The world gospel comes from the Greek and Latin meaning “a reward for bringing good news.” When we walk through life and notice what we experience we are rewarded. It requires a mindful and thoughtful approach noticing the old and the new sharing space with each other; dependent upon each other.
We are dependent on what is there. Thich Nhat Hanh suggested a garden’s weeds enable the growth of new plants. Farmers plow the previous year’s growth under avoiding erosion, adding nutrition to the soil, and helping keep moisture. We do not know whether the news is good until we pause and remember the context behind the news. What did that “bad” news really mean? When we listen more closely, we hear the music of the world singing a different refrain for us.
Philip Levine wrote this wonderful poem. I thought about what it means to receive news. Perhaps that letter in his pocket was not bad news, but, once he was over the pain, he found something new that he had not sensed before.
The new grass rising in the hills,
the cows loitering in the morning chill,
a dozen or more old browns hidden
in the shadows of the cottonwoods
beside the stream bed. I go higher
to where the road gives up and there’s
only a faint path strewn with lupine
between the mountain oaks. I don’t
ask myself what I’m looking for.
I didn’t come for answers
to a place like this, I came to walk
on the earth, still cold, still silent.
Still ungiving, I’ve said to myself,
although it greets me with last year’s
dead thistles and this year’s
hard spines, early blooming
wild onions, the curling remains
of spider’s cloth. What did I bring
to the dance? In my back pocket
a crushed letter from a woman
I’ve never met bearing bad news
I can do nothing about. So I wander
these woods half sightless while
a west wind picks up in the trees
clustered above. The pines make
a music like no other, rising and
falling like a distant surf at night
that calms the darkness before
first light. “Soughing” we call it, from
Old English, no less. How weightless
words are when nothing will do.
Teacher as Transformer 
Thank you Ivan for this thoughtful post and poem. The eloquence of the latter belies the quickly judged content of the letter bearing bad news about which nothing can be done. In the early days of American settlement, I think this was so often the case — many received “bad news” after the fact — a family member had died six months before; a beloved intended had married another — these were the kinds of events that transpired before a modern communication system made other options possible.
Still, your wonderings in preface to this poem impressed me in their own right and reminded me that context and time passing will often net another assessment of an even gone by. I appreciate your thoughts by way of introduction to the pieces that you post. Thank you, Alia
Context is hugely important. It makes reading a hermeneutic experience as opposed to just reading. Thank you for the wonderful comment and you are most welcome Alia.
I appreciated these serene and peaceful thoughts and your poem you found is great, too.
Thank you.
Wonderful.
Thank you Mark.
Excellent peaceful. Your thoughts are very much invited. Very Nice poem also.
Thank you Lvsrao.
What a remarkable poem. Subtle yet so powerful.