Poets Today's first reading and the gospel from today's mass got me thinking (and I didn't even have my morning coffee yet). Jeremiah is asked to rise up and go to the potter's house. So he goes. He watches the potter do his stuff for awhile; his callous hands working the wheel, shaping things from wet clay. Sometimes it works out, other times it crumbles, but he keeps working with the clay. A light goes off in Jeremiah's head; it's like us in God's hands. Then in the gospel, Jesus, working from similar observations of his surroundings, talks about a net fishermen have thrown into the sea, collecting fish of every kind. "When it is full they haul it ashore and sit down to put what is good into buckets." It's like the Father embracing and drawing all of us and what is in all of us into His Heart. And He sits with us on the shore and we discover just what is good and just what we need to throw out of our hearts. Stop, Look, Listen - the big, bold words from our children's books were not only helping us to read, they were telling us the three most important commands for us to grow as human beings! There are some people I believe in this world who are watchers and listeners. They see things others don't see. They stop, and they do the double-take. They delve beneath the sacramental skin of every encounter in their day, and beneath every person and thing that encounters them. They are poets. As Cardinal John Henry Newman once said "With Christians, a poetical view of things is a duty. We are bid to color all things with hues of faith, to see a divine meaning in every event." This is not easy, but with a real openness to grace and self-discipline, it works! And it should be the work of all of us. Where today can I Stop, Look and Listen? No day is void of life or meaning or an encounter with the Divine. Let's knock with a poet's heart, and the Door shall be opened.