Reading Mary Oliver with Kids

All of the won­der­ful fre­net­ic ener­gy on the screen calms a few spi­rals in. I see lit­tle noses scrunch­ing up to breath in, lips push­ing out to breath out. I see the messy morn­ing parts in their hair because they are busy look­ing down, intent on the prayer­ful spi­rals their fin­ger is drawing.

Once most of the zoom squares are still, I read them Mary Oliv­er poet­ry. I know, I know — Mary Oliv­er is an “adult” poet (you know what I mean!) But she uses words in such a divine way. I read to them about the wild things: whistling swans and singing wrens, the flow­ers and trees and geese. I read them Mary’s grace-filled, enthu­si­as­tic, wel­com­ing the­ol­o­gy of prayer because it’s the best lan­guage I know around this some­times tricky topic.

Then a wren in the priv­et began to sing.
He was pos­i­tive­ly drenched in enthu­si­asm,
I don’t know why. And yet, why not.
I wouldn’t per­suade you from what­ev­er you believe
or what­ev­er you don’t. That’s your busi­ness.
But I thought, of the wren’s singing, what could this be
if it isn’t a prayer?

(You can lis­ten to Mary read this her­self here. It’s pret­ty great.)

I want these kids to know their prayers need not be col­lec­tions of per­fect blue iris­es, but will some­times be a few small stones, or even weeds in a vacant lot, as they go through life. Adults often have so many shoulds around prayer — I’m try­ing to inoc­u­late these kids.

“Do you bow your head when you pray or do you look up into the blue space?” I ask them while they spi­ral to their center.

“Take your choice, prayers fly from all direc­tions.
And don’t wor­ry about what lan­guage you use,” I tell them.
God no doubt under­stands them all.
(from “Whistling Swans”)

Mary Oliv­er is will­ing to admit she doesn’t know exact­ly what prayer is — only that it is good and can often best be accessed out­doors in nature. She calls us to pay atten­tion, to not be so very sure of every sin­gle thing, but only the real­ly impor­tant things like stead­fast love and grace and kind­ness and joy.

I watch these small faces, these ten­der souls with their great big hearts, and I think they are as ready and deserv­ing of Mary Oliv­er poet­ry as any of us. And so I read it to them as they draw their cen­ter­ing spi­rals in pur­ple sand.

To those adults who ask the earnest ques­tion, “But do they under­stand her poet­ry?” I gen­tly ask, “Do you?”

These wild and pre­cious lives on my zoom screen give me such hope.