Thoughts, Ideas and Inspiration by Melissa Earley

You Don’t Have to Be Good

You don’t have to be good. You don’t have to know the right answers. You don’t have to show up on time and well prepared. You just get to be you and God loves you. That’s what grace is. Trust grace.

For many, fall is an anxious season. The cooler days and crisp nights are a relief from the clingy heat of a humid summer, but they don’t give relief for the back to school, back to schedule pressure of September. We review all the summer projects that we didn’t finish and log our inadequacies. Even if we’re not going back to class, this time of year reminds us of all the ways we are evaluated and know we don’t measure up.

A friend shared with me, a particularly well-chosen moment, the poem that concludes this post. What good news, “the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like wild geese, harsh and exciting—over and over announcing your place in the family of things.”

Learn the right answer for math class. Show up on time and prepared for work. But don’t put on a false Facebook self for God. Don’t weave a list of “ought’s” and “should’s” into a lead blanket you wear in God’s presence. Just show up. Just show up with your incompletes, uncertainties, and unfinished tasks. Just show up. Don’t try to earn “extra credit” from God. God doesn’t hand out grades. That’s what grace is. The unearned gift of God’s love. Trust grace.

 

Mary Oliver
WILD GEESE

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

 

6 Comments

  1. Norma Lee Kerns Barnhart

    “Just show up”.
    Genius.
    I needed that.

    Called to the world’s imagination….that works!
    Thank you!

    • admin

      Thanks, Norma Lee. I love Mary Olivery.
      Melissa

  2. Erin P. Gosser

    I, too, needed to hear this today. I keep worrying whether or not I gave my kids a good enough/fun enough/relaxing enough/busy enough summer. That, alone, is exhausting!

    • admin

      Thanks, Erin. I think part of parenting is feeling like you’ve always gotten it wrong.
      Melissa

  3. Kathy

    Oh to transition quickly as the monarchs on field of sunflowers I’ve been photographing. Yes, holding those sunny images helps transform the “winter” message overhead of geese.

    • admin

      I’d love to see the photos of the monarchs.
      Melissa

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