Words of Light and Hope from Dr Jane McLarty LLM

Words of Light and Hope

Sunday 14 th January

Jane McLarty

These days of January can be difficult; we have just packed away all the lights and
decorations of Christmas, and it is a long time perhaps before the next holiday or festival.
Yet even as the days get colder, we see signs of the coming spring. Bulbs have started to
shoot; the birds seem to be singing more loudly. Perhaps instead of looking back to what is
past, or forward to what is to come, we might practise living in the present moment, folding
ourselves ‘into the curve of time and space’ as in this poem about what might be seen as an
unwelcome visitor to the kitchen. The poet is a Quaker.

Thoughts Without Order Concerning the Love of God by Dana Littlepage Smith
The kingdom of my kitchen invites one snail
to measure a carrot peel with the full length
of her body. Of Christ and necessity this snail says
nothing. The celery shines. By morning, my countertops,
my floor will glisten with the star road of her meanderings.
It measures a universe of dark and light in silence.
The fleshed heart of the strawberry, the skirts of daffodils:
each in its turn holds this snail’s antennaed attention.
To fold into the curve of time and space, exactly
as things are is this creature’s genius and my intent,
daily in the kingdom of my dark kitchen
where life arrives with its glorious abandon.