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Invitation to Poetry: Practicing Resurrection

Invitation to Poetry

The Poetry Party is returning with our 33rd one!  I fasted from them for Lent so I could return to them during this Easter season with renewed energy.  I have been contemplating some ways to shift how I do this to simplify the process a bit and am trying out a new system.

This is how it works: I select an image and suggest a title and invite you to respond with your poems or other reflections. If you have your own blog, please use the Mister Linky widget below to add a link back to your website and then add your poem to the comments below.  If you don’t have your own blog (not required to participate), please skip Mister Linky and just go straight to the comments section to add your poem.  Make sure to check the comments for new poems added and I encourage you to leave encouraging comments for each other either here or at the poet’s own blog.

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This week’s theme: Practicing Resurrection

A few years ago it occurred to me that we spend a lot of time in church talking about what practices to take on for Lent, but when Easter comes, this glorious season of resurrection, we often slip back into our ordinary lives and everyday prayer. Hopefully we arrive transformed by our Lenten journey, but the season of Easter is not just that amazing day when the tomb was discovered empty. We celebrate Easter for a full 50 days, days that slowly grow longer in the Northern hemisphere and more vibrant as the blossoming of the world unfolds around us.

As I pondered this topic, the image that immediately flashed into my mind is the one you see to the right — a little girl playing at the beach, giggling with delight.  She is fully embodied in this moment, free of self-consciousness, fully herself, luminous.

I invite you to write a poem (or other form of reflection) about what your practices of resurrected life might look like.  How would it feel to really embody resurrected life in your own being?  If you made a commitment for the Easter season to complement your Lenten commitment, where is the invitation you discover?

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Remember! Click the link below to add your blog to the list and then post your poem in the comments section (if you don’t have a blog, just post your poem).

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** MISTER LINKY has been causing problems with this page loading so sadly I had to remove it **
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Please feel free to email me if you encounter any technical difficulties or have any questions!

© Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts:
Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts

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34 Responses

  1. Echoes of Beethoven’s Ninth
    as I run joyfully
    to you.
    Sprinkled with sounds
    of child-like laughter
    bubbling.
    Creating the moment
    of opening.
    In that liminal
    place between land and sky
    ashes and baptism.

  2. Richard ~ your poem is wonderful. I like the title of your blog, too. Congrats to you (I could not comment on your blog, so I leave the comment here).

    To all poets here, lovely words. They all inspired me in some way.

  3. Martha Louise, thanks for being willing to try, you did beautifully. Email me if you need help with the copying and pasting, I can let you know how that works if you have a PC (not a Mac). There is such a glorious joyfulness to your words!

    Kathy, crows are one of the harbingers of wisdom for me as well and you have written an exquisite ode to the transformation of our ability to see and the crow’s gift to us.

    Laure, thank you for this stunning evocation of the dawn, the gift of the One who is the morning star. Your poem makes my heart rise.

    Thank you again to all of the beautiful poets who gather here and bless this space with your words.

  4. morning settles on the hills,

    the earth catches the sky

    then holds it there,

    the day goes on,

    a row of trees agree to name the place,

    fallen.

    i rise.