God requires us to be oriented from moment to moment to what is in the timeless, and not to be stuck with our thoughts and fantasies of blaming and self-pity and the belief that the past is responsible for our present problems. What is needed is to understand life in the dimension of the timeless, where everything becomes meaningful and self-revealing.
I rarely think of poetry as something I make happen; it is more accurate to say that it happens to me. Like a summer storm, a house afire, or the coincidence of both on the same day. Like a car wreck, only with more illuminating results. I've overheard poems, virtually complete, in elevators or restaurants where I was minding my own business... When a poem does arrive, I gasp as if an apple had fallen into my hand, and give thanks for the luck involved. Poems are everywhere, but easy to miss. I know I might very well stand under that tree all day, whistling, looking off to the side, waiting for a red delicious poem to fall so I could own it forever. But like as not, it wouldn't.
~ Barbara Kingsolver from "Stealing Apples" in SMALL WONDER
