering is somehow good and right.
I stopped on the path, took a deep noisy breath through my nostrils. Ah, eternity in cut grass. This is all that matters. This is why I pray. This is why I walk this path.
In my head I sort of get that it’s all one–but in reality I don’t see it yet. I’m not there. Wish I were… but then again, maybe I don’t.
All I do is sort of get it, too. Except in some moment like that, and for about two breaths it’s all clear. Then it’s gone.
Hi david and Pam–I find these moments happen most frequently in nature, like when I’m walking through a field of billowy grasses with the sun shining and a warm breeze blowing. I can distinctly feel God at those moments which is why I seek out nature (and why I think, I felt disconnected inside of an office all those years!)…loving your blog so much, david.
susie
Why does my name still appear? Help!!
I love your blog David, but I can’t ALWAYS comment.
Hope to not see my name anymore and to see you all soon!
David, I really enjoyed this. The sense of Eternity in October grass is not a logical, linear thing. It’s sensory and I guess like poetry I “get it” but could never explain it. That’s the beauty of poetry, or sunshine, or…. October grass. At the end of a busy, linear, task-lined day, it was refreshing to read 🙂