Meditating with Poetry (Retreats International Summer Institute)

Whether poetry is a longtime friend or brand new to you, or even a bit of a struggle, discover

how great poems can deepen and illuminate our spiritual journeys. Through both guided and

private experiences of holy reading ("lectio divina"), we will meditate on major contemporary

poetry from around the world, the work of pilgrims like ourselves whose cares, hopes, humor,

and wisdom reveal poetry's eye-opening, heart-opening power.

 

 Faith, Creativity & Justice  (Andover-Newton Seminary, Newton MA)

Meditating with major poetry as a text can be an act of creativity that opens us to God’s own
creativity in our lives. We will practice methods for engaging poetry’s capacity to stretch

language toward the transcendent and to beckon the reader in the same movement of spirit.

The poems we draw on for meditation will be selected from important, mainly contemporary

poets and will touch on themes of personal and social transformation; faith and justice; and

the natural affinities of poetry and religion, of word and Word. Finally, we will consider how

any creative act such as meditation on poetry deepens our vision, and enriches the bonds

of self, God, and other, reminding us how beauty ultimately exists in the service of justice.

 

 

Poetry and Spirituality  (The Glen Workshop, Santa Fe NM)

In this seminar, we'll explore why and how poetry can be a special pathway to the spiritual core

of our lives. We'll also practice together a classic method of meditating with great poems, to

experience how they can engage, delight, and challenge our souls on our journey of faith. This

seminar is not just for writers of poetry; it's open to all.

 

 

Poetry for Healing and Hope  (Spring Hill College Summer Institute, Mobile, AL)

This course will focus on major contemporary poems which enact Christian transformative

hope. We will meditate on poetry that guides the reader through darkness to light, brokenness

to healing, violence to reconciliation –– whether in our personal relations, our world, or our

inner selves.

 

 

Praying Poems for Advent  (Notre Dame Spirituality Center, Cincinnati)

Come settle into Advent’s spirit of hopeful expectation by praying together through great

poetry. Peggy and David invite you to enter Advent’s quiet hope in the company of major

contemporary poets who sing afresh our world’s longing : O Come. Emmanuel!. 

 

 

Poetry to Refresh Us for the Long Haul  (Kirkridge Retreat Center, Bangor PA)

Giving of ourselves in work for a better world can be draining, whether it's as teachers,

social workers, health care givers, ministers, political activists. Great poetry's art

of re-imagining the world can be a balm for burn-out. To revive our drooping spirits,

we'll practice guided and individual meditations on poems by major contemporary writers

which move through engagement with society's pain to visions of healing and renewal.

No experience reading poetry is required, only an openness to be drawn into the art's

refreshment.

 

 

Lay Spiritual Writing   (Washington Theological Union, Washington D.C.)

We hope to show how contemporary spiritual writing by laypersons sets forth a spirituality

that is unique to the lay vocation, and can serve as a resource for the layperson’s spiritual

growth as well as provide texts and examples for practical use in ministry. The workshop

leaders will present and elucidate selections of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction essays that

best represent the work of contemporary spiritual writers such as Annie Dillard, John Haseler,

Richard Bausch, Kathleen Norris, Ron Hansen, William Trevor, Erin McGraw, Wendell

Berry, and others. The material will be organized thematically to reflect the four dimensions

of how human beings are created in the image of God, drawing from the Book of Genesis: as

individuals in relation to themselves, others, nature, and community. It is likely that the coming

generations of spiritual writers will be laypersons to an extent much greater than ever before,

and this workshop is intended to provide a basis for appreciating the power of such literature

to reflect, shape, and inspire our lives as members of the royal priesthood of believers.

 

 

The Spirituality of Relationship - Literary Meditations  (Center for Ministry, Saginaw MI)

We will meditate with short literary works on the subject of relationship – our bonds with

family, friends, spouses. We will accompany major spiritual writers of poetry and fiction as

they explore the mysteries of our experience with "the other" in delight, wonder, perplexity,

awe, concern and, on occasion, simply in "dispatches from the front." Our approach will

allow literature’s gifts of language, imagination, and insight to illuminate our coming into

oneness with each other and the world, lifting us through meditation to a greater sense of this

sacred dimension of our spirituality, our shared reflection of God’s image as relational beings.