I write, speak, invest, network, and question to stimulate fruitful conversation. Let's talk about human flourishing! It begins with freedom. Holy leisure is the key to human being, freedom and generativity. Please join me in the adventure of realizing Christ!
Living Poems
Did you know YOU are a poem? Check out Ephesians 2:10, where the Greek ‘poema’ is usually translated ‘workmanship’. I like ‘poema’ better, as it implies beauty and artistry, but ‘workmanship’ is nice.
I’ve discussed the importance of poetry, poetic education, poetic imagination and poetic reading in many different venues (many of the talk topics you see here relate to this theme). I’ve also used my own poems as lenses through which to view aspects of the spiritual life.
For several years, I hosted a Living Poem Society get-together during which we poets shared our current works and discussed the motivation, layers of meaning, word choices and life experiences that helped form each poem.
I hope to re-animate that group one of these days, but, until then, I’m working on a small volume of my poetry, for which I’ll include notes about that sort of background material that can help readers understand each poem more deeply. The title for that work-in-progress is A Destiny to Burn. Here’s the story behind that:
Artist Rose Shopen Klassen gave me an intricately carved candle and, when I said I’d never light it (because it was so beautiful), she told me “A candle has a destiny to burn that will not be fulfilled unless you light it.” That phrase became a poem of mine (Destiny to Burn), and I still love to say it over and over, it so resonated with me!
If an artist has to learn anything, it is how to be utterly spent on the doing of one’s work. Granted the skill to do it, there is still the mountain to climb of learning to pour out the self into works of art, most of which will be given away freely. This candle (I did and do light it, briefly…still hard to let it disappear completely!) reminds me to let myself be burned away in the living of my life, in order that Christ might somehow shine through all that is me, all that I do, whatever I create.
Here’s a collection of my talks that feature poetry, poems, or poetic formation.
Putting Down Sabbath Roots
Some audiences want to cut right to the chase: “Give us practical applications of all your ideas about Sabbath-keeping.”
OK – here you go: In this talk I do just that – give concrete, practical ways to dip into the kind of leisure that brings interior equanimity and leaves you more whole, more human, more able to balance all the demands of life.
Caution – one of my ‘theories,’ is that part of what makes your Sabbath practice effective in developing your capacity for Christ is conscious design of that practice. You can hear what might be done (and get some good ideas, see what resonates with you, be stimulated to overhaul your Sabbath day), but you still must choose what you will, or won’t do, freely. In that freedom is your authentic consideration of the ways you tend to get unbalanced, lose equanimity, wobble.
Sabbath is tonic – it brings you back to a clear, centered ‘tone’ from disintegration that has taken you in any number of different directions. Sabbath brings you home, if you’ll learn to practice it without legalism, without license – freely. And I’d like to help you do that!
Here are some other ways I’ve spoken about Sabbath over the years.
Sabbath is a Woman
I once asked a friend who calls herself a Jewish-Catholic if it had been hard for her to accept Mary’s role in Salvation History. She laughed and said, “Heck no! Every Sabbath was begun by a Jewish mama’s prayers! I’d have been suspicious if Lord Sabbaoth hadn’t come through a woman.”
Jewish women welcomed Sabbath into the home each Friday evening with prayers and candle-lighting. I love the scene in Fiddler on the Roof where all the women’s voices rise to bless their families on a Friday evening. Sabbath was thought of, like Holy Wisdom, as a woman – even as a Queen. The Sabbath gives us some fascinating insights into the characteristically feminine movement of the Holy Spirit into the lives of the faithful.
If you enjoy discussing the ‘genius of women,’ you’ll enjoy this talk.
Here are a few other Sabbath-related talks.
Fr. Paul got a great recording of my whole Sabbath is a Woman talk….just ask!
Man as Icon of the Prosopon
If, as artists, we hope to recall man to himself, to set him free, to draw him toward God, then we must understand the human person as an icon and icon-writer. The more we understand about icons, the more fully we can enter into the treasury of prayer they open to us.
There are four main types of icon (per St. John Damascene) that unfold from the very Essence of God, right on through – without discontinuity – to the painted icons we can touch and hold. If we take the idea of ‘icon’ further, to see man as ‘image of God,’ or ‘icon of the essence of God,’ we see the human person in a new light – as a work of art that is meant to be a place of encounter with ‘that which it depicts’.
The icon that is painted within us as we encounter reality – the image of what we see, what we know, what we love – is, likewise a form through which that reality is re-presented, made present, in a human person. It’s not too much to say that man, as steward of Creation, was meant to have Creation made present within his own being to such a degree that he would know it intimately and so steward it well. If we can look at what it means to take in something so much greater than oneself and then to be responsible for communicating that something to others, we learn a lot about how to be Christ-bearers in the world.
A look at icons helps us do that, whether we formally study iconography, or not.
A Love Poem for Two Voices
In a discussion of my poem by this title, we look at the pain a woman may feel upon being loved by Christ. It is sometimes a very difficult thing to be loved, and to receive love. Many women have related to my example of a woman who fights that love as though her life depends upon keeping Christ at arm’s length. This is a very healing discussion!
This poem was first published in Canticle magazine, then used as a handout for their national women’s conference. When I discuss evangelization, I try to mention how hard it can be to accept Christ’s love. The woman in this poem is like many women I have actually known, and is a page right out of my own pre-conversion story. Christians often feel that the invitation to “Come to Jesus” should, necessarily, be seen as pleasant, wonderful, joyful – like an invitation to a party. For them, who know joy in Christ, it’s hard to imagine it could seem any other way.
But coming to Jesus also exposes wounds, tears away self-protective cover, reveals the utter neediness and brokenness of a soul. In this poem I try to give voice to that which causes someone to avoid Christ as one might avoid poison, and to give Christ’s response to that soul who needs Him so much. This talk stands on its own, or contributes to discussions of evangelism, dialogue, and womanhood.
Here’s a collection of my talks that feature poetry, poems, or poetic formation.
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