What poets and monastics have in common When people think about what poets and monastics (monks and nuns who live in monasteries) have in common, the list might look like this: They have their heads in the clouds; They’re hermits;. They dress weird; And they’re dying off. Like all potent rumors, there’s a smidgeon of …
Yesterday, when I read in the Concord Monitor that one of the last major American poets of his generation, Donald Hall, died at his home at the age of 89, I felt sad that I had neglected to write to him one more time. I never told him how much his example of the good …
Unpacking the Boxes: a small tribute to Donald Hall, (1928-2018) Read More »
On March 26, 2018, at the ‘March for Our Lives’ demonstration in Washington D.C., one of the march’s organizers, Emma Gonzalez, took the stage to speak against the insane notion that nothing can be done to protect us and our children from gun violence. People were shaken out of apathy and the #NeverAgain movement, organized …
April 10, 2018. Snow everywhere and it’s miserably frigid. The calendar says spring arrived twenty one days ago but this is not spring. So here’s a poem for questioning how things ought to be in light of how things are and vice versa. Christine Klocek-Lim’s nuanced poem, “This is Not a Poem,” is an ars poetica — …
For impatient people: Because poetry has made me less self-absorbed and more empathetic, you can skip my explanation of why poetry is important enough to deserve a national month celebrating it, and jump straight to the 12 places to put poetry list. Just click here . So here’s the story about why poetry is so important that …
12 Places to Put Poetry for National Poetry Month Read More »
For impatient people: Because poetry has made me less self-absorbed and more empathetic, you can skip my explanation of why poetry is important enough to deserve a national month celebrating it, and jump straight to the 12 places to put poetry list. Just click here . So here’s the story about why poetry is so important that …
12 Places to Put Poetry for National Poetry Month Read More »
Goodbye for now, friends. I’m soon going on another lenten journey and plan to return in early April. It’s common for people of diverse Christian traditions to “give up” something for lent. You could say I’m giving up social media, but this is more than a time of abstinence. For a Benedictine, lent is also …
In her 1949 book, The Life of Poetry, Muriel Rukeyser indicates what motivated her to make poems: “Writing is only another way of giving, a courtesy, if you will, and a form of love.” Rukeyser was perhaps as well known for her political activism as for her poetry. Living through the death and destruction of …
Muriel Rukeyser on poetry as a weapon against hate Read More »
This article will:
* Explain why making a retreat can be a positive, life-transforming experience;
* Provide details about 5 upcoming pandemic-safe retreats for seekers, oblates, and anyone seeking to nurture a sacred way of life (4 visual retreats + 1 stay-at-home, ebook-guided retreat);
* Offer help for deciding which retreat is best for you through a link to “Listen with the ear of your heart to make up your mind: a Benedictine process for spiritual discernment.”
The Spirituality Center at Saint Benedict’s monastery in St. Joseph, Minnesota, has a labyrinth, which I am preparing to walk soon for personal and professional reasons. I suppose I could just drive over there tomorrow and walk it, but that’s not how I take journeys. I read up on the places I’m going because it …
Gailand MacQueen on the spirituality of mazes and labyrinths Read More »