Mary Oliver starts her famous poem “Wild Geese” by saying You do not have to be good, which is such a relief. And saying You do not have to be useful is kind of saying the same thing. American culture, unfortunately, as vibrant and interesting and scary as it is, suggests that we only matter if we are productive. We only matter if we are making money. We only matter if we have […]
“Let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” –Mary Oliver, “Wild Geese” “So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh.” –This guy Paul, formerly Saul, in a letter to people a long time ago What are we going […]
“For if we think of this existence of the individual as a larger or smaller room, it appears evident that most people learn to know only a corner of their room.” –Rainer Maria Rilke This past week, I was preparing to teach one of my college classes in which students read academic articles about culture and then respond by writing analytical essays. (Wow, that sounds boring.) Our particular focus is […]
I have not read a Scripture verse where Jesus says, “I love you.” I have wanted to say that to strangers, at times Although no one is a stranger anymore. All hearts live in my heart. All paths mirror my own. –Jana Rose “Balloons”by Preston Kemp is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Curving back within myself, I create again and again –Bhagavad Gita Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes. –Walt Whitman One issue with spiritual or prophetic writing is that the niggling mind will always find holes, will always look for exceptions. Situations where a statement doesn’t seem to work, or can’t be put into practice because of the reader’s/student’s personal […]
