Spiritual Quote of the Day (Mary Oliver, on ‘The Piece of God That Is Inside Each of Us’)

“Maybe our world will grow kinder eventually.
Maybe the desire to make something beautiful 
is the piece of God that is inside each of us.”—Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet Mary Oliver (1935-2019), “Franz Marc's Blue Horses,” in Blue Horses: Poems (2014)

Quote of the Day (Poet Mary Oliver, on Why ‘Joy Is Not Made to be a Crumb’)

 “If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the
case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.”—Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet Mary Oliver (1935-2019), “Don’t Hesitate,” in Swan: Poems and Prose Poems (2010)

Quote of the Day (Mary Oliver, on ‘One Wild and Precious Life’)

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?”—Mary Oliver, “The Summer Day,” from New and Selected Poems (1992)

Quote of the Day (Mary Oliver, on the Soul)

"This is the first and wildest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.”—American poet Mary Oliver, “"Low Tide," Amicus Journal, Winter 2001

Quote of the Day (Mary Oliver, on ‘Small, Available Things’)

“I am scorched

to realize once again

how many small, available things

are in this world

that aren’t pieces of gold

or power."— Mary Oliver, “Summer Story,” in Red Bird (2009)

I took the picture accompanying this post at Harbourtown in Hilton Head, S.C.

(Thanks to my friend Gretel DeRuiter for bringing the poet Mary Oliver to my attention.)

Quote of the Day (Mary Oliver, on God’s Gift of ‘Another Day’)

"Lord, when I sleep I feel you near.

When I wake, and you are already wiping the stars away,

I rise quickly, hoping to be like your wild child

the rose, the honey-maker the honey-vine;

a bird shouting its joy as it floats

through the gift you have given us: another day."—Mary Oliver, "More Beautiful than the Honey Locust Tree Are the Words of the Lord," in Thirst: Poems (2006)

I took this image of Chautauqua Lake two months ago while on vacation at the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York.