Days pass when I forget the mystery.
Problems insoluble and problems offering
their own ignored solutions
jostle for my attention, they crowd its antechamber
along with a host of diversions, my courtiers, wearing
their colored clothes; caps and bells.
And then
once more the quiet mystery
is present to me, the throng’s clamor
recedes: the mystery
that there is anything, anything at all,
let alone cosmos, joy, memory, everything,
rather than void: and that, 0 Lord,
Creator, Hallowed one, You still,
hour by hour sustain it.
― Denise Levertov, Sands of the Well
My husband and I recently spent five ten-hour days totally absorbed in the BNP Paribas tennis tournament in Indian Wells, California. Tennis became our food and drink. Already fans of the top professional players, we got to know the lower ranked ones, becoming enamored with their unique talents and quirks as well. Up close, we could see how much harder players hit the ball than we previously thought. I wondered if I could return a 120 mile-per-hour serve. The muscularity and fitness of the players was clearer. Their mini-celebrations and frustrations were so apparent. It was an entirely different game from the view on our living room couch.
It was easy to be caught up in this colorful and exciting alternate universe on vacation. Now, we have returned home to our routine lives. And I return to my routine, which includes the quiet. I turn to Mystery every day. I am reminded by the cornflower blue of the morning sky today as I run across the Golden Gate Bridge. My dog Rafa licks me when I return to our apartment as if I have been gone for a month. My husband hugs and kisses me. It’s the welcome of angels. I remember the One who joined humanity and shared every human experience that we might know no separation from Love. Hallowed One, You still, hour by hour sustain all.