Writing Your Way Through Advent
I sat in Marilyn McEntyre’s Advent poetry class last Tuesday evening. My brown eyes burned, fighting to stay awake. Up way past my normal bedtime as I am an early bird to the nth degree, I wrestled with the tiredness I felt at that moment. Yet my heart bound joyfully over the pleasant pasture of her poetry presentation. Words and worded ideas stimulate creativity. There, around the Zoom table, an unexpected camaraderie of poets shimmered. Yes, I’m a book coach, writing coach, and editor, but, like my word-giddy clients, I too am a writer. Whatever the endeavor of your creativity, be it...
Advent: Behold Jesus
This December blog is brought to you by the word Behold with a hint of prose. Behold. In autumn Sun greets the day full of reds and oranges, golds and yellows. Leaves – once green, crisp up, curling in the drying air loosening their grip upon dogwood trees. Hey, flutter on down to the browning lawn. Now make way for frosted rest in winter. Watch rest turn to giddy buds in spring, greening days of flowering April just before all turns again to laughing sweet humid of summer. So, too, Lord, I greet the day... full...
Entry Ways into the Writing World
Front doors exist as logical ways to enter a space. Yet, quite often, there’s more than one way to achieve entry: Side doors. Back doors. Through the porch. Through the garage. Through the fence to the little entryway most easily accessible. The majority of my life, I’ve arrived where I am through the usually less-conventional way, not the front door! The unexpected ways offered joy alongside frustration. I imagined a simple path. I received an invitation to a less clear one. What about you? Has your life, your ways of creativity, been full of more logical paths or mostly filled...
Holy Spirit Liturgy
O Holy Spirit, Paraclete Most High, You are the One who comes along within Imparting life to keep our hearts alive. We worship You, Spirit of Life. We praise You, Spirit of Life. Thank You, Spirit, for Your living breath within us. O Holy Spirit of the Three-in-One You of the Trinity with Father, Son Hover ever over chaos deep and stark Bring forth Your goodness by bright holy spark. We praise You, Spirit of Glory. Thank You, Spirit, for Your living breath within us. O Holy Breath, order us from within Where Chaos grabs with ever-gripping hold Refine our spirit, turn our hearts...
Poetry Formed
Try to remember the first time you heard a poem. If you could unearth the past, it’s likely you first heard poetry as an infant. Brief playful words probably appeared in your childhood, relics of communications laced with love. Perhaps your grandmother or your father, or some other someone who loved you dearly, sang a lullaby over you at naptime or recited lyrical prose as you played in the park. Poetry in childhood echoes the wonders found in every nook and cranny. Infused with imagination, poems invite presence as they name senses and emotions in brief thoughts, though this...
Goldilocks and Our Imagination
Imagination acts as a vital building block for any creative endeavor. Described as the ability to dream up an image of something not actually present, imagination inspires creative ideas, inventions, and ingeniousness. When I ponder what to create, my mind pulls up what’s been stirring from deep within my imagination. Here’s what happens when my imagination kicks into gear. I have this grand idea of what I want to create. Then I realize I need to go beyond just thinking it up to getting it down on paper. After that, whatever I make requires a certain amount of shaping. Then I offer...
All I Did
All I Did from the perspective of Mary, the Mother of Jesus All I did was be, as the angel said, as the Lord invited… All I did was choose to let God be with me, though the words troubled me, though fear shook my soul, like an earthquake shaking time and space. All I did was be His, a servant. I was so young, young enough to believe the impossible, Old enough to wonder at it all. I was young enough to know I had no power to make these crazy words true, Old enough to know the Truth-maker. I was young enough to imagine life with a husband, Old enough to...
Along the Road from Lent to Easter
Uncertainty That place where my inability to control Whatever life is handing me shakes me to the place of Certainty that You are God and I am not. Uncertainty In the Time of Lent Brings all that I am To You, the great I AM The certain sure One Here in an uncertain season Where Betrayal shouts loud Abandonment deserts Mockery laughs In the garden In the courtyard At The Cross. Uncertainty Shuffles me from comfort To discomfort From all that I want To all that You are. Uncertainty Sparkles glitter frivolously over Fat Tuesday pancakes Mardi Gras parades Ludicrous...
Beloved
Before Moon kisses brisk night farewell Before Sun hugs cool earth good morning I rise Before the One who is Before all time in all time holding all time Before I begin, I start again at the beginning with the Beginner of all things Before all else, I AM delightfully declares I am the beloved daughter, Beloved son of the Before, the ever-after, the Always God. I rise to remember Before I forget again. Featured images are courtesy of Brady Rogers and Jeremy Bishop...
Found Poem: Words that Delight
Who among us does not have dreams that this year will be different? It is not over, this birthing. There are always newer skies into which God can throw stars. You enter the extraordinary by way of the ordinary. In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Even a thousand miles inland you can smell the sea and hear the mewing of gulls if you give thought to it. To live with desire is to choose vulnerability over self-protection; to admit our desire and seek help beyond ourselves is even more vulnerable. As we learned how to read, Were we beginning to forget to look, Our young...
Between
Between This line And the next I may have Fought a dragon Or was it a dragonfly? Between This line And the next I may have strolled around the block Or down the lane On another planet. Between This line And the next I may have chatted with a friend Over a cup of Earl Grey tea Or chatted with a unicorn Over a cup of rainbows. Between This line And the next A minute passes Or an hour Or a day or year or two. Between This line And the next Imagination Shimmer-shines Worlds unfurl, Full of wonder. Full of hope. Between This line And the next Watch and wait With...
Pursued by the Word
Blessed Lord, who has caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast, the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen. Book of Common Prayer, 1928. ********************************************* As a child, books were my safe place. My place to hope, to dream. My window seat into other worlds. My unscrambling place. My place to imagine life in fresh ways. My place...
