Tag Archives: A Church of the Holy Family

Random Acts of Poetry Day, Showing the Love

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Sharing the love from yesterday’s Random Acts of Poetry Day. Random-Acts-of-Poetry-Day-Hairpin

Thank you, Tweetspeak Poetry for inspiring us to share the love of poetry randomly around the world. Let’s do it again next year!

My first grade class at Independence Elementary in Colorado spent the day randomly visiting classrooms to share their favorite poems. We wrote our morning and evening chants on colorful sentence strips and placed them on the walls all over the building. Our principal asked us to keep them up because on Friday principals 12115975_10206529840036695_4543547717059554816_nfrom all over the Cherry Creek School District will be visiting us and she wants them to see our love of poetry. So our random acts will continue to spread through the week and, hopefully, other schools.

I also gave a copy of Tania Runyan’s How to Write a Poem to one of our teachers. Ms. Hearne in third grade won the drawing and says she will use it with her class. Yay!12112477_10206528920493707_1837883931268855796_n

And…yesterday, I was presented a copy of the Psalms, the poetry of the bible, by my new “family.” I was named the first Artist-In-Residence at A Church of the Holy Family, ECC in Aurora, CO. I am so grateful to know how Fr. Scott Jenkins, Kelsey, and Jennifer and all in my church community in their passion for Celtic Christianity honor the role of the bard.

My heart is full.

I love poetry. I hope you do, too!

Light Electric

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I smell fall in
the rain tonight,
not bright and green,
crisp in spring’s newness
but a little musty,
a gentle touch layered
in seasoned experience.

I think of your smile
not a youthful grin
drunk on life
but a perfected bow
knowing its pleasure
patient in experience

As clouds relinquish
the first lightning on this
passing autumnal equinox,
so I surrender myself to You
ablaze, alive in Light Electric.

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Author’s Note:

This evening of the passing of the autumnal equinox it rained and a rainbow appeared. Later the sky glowed electric with lightning bolts in the distance.

My friend Kathie Kelly, my meditation satsang buddy at A Church of The Holy Family, challenged me to write a poem. I began this poem last evening and tonight’s light show helped me complete it. My apologies to Whitman.

Easter Vigil, Sirius

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I stand outside under the blackened skiesnapo2014button1
with winks of light looking down on me.

I wonder if these are the same stars she
saw as she walked alone through the streets
early that morn on her way to the hills?

The orange glow of Arcturus,
red hot Mars, the icy blue chill of
Sirius, and the white glare of Jupiter,
eyes looking back from the heavens.

Did they see her walking the road
to a place where they laid Him
behind the stone, inside
even blacker than the night?

Did they see her tears fall across her
cheeks as she gazed up to the heavens
cursing Yahweh for her loss?

Could they look into her emptiness,
her fear of being left alone having
lost one so dear?

I stand under these same stars and
wonder if they see me too?

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Author’s Notes:

Holy Saturday and the Easter Vigil.

John 20:1 (NIV)

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance.

Maundy Thursday

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I walk with her this humble evenapo2014button1
feet bare touching earth.

I walk with her and her pain
the flow of life from birth.

Her flow of blood from sin unknown
a banishment acceded.

My malady, one of the soul, a
spirit departing untreated.

We walk with Him this quiet night
I wonder if we’re worthy.

I search for cures to ease my torment
not seeking anyone’s mercy.

My feet are washed by gentle hands,
she asks to be made whole.

My feet are dried with loving care,
she reaches for His stole.

I count the stars. She looks to Him,
the mystery reveled.

You have made me worthy, and
by Your Word I am healed.

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Author’s Note:

This Lent, through an unexpected series of events, I wrote a monologue about the Woman With The Flow of Blood from the Gospel of Mark.

I didn’t expect this journey.

She has been walking beside these weeks and guiding me. Her story is only ten sentences long, but turns on two words: cure and heal.

I didn’t expect to be so moved to a new understanding of who I am and who He is.

Brigid of Kildare

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In the eye of fire your swirl of spirit burns,
heats my soul, blazes with love. I step to the

threshold, move out of my own way to watch
geese soar into the early eve’s welkin purpled

in cold that is not yet spring ready. In your
fire-flamed breath I watch my rise, a waltz in

sky’s opening. You called a whispered welcome,
a generous invitation. I step aside, my fear

grounded. I answer, bare feet push
against earth’s grip to join in your dance.

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Author’s note:

I had the pleasure of meeting a saint, a goddess, unknown to me only a few weeks ago. Fr. Scott Jenkins asked me to do the homily for our monthly Celtic mass as St. Brigid of Kildare. The mass would take place on February 1, Brigid’s feast day and Imbolc.

It was a whirlwind three weeks. Research, writing a script, addition of a baptism at the mass (oh, so appropriate!), making a costume, rehearsing, and regular life chores of a first grade teacher, wife, and caregiver.

It was well worth it.

The homily was a transforming experience for me. My church, A Church of the Holy Family, is a place of loving and wonderful people who accept all. We are part of the Ecumenical Catholic Communion (ECC). I am only a member for slightly over a year, but have been embraced and my gift of writing and acting has been encouraged and honored. I cannot have found a more welcoming home.

Also, I found Brigid, a saint and goddess I will treasure.  I was lucky to have gone on a private silent retreat during this time at the Sacred Heart Jesuit Retreat House allowing me time to explore Brigid and Celtic spirituality in some depth.  I find that Brigid is leading me in a discernment process right now. I wake to her blessings each day.

And I not only discovered Brigid, but was also connected to an artist through a dear friend, C.J. Prince, a writer who lives in Bellingham, Washington. The artist, Joanna Powell Colbert, was creating this new portrait of Brigid at the same time I was creating the homily. A print of Ms. Powell Colbert’s Brigid’s Fire now resides on my mediation altar. Please visit her site to see Brigid’s Fire, other beautiful work, and a blessing for Imbolc, the beginning of spring.

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It is hard to believe all of this  happened in a few short weeks. It is the beginning of what I hope to be a good journey.

Through The Mirror/5

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In the circus, a clown smears
her face with white paint thick,
covers all she seems to be
allowing her self an escape route.
A round red nose draws attention
away from the struggle,
fuchsia hair stands guard.
Her voice rises from her depths, without a sound,
rolls up her windpipe and out her smile.
Look through the mirror, she listens.
Find their joy and show it to them
on a platter they cannot discount.

The circus mimics life they say.
The Ringmaster conducts the parade.
Elephants in formation march
into daily submission.
Lions whipped into place jump
through hoops, sit on thrones.
High above, removed from all,
wire acts balance precariously.
Only clowns see inside,
the joy or the grief.

It must be tangible, this sacrament of life.
We must be able to touch it, know it from within.
It is there on the table waiting to be found.
Go ahead, look through the mirror.
He is there.

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Author’s Note:

I must give a heartfelt thanks to Fr. Scott Jenkins at the Church of the Holy Family, ECC, for his powerful and challenging homily today. Little did he know, nor did I at the time, that a phrase of his would wind up here in my fifth poem in my study of the Gospel of Thomas.

Today we celebrated what old time Roman Catholics used to call the feast of Christ the King. Now it is known by another name in the Roman Church. But I like Fr. Scott’s name better – the Reign of Christ Here On Earth. Lovely.

However, that’s not the quote I used above. His other line about sacraments, we had three baptisms today at Mass, is what rung through me. The fact is that sacraments are a gift to us, but more importantly, they must be tangible. And that’s why our physical selves must celebrate and honor the unseen and often ignored Gift inside us by observing and participating in the sacraments.

This is what Logion 5 of the Gospel of Thomas calls me to do. I must look inside and out, seeing myself in the mirror but also looking through the mirror to see Him in others, too.

My other poems in this series can be found in Theophany or here:
Alone/4
Breath/3
Sovereignty/2
Twin/1  

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Logion 5 from the Gospel of Thomas, translated by Stephen J. Patterson and James M. Robinson, found at the Gnostic Library Society:

(5) Jesus says:

(1) “Come to know what is in front of you,
and that which is hidden from you will become clear to you.
(2) For there is nothing hidden that will not become manifest.”