Poetry

I really never ever have gotten into poetry, I always felt that it was indirect, flowery language that was just sort of distant from my own thoughts.

However, I have really found a richness in reading poetry lately. Hearing poetry (at least some poetry) kind of reminds me of seeing a beautiful picture with my ears...if that makes sense...all I'm saying is... I'm more fond of it these days.

I think this is new interest in poetry has started for a few reasons. I have to give some credit to this wonderful friend in my life. Her name is Colleen and she has many gifts, but one of them is her gift for writing, specifically, writing poetry. Check out her collection of poems. May I also mention that she is quite a beautiful soul, as you will see expressed in her poetry. If you ever get the chance to have a conversation with her, I can tell you it will be worth your time. May I also mention that she is going to change the world? ...because she is. With her incredible passion for enjoying life and her desire to feel alive and use her specific gifts, she will continue to change the world around her.

Another poet who has really captured my interest is Mary Oliver. She has some beautiful works that are all about living fully, loving intensely, and taking advantage of each moment in life. When I read her poetry, it makes me want to look at beautiful things, create, dream, and imagine. This kind of reading is what I like to consider, good for me reading, like eating a peace of chocolate, curled on my couch, while wearing sweatpants, and chatting with a good friend.

Maybe one of these beautiful poets will speak to your heart as well...or maybe you have a favorite poet to share...and maybe, just maybe, this new love of fanciful language will make me more open to your suggestions.

Wild Geese
By Mary Oliver
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.

Sing songs as you go and hold close together

I just returned from a trip to New Orleans, LA with a group of 7 beautiful students. We met people, heard stories, sang songs, listened, prayed, learned, got uncomfortable with the unjust systems in our country, and grew... a lot.

We started out the week with the passage below and it has been the most helpful passage for me to pray with this week while I am returning to campus with an unsettled, uncomfortable, and with a deep desire to abandon things that keep me from knowing God and myself most fully.

This Lenten season is a time to really evaluate what is bringing me close to God. This experience in NOLA has given me the chance to really think over those things that are keeping me from Christ, the Christ that is in prison, the Christ that is hungry on the street, the Christ that has been hit by a hurricane... and let me tell you, just giving up meat on Fridays isn't doing enough for my relationship with God this Lent.

I pray that I never forget the things I learned or the people I met this past week. I pray for the desire and strength to know God most fully.

feeling the discomfort of social injustice,

Briana

Pack nothing.

Bring only your determination to serve and your willingness to be free.

Don't wait for the bread to rise.

Take nourishment for the journey, but eat standing, be ready to move at a moments notice.

Do not hesitate to leave your old ways behind - fear, silence, submission.

Only surrender to the need of the time - to love tenderly, act justly, and walk humbly with your God.

Do not take time to explain to the neighbors. Tell only a few trusted friends and family members - then begin quickly, before you have time to sink back into the old slavery.

Set out in the dark. I will send fire to warm and encourage you. I will be with you in the fire and I will be with you in the cloud.

You will learn to eat new food and find refuge in new places. I will give you dreams in the desert to guide you safely home to that place you have not yet seen.

The stories you tell one another around the fires in the dark will make you strong and wise.

Outsiders will attack you, and some will follow you, and at times you will get weary and turn on each other from fear and fatigue and blind forgetfulness.

You have been preparing for this for hundreds of years.

I am sending you into the wilderness to make a new way and to learn my ways more deeply.

Some of you will be so changed by weathers and wanderings that even your closest friends will have to learn your features as though for the first time

Some of you will not change at all.

Some will be abandoned by your dearest loves and misunderstood by those who have known you since birth and feel abandoned by you.

Some will find new friendships in unlikely faces, and old friends as faithful and true as the pillar of God's flame.

Sing songs as you go, and hold close together

You may at times grow confused and lose your way.

Continue to call each other by the names I've given you, to help remember who you are.

Touch each other and keep telling the stories.

Make maps as you go remembering the way back from before you were born.

So you will be only the first of many waves of deliverance on these desert seas.

It is the first of many beginnings - your Paschaltide. Remain true to this mystery.

Pass on the whole story