Sacred Sunday: Pondering Poetry

Thursday was National Poetry Day in the UK. Tess wrote a lovely post that has stayed with me most of today. Here was my response:

this is a very thought-provoking post for me. i do not remember lullaby’s ever being sung to me except in the recesses of my mind, so they must have come from somewhere. the poetry i remember from school was dissected and examined in such critical detail that i did not like it at all… and so, when i think of my favorite poets, the first ones that come to mind are the “ordinary” people. the ones i have witnessed create beauty from just a moment or two of solitude. i remember the first time i was prompted to write a poem since the painful time of elementary and middle-school rhyming agony. it was sitting in the midst of a group of women who i know now were anything but ordinary. when the words popped out of my mouth, they pulled a string on my heart and i was hooked. now i can visit the likes of oliver, neruda, levertov, rumi, hafiz, o’donohue, berry and others without dissecting them and looking for iambic pentameter and whatever. i can let the words wash over me like the songs they were created to be.

alas my poet’s heart was awakened by this post.

oh, and i am a sap for the love poems of elizabeth barrett browning.

How about you? Where and how (or does) poetry pull on the strings of your heart?

People Watching

The following poem evolved from a couple of things - Memory from a Zeta Sister and Invitation to Poetry: Moments from Abbey of the Arts.

Do they know who they will become?
Are they already there?

Pink crocs and purple cast, she floats
across the playground.
Will she be a nurse mending others or
the daredevil breaking bones?

Tiny son in his own blue crocs,
raises his voice to the sky.
Budding opera singer? Talk show host?
Perhaps a bellowing father.

Newborn babes & scampering tots,
mothers, fathers, aunties too.
Do they know who they will become?
Are they already there?

The merry-go-round spins
faster and faster.
Which moments of the blur will
stand in clarity?

Bell bottom jeans, peasant top
& flowing hair, she sits upon the campus wall.
Could she know who she would become?
Was she already there?

Perhaps it is middle age or psychotherapy that has me remembering moments of my past, but I continue to be fascinated by what I am learning about my life. Recent discoveries have led me to consider the "clues" to who I have become that were there all along the way.

The things I loved as a child (which I thought I had forgotten) are still the things I love today. My authentic tendencies (not necessarily those imposed upon me by others) have been with me from ages 5 to 15 to 50.

So, what do you think? Did you know who you would become? Were you already there? Can you see the clues that were there along the way?

photo from Paris, 2008

fight, flight or a third way?

We are slowly discovering what many of us are calling "the Third Way," neither flight nor fight, but the way of compassionate knowing. Both the way of fight and the way of flight fall short of wisdom, although they look like answers in the heat of the moment. When it's an either/or world you have no ability to transcend, to hold together, to be creative.

from Hope Against Darkness by Richard Rohr

I read the above quote this morning and it really resonated with me. As is often the case, many different thoughts and ideas started swirling around in my mind and fighting for attention. I thought of my recent post, feel your feelings as well as Sunrise Sister’s post here. The other topic that ran through my mind was the Couples Workshop that I am leaving to facilitate tomorrow.

As I reflect on these three topics, I realize that they cover relationships with ourselves, the world and committed personal relationships—as well as our overreaching relationship with God which always shows up (I believe) when our eyes and hearts are open ☺.

Limited on time this morning, I cannot delve into this as I would like, however, here are a few thoughts that worked their way onto paper.

Will the couples (will we as people; I as a person) choose to fight or flee or will they decide to try something new in relationship? We must be risk takers in order to be peacemakers. They go hand in hand. It is sometimes risky to seek peace. To seek a new way of looking at things. To do something different when the old is not working.

In living each day there is always the urge to fight or flee. Sinking into depression and not considering options can be a form of flight. Immediately going to outside sources for cures, saying “Nothing is wrong” or merely treating of symptoms is a form of fight. Feeling the pain, being in it, wrestling with it, resonates of the "compassionate knowing" of which Rohr speaks.

There are so many ways to look at this, but for now these are the bubblings of my brain. I am not sure if I will be back here over the next week or not. I hope you will ponder some of these thoughts along with me. Also, if you are so inclined, please say a prayer, send special thoughts, warm feelings, whatever it is you may do to the brave men and women who will be participating in Soltura’s first couples workshop. I am one of the facilitators and I am excited, encouraged AND nervous as can be!

May each of us consider choosing a “compassionate knowing” rather than fight or flight as we enter this new week. Peace! ☺

Paschal Mystery

"Christians speak of the "paschal mystery," the process of loss and renewal that was lived and personified in the death and raising up of Jesus." --Richard Rohr

Welcome back. So, I am a little freaked out right now, because I read the above words from a morning reading AFTER I spent my quiet time alone this morning and wrote the following (unedited):

Trust. Trust you will be held with your strong hands and mine too. Trust the process. Unfinished. We wound and we are wounded. We are never healed, but always healing if we allow ourselves to heal--to trust we will go up and down and all around. Wounding. Wounded. We wound because we are human. We heal because we are made in God's image. Healed from the tomb. Nailed to the cross and risen again.

I have been nailed to the cross time and time again. Wounded and wounding. Healing. An unfinished woman. We are moving forward. Gratitude. The healing that continues to take place in me. The woundedness and the healing. Momentarily healed, but then a new wound appears or maybe a very old one we were unaware of. We have the opportunity to receive grace and heal again. Some wounds heal quickly and some are deep and leave scars that are like gouges to our soul, but our soul survives. No matter what, the light cannot be extinguished.

Wounded and healing. Loss and renewal. Is this the "paschal mystery" of which I write? What does healing and wounding look like for you? I'd love to know your thoughts. It is a mystery to me...a paschal mystery, perhaps ☺. (By the way--I do not recall ever hearing the term paschal mystery before this morning. hmmmmm....)