{"id":801,"date":"2025-08-26T14:51:37","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T13:51:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rebelrebel.org.uk\/?p=801"},"modified":"2025-08-26T14:51:38","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T13:51:38","slug":"the-summer-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rebelrebel.org.uk\/?p=801","title":{"rendered":"The Summer Day"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Reflection #108 (22nd June 2025 at Essex Church \/ Kensington Unitarians)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last Sunday, after the service, a few of us were sitting in the back garden, and we got to talking about butterflies. I love wildlife of all varieties, and am always on the lookout for anything at all unusual, so I mentioned that I\u2019d seen a tortoiseshell butterfly that week, not one I see very often. This was met with slightly blank and bemused faces and even a little shrug. I was reminded that not everybody is into the same stuff as I am; we can\u2019t all tell our tortoiseshells from our painted ladies. And that\u2019s OK! It\u2019s not to puff myself up about my butterfly identification skills (which, in truth, are not that advanced) or to do anyone else down for not being interested in insect spotting. But as we move through the world we\u2019re not all attuned to the same things \u2013 I\u2019ve been looking out for butterflies (and birds) for years so I notice them \u2013 they take up more space in my mind and my life. And so every time I leave the house there\u2019s a happy chance I will meet a creature that I \u2018know\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The conversation made me think of Mary Oliver\u2019s poem, \u2018The Summer Day\u2019, in which she has a close encounter with a grasshopper rather than a butterfly. She pays attention \u2013 close attention \u2013 to this fellow living creature as it leaps into her life, stops for a moment to eat and to wash, then bounds away again. And she reflects: \u2018I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention<\/i>, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This really speaks to me of the invitation that high summer makes to us \u2013 to give up on being busy for a while, to notice and appreciate what\u2019s good, take time to connect with the natural world, its rhythms and cycles \u2013 to pay attention<\/i>, using all our senses, and fully enter the flow of life. Often the last line of the poem is quoted out of context (I fear I\u2019ve done it myself): \u2018Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?\u2019 Sometimes this can be presented as if it\u2019s a telling off \u2013 encouraging us to pull our socks up, get on with being productive, make something of our life \u2013 when in context the message seems to be the polar opposite, encouraging us to be \u2018idle and blessed\u2019, to sink deeply into the present moment, rather than fretting and fussing about the past or the future. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I came across another piece of writing by Mary Oliver \u2013 this comes from the commentary in a book of photographs taken by Oliver\u2019s long-term partner, Molly Malone Cook, who she refers to simply as \u2018M\u2019 \u2013 these words add another dimension to this practice of \u2018paying attention\u2019 \u2013 it begins in her usual realm of the natural world but then expands beyond that. Mary Oliver writes: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018It has frequently been remarked, about my own writings,
\nthat I emphasize the notion of attention.
\n 
\nThis began simply enough: to see that the way
\nthe flicker flies is greatly different from the way
\nthe swallow plays in the golden air of summer.
\n 
\nIt was my pleasure to notice such things,
\nit was a good first step. But later, watching M.
\nwhen she was taking photographs,
\nand watching her in the darkroom,
\nand no less watching the intensity and openness with which
\nshe dealt with friends, and strangers too,
\ntaught me what real attention is about.
\n 
\nAttention without feeling, I began to learn, is only a report.
\nAn openness \u2014 an empathy \u2014 was necessary
\nif the attention was to matter.
\n 
\nI was in my late twenties and early thirties, and well filled
\nwith a sense of my own thoughts, my own presence.
\nI was eager to address the world of words \u2014
\nto address the world with words.
\n 
\nThen M. instilled in me this deeper level
\nof looking and working, of seeing through
\nthe heavenly visibles to the heavenly invisibles.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Words by Mary Oliver. I love that notion \u2013 a mystical way of thinking \u2013 that \u2018paying attention\u2019 is a \u2018deeper level of looking\u2026 of seeing through the heavenly visibles to the heavenly invisibles\u2019. When she pays attention to that grasshopper, attention with feeling, she encounters it at a soul level. We might even conceive of it as recognising the grasshopper as a fragment of God. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This week \u2013 forgive me for returning to butterflies again \u2013 I had a little magic moment of my own. I have been keeping up with my daily walks round the Mudchute, my local city farm, which is like a lovely little pocket of countryside dropped into East London, in the shadow of Canary Wharf and all its skyscrapers. Providing that the weather, the to-do list, and my fitness levels allow, I like to do more-or-less the same walk each day, get my 7000 steps in, and look in on the llamas, goats, sheep, and pigs. My route takes me through different micro-habitats and I have come to know what butterflies are likely to show up where \u2013 so many Speckled Wood and Small Whites along the shady woodland trails \u2013 earlier in the season the sulphur-yellow Brimstones \u2013 or my favourite, the Comma, with its bold orange colour, and the raggedy edges to its wings. And plenty more besides (I\u2019ve seen eleven different species there so far this year which is not bad for London). It feels good to be familiar with the different species \u2013 their colour, size, shape, and habits \u2013 and to be able to recognise them at a glance and greet them like old friends. Some people seem to think this desire to recognise and name creatures is just a bit nerdy, but to me it\u2019s a very particular form of paying attention, of noticing, one that brings me into deeper relationship with the natural world, even with the particular individual creatures (the \u2018heavenly visibles\u2019) that I encounter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So one day this week I was on my usual route, which at one point opens out onto a bit of grassland, and I had to wiggle round a group of schoolchildren on a field trip, when I noticed a tiny, skittish, orange butterfly. And I knew it was of a sort I\u2019d never seen there before. Then, once I\u2019d got my eye in, I saw another. And another. There were dozens! The grass was absolutely alive with them. I couldn\u2019t get a photograph as they didn\u2019t stop moving but I knew what they were: \u2018Small Skippers\u2019. Now, though I say I\u2019ve never seen them there before, I\u2019m sure they\u2019ve been there for a while. There were loads of them and the habitat was just right. But this was the first time when I was there, during their flying season, at the right time of day, in the perfect weather conditions, knowing just enough about butterflies to recognise I was seeing something unusual. And I was paying attention<\/i>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I went back the next day, excited to see them again. The weather was just the same, as far as I could tell, and I went back to the very same spot. And there was not a single one to be seen. It was like one of those fairytales \u2013 I\u2019d visited an enchanted land that only existed for a fleeting time \u2013 so when I tried to return to it I couldn\u2019t find my way back. It was utterly of-the-moment. I don\u2019t think I hallucinated them! I don\u2019t think it was all just a dream either. I think they were really there. And if my attention had been elsewhere that day I would have missed them entirely. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, this summer, I simply want to encourage us all to pay attention \u2013 using all our senses \u2013 whatever sensory apparatus is available to us \u2013 sight and sound \u2013 touch, taste and smell. And perhaps we can make some more active and conscious choices about what we\u2019re going to pay attention to. It\u2019s hard to maintain broad-spectrum attention across everything \u2013 and we know we\u2019re in an attention economy \u2013 algorithms everywhere are trying to grab our focus and keep us hooked. Maybe we are too caught up in news cycles, or in doomscrolling, transfixed by all the unfolding catastrophes. Or perhaps we are trapped in obsessive rumination about our personal life and inner struggles. There is another way. This summer, let\u2019s make different choices, put our attention elsewhere, and strike a better balance. Maybe pick one thing that you\u2019re going to be especially attentive to in the weeks to come \u2013 it doesn\u2019t have to be butterflies! (but they\u2019re not a bad place to start) \u2013 we can be more present and alive to ourselves, to others, to the wider community, and the natural world. In that spirit I\u2019m going to close with a reading: \u2018We Are Called to Pay Attention\u2019 by Amanda Udis-Kessler. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This morning and all mornings, we are called to pay attention.
\n 
\nWe are called to pay attention to our individual lives, to our delights and pains.
\nWe are called to understand and cherish ourselves,
\nto take good care of ourselves,
\nto know ourselves as loving and worthy of love.
\nIn paying attention to our lives, we give thanks for all that is good in them
\nand work to make the best decisions we can to help us live fully and joyfully.
\n 
\nToday and all days, we are called to pay attention.
\n 
\nWe are called to pay attention to the people in our lives,
\nto celebrate their joys with them and to tend to them in their struggles.
\nWe are called to bring our compassion, kindness, and patience to our relationships
\neven as we are grateful for the compassion, kindness and patience others show to us.
\nIn paying attention to the people in our lives, we give thanks for their presence
\nand work to support them to the best of our abilities.
\n 
\nThroughout our lives, we are called to pay attention.
\n 
\nWe are called to pay attention to the society in which we live.
\nWe are called to understand the ways in which the lives of people we don\u2019t know,
\nand never will know, are made harder by political and economic policies
\nthat value some kinds of people over other kinds of people.
\nIn paying attention to our society, we give thanks for the many people
\nwho are working for justice for everyone, and we join in working with them
\nso that all people are treated with the dignity and worth they possess.
\n 
\nIn all that we do, we are called to pay attention.
\n 
\nWe are called to pay attention to the natural world around us.
\nWe are called to understand how our decisions help the natural world to flourish or cause it harm.
\nIn paying attention to the natural world, we give thanks for the ways
\nit sustains and enriches our lives, and we commit to living sustainably
\nso that all beings have the chance to live and so that
\nmany generations after our own can celebrate the planet and its gifts.
\n 
\nLove, compassion, gratitude, and the demands of justice call us to pay attention.
\nAs we pay attention, we bless ourselves, each other, our society, and the world.
\n 
\nMay it be so, for the greater good of all. Amen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reflection by Jane Blackall<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n