Authentically Navigating the Way Forward
When someone joins you on the journey
towards truth and reconciliation,
especially when it’s your husband
or your wife, or someone
you really love and need in that deep
way we need the people we love
to walk with us, toward truth
and reconciliation—when this happens,
something inside of us
heals.
This poem appears in the new book I’m writing, exploring the spiritual journey we’re on, called life. Who do you know who might be on this journey, open to companionship? Or is that you?
Say, “No.”
If that’s what you need to do.
Even if you’re scared (especially if you’re scared) to say it
—and mean it. Follow through,
the world will continue to spin on its axis,
which is, of course, an entirely invisible line, much
like the one our world within revolves around—although
there are things that can bring us to a complete
standstill, even start spinning us out of control,
which usually happens when we can’t say, “No,”
allowing others to have control over us—
this makes sense, given we are called to self-control,
to rule over the unruly.
This poem appears in the new book I’m working on, about the strength of the spiritual life well lived – written in poetry, which I take to be the language best suited to speak of such things.
Exciting or sad, through heartbreaks
or breakthroughs,
storytelling is how I shape my world.
It’s how I set up boundaries, keep my privacy,
share my heart, grow intimate or apart.
It’s just not the same online, where
my stories, poems-in-the-making
are accessible to everyone—
don’t you find?
This poem is about the power of personal presence; the things that come alive in us when we meet together, the new things that take shape and come into the world. Something to preserve in this season of our Time Apart.
This poem is part of the new book I’m writing about the Spiritual Journey called Life we are on, together.
The gulf between digital natives
and latecomers grows shorter
by the hour, our home
and work-life now accustomed
to strangers taking up space.
The need to feel, absorb the presence
of someone who cares no less
diminished, diluted
inside.
This original poem is about the gap we feel, as spiritual beings, between meeting in person, which authenticates and affirms who we are on felt and unseen levels and which meeting online cannot replicate. May you blessed with the presence of someone who cares for your soul this day.
This poem is part of a book I’m writing on mapping the spiritual journey through poetry. Stay tuned!
A walk through woods like these might not be out your front door. This photo was taken when we lived on BC’s West Coast with friends who also loved to walk, talk and be outside to feel closer to nature, to God and more in touch with themselves and their families. I miss these times, and trees so much bigger than me. There are few things as refreshing and vitalizing to my soul as a good walk through beauty God made.