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Posts Tagged ‘Spiritual poetry’

Join the Spiritual Thursday round up at Reading, Teaching, Learning.

Join the Spiritual Thursday round up at Reading, Teaching, Learning.

Image created in Canva.  Photo taken by Maggie Simon in New Orleans.  A sky writer send messages of hope.

Image created in Canva. Photo taken by Maggie Simon in New Orleans. A sky writer send messages of hope.

Perfect is an imperfect word
with its soft purr beginning
to its hard -fect ending.
It crashes down on you
at the worst possible moments
when everything is clear as mud
and life has offered lemons.
Perfection is illusive
as the light shining through
the stained glass window,
pointing the way one minute
and spreading shards of colors the next.
I choose not to follow you, perfection.
I will find a path littered with debris,
broken into pieces by storms and crashing waves.
I will seek grace,
that smooth silky word that whispers softly
and leads me to knowing the one
whose spirit is in us all
seeking only love and to be loved.

–Margaret Simon, all rights reserved

When Holly tweeted out the theme for the week, “Let’s get real, no need to be perfect,” I rolled the word perfect around on my tongue. I didn’t like the taste. On Michelle Hendrick Barnes site, Today’s Little Ditty, she interviewed Nikki Grimes and put out a poetry challenge to write a wordplay poem. Perfect was not one of the words suggested, but I liked the idea of thinking about the word itself. For me, the process led to a deeper realization (which is often the way when writing poetry) that perfection is not what God wants from us. Grace is a gift given by God always, whether or not we are perfect. Grace is never taken away. It is our choice to respond to this gift with our works, our prayers, and our love. Stop seeking perfection. Look instead for the light of grace in your life, and say thanks.

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Join the Spiritual Thursday round up at Reading, Teaching, Learning.

Join the Spiritual Thursday round up at Reading, Teaching, Learning.

Use this button created by Leigh Anne Eck to post your Digital Poetry this month.

Use this button created by Leigh Anne Eck to post your Digital Poetry this month.

The theme for today’s Spiritual Thursday round-up is love.  At first I thought, “This is easy.”  However, the more I thought about it, writing about love is hard.  What do I have to say that is new and refreshing or inspiring?  When I have a difficult writing assignment, I often turn to form.  Today I turn to Kwame Alexander and his amazing 2015 Newbery Award book in verse, The Crossover. In The Crossover, the character writes definitions in a particular form.  My blogging friends, Michelle and Holly, each used the form (vocabulary poems) this month.  I haven’t tried it with my students yet, but I usually like to practice before presenting them with an idea.  Here’s my definition of love.

love 

/ləv/

a person or thing that one loves.

as in: the curl of an infant’s
new fingers around your thumb.

as in: looking through the open window
of our arms as we dance
the Lover’s Waltz.

as in: let the soft body
of your heart love
what it loves.*

as in: He gave his only
begotten son so that
you and I have eternal life.

© Bratishka | Dreamstime.com - Baby Hand Photo

© Bratishka | Dreamstime.com – Baby Hand Photo

 

* variation of a line from Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese, my all time favorite poem.

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Use this button created by Leigh Anne Eck to post your Digital Poetry this month.

Use this button created by Leigh Anne Eck to post your Digital Poetry this month.

Join the Spiritual Thursday round up at Reading, Teaching, Learning.

Join the Spiritual Thursday round up at Reading, Teaching, Learning.

“Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product.” Eleanor Roosevelt

“Why do you seek the living among the dead?” Luke 24:5

We pursue joy,
chase her like butterflies
through the fields–
a futile search.
Like the rainbow over the horizon,
Joy recedes
farther and farther
from our grasp.

When we seek felicity for others,
joy slowly tiptoes in.
She comes in with the wind,
hardly noticeable, always there.

–Margaret Simon

Original image by Beth Saxena.  Altered using PicMonkey.

Original image by Beth Saxena. Altered using PicMonkey.

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SOL #26

SOL #26

Join the Spiritual Thursday round up at Reading, Teaching, Learning.

Join the Spiritual Thursday round up at Reading, Teaching, Learning.

I want to go on living even after my death! And therefore I am grateful to God for giving me this gift, this possibility of developing myself and of writing, of expressing all that is in me. I can shake off everything if I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.– ANNE FRANK

Exercise Faith, a poem reflection using words of Anne Frank

A grandiose idea
life after death
your own life continuing on
and on, like the cycle of nature,
seed, seedling, sprout, grow, die, rebirth.

This gift of words
life after death
your own life continuing on
and on, with words on paper
floating in clouds like rain
coming down, going up, coming down again.

Developing my most inner self
reflecting on events, ideas,
life after death
continuing on and on,
like monks in meditation, singing Om
breathing in, breathing out, breath of life.

Expressing all that is me
honors God in me
knowing life after death
continues on and on,
like a rainbow rising over the storm
shining its promise, eternally.

I shake it all off,
dust from the shelves,
throw compost on earth,
spread life after death
on and on, shaking off sorrows,
leaving only good soil, good growth,
good courage…reborn.

–Margaret Simon

bridal lace

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