'Ready for what God sends', August 28 Feast of William Stafford

August 28 is the day of the Feast of Saint Augustine, and the anniversary of the 1993 death of William Stafford. Both were very prominent and prolific spiritual writers who valued the inner life and community, as well as the amazing power of love.

On this morning thirteen years ago, Stafford wrote his final poem "Are You Mr. Wiliam Stafford?". The last stanza contains these lines:

You can't tell when strange things with meaning
will happen. I'm [still] here writing it down
just the way it was. "You don't have to
prove anything," my mother said. "Just be ready
for what God sends."

This conveys a part of what it has meant for me to walk as an Anabaptist, a writer, and a reader of Stafford. Tomorrow, I will carry these words along as I begin my first full semester of seminary, where I expect to find "strange things with meaning" and hope to "be ready for what God sends."

(Perhaps readers of WS could petition Mennonite/s Writing to make today the Feast of William Stafford!)

William Stafford, pray for us.