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Invitation to Poetry: Practicing Resurrection

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

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April 13, 2009

The Rise & Fall of Everything

I awoke this morning and took Abbess Petunia for her walk.  The sky is grey and drizzly here in Seattle, just the kind of weather I love when I have a lot of writing to do.  Checking into my favorite blogs I found a couple of very thoughtful posts on Easter that wrestle with the challenging side of believing in the resurrection: Tess at Anchors and Masts and my favorite “malcontent” Rachelle at her BlogHer column. I also wrestle with the historical, literal reality of resurrection.  The Jesus of boundary-breakers is the one who speaks most profoundly to me rather than the

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April 12, 2009

Resurrection Poems

Happy Easter Dear Readers! Two poems for you to celebrate the resurrection of the world around us (both by poets who are new to me): The first is a Northwest poet, Emily Warn.  I heard her reading her poem “Hovering” from her book Shadow Architect on our local NPR station and fell in love with her use of language.  Her book is based on the mystical character of the Hebrew letters.  Go take a listen (click on one of the links below “Listen to KUOW Presents”).  The whole piece is just under five minutes, I enjoyed both hearing the poet

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April 12, 2009

Holy Silence

Be still. Listen to the stones of the wall. Be silent, they try to speak your name. Listen to the living walls. Who are you? Who are you? Whose silence are you? Who (be quiet) are you (as these stones are quiet). Do not think of what you are still less of what you may one day be. Rather be what you are (but who?) be the unthinkable one you do not know. O be still, while you are still alive, and all things live around you speaking (I do not hear) to your own being, speaking by the unknown

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April 9, 2009

Living the Questions

The high priests brought many charges against him.  Pilate again questioned him, saying, “Have you no answers? Look how much you are accused of.” But Jesus still said nothing. Pilate was amazed. -Mark 15:3-5 Always the beautiful answer. Who asks a more beautiful question? -ee cummings I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given

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April 8, 2009

Depths of the Divine Fecundity

There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness. The mysterious Unity and Integrity is Wisdom, the Mother of all, Natura naturans. There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fount of action and joy. It rises up in wordless gentleness and flows out to me from the unseen roots of all created being, welcoming me tenderly, saluting me with indescribeable humility. This is at once my own being, my own nature, and the Gift of my Creator’s Thought and Art within me, speaking

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April 7, 2009

A Prayer to Begin

I’m the secret fire in everything, and everything smells like Me. The living breathe My sweet perfume, and they breathe out praise of Me. They never die because I am their Life. I flame out—intense, godly Life—over the shining fields of corn, I glow in the shimmer of the fire’s embers, I burn in the sun and the moon and the stars. The secret Life of Me breathes in the wind and holds all things together soulfully. This is God’s voice. -Hildegard of Bingen ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Fiery Spirit, Source of all creative power, Kindle your Holy Spark within me, Breathe into

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April 6, 2009

Patterns and Imaginary Walls

Last week I had the joy of going to hear Michael Meade speak.  He is a mythologist who weaves folktales, myths, drumming, and singing into his wise talks about navigating complex times.  As always, as I listened to his words much stirred in me, some of which I am sure will appear in this space.  One story he shared was extraordinarily simple but has been living inside of me in surprising ways: A woman once had a goldfish bowl and she enjoyed watching the fish swim around in its small space.  One day the goldfish bowl needed to be cleaned

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April 2, 2009