In this time of instability and nervous grasping at “facts,” there can be a hurried disdain for that which is not perceived to be functionally able to create change. But actions are driven by responses to perception, and how much of what we “know” is our own way of explaining life to ourselves? To open ourselves to a wider lens requires not only perception, but interaction as well. The mystery of life, of spirit, and of nature  is what keeps the written word malleable and alive in both our minds and hearts by melding the two in a way that the recitation of facts, or the quick reliance upon opinion rarely can. Leaving room for what both the writer and the reader bring to, and take from the experience of poetry gives freedom and an affirmation of identity that is rarely found outside of competitive accomplishment in our culture today. It is still a wondrous and ineffably immense gift to be aware of “being” and to become aware of that gift through the broadening and awakening of experience that can be found in poetry.

McBride 9-2022

Jack Ridl and his Landscapes of Poetry group offered a Holiday Reading hosted by Jack on December 14th.
The following poems were part of the evening:

Christmas Wishes

What I wish you to receive
is the Permission to be you,
in all your honest wondering:
open to the filling that
will come from finding how to give,
what makes you whole,
unsheathes what lies behind
your armor –
lets you breathe unfettered air.

Confidence to change your mind,
to answer the small quiet call
toward something you have never tried
that keeps the fire in you alive.

Courage to embrace life’s questions
without panicked grasps for answers
to escape the gnaw of waiting
or cocoon known towers of thought.

Reverence for the gift of choices,
and the magnitude of difference
broad perspectives have to offer
us – and all that is unknown.

Wisdom to discern reactions –
from responses – yours and others,’
breaking chains of escalation,
offering forbearing peace.

Eyes that look with Mercy upon
acts of others and your own,
recognizing fear and defense
hide behind our sharp protections,
drawing tight the cords that constrain
kindness, trust, and healing love.

Tender hands cupped close to hold
all the brokenness you find.
And in that sheltered space you offer,
seeds of Strength to root and grow.

Knowledge that you are not yet
the self that you will someday be,
thus placing yourself nearest doorways
that will open toward your dreams.

A strong Yearning to allow
your gifts and talents to lean forward
out of the machine of earnings
into all of who you are.

A Kaleidoscopic Lens
through which to look and see yourself
burst from small comparisons
(you may have claimed to be your own),
then, radiating into brightening
circles of expanding impact,
unleashing an endless offer
to Become who you can be.

A life wide-open to Surprise
at how Great Goodness can arrive
in darkest moments and in light,
in increments and flowing seas.

This is what I wish for you
this Christmas and in each day forward,
all these ways of living Kindly –
all these ways to Give.

And in the words of a dear friend, “Be Gentle with yourself.”

McBride 12-2022

 

What We Know

I hear the traffic I cannot see
100 yards below, on the highway,
look up and see that winds above
are lifting and swaying the limbs of a tree.
But the test of belief
still remains the far island
sprawled and reclining on the horizon,
its bluffs, hills, and flatlands,
and wide stretch of beaches
defined on the map, but revealed
when it chooses.

And there is contentment in finally seeing it
when it presents itself there to be seen,
meanwhile believing it real
in the darkness, like: wind,
truth, intention, love, growth, faith
and time.

Each thing bestowed
for our parsed writhen vision,
our “bringing to being”
of all that we know
or, are willing to see.

McBride 12-2022

 

 

 

 

Disoriented? Lost your moorings? Wondering which day it is? Missing your Zoom meeting while watching a replay of last night’s webinar? Feeling like last Spring’s sudden changes have become Fall’s endless corn maze experience?

What are we missing that would bring back a sense of normality in our lives?

Familiar constraints.

Yes, those limitations we always thought were holding us back, actually brought forth plans to resist or work around them, and a sense of accomplishment and purpose when we did so. Before the pandemic’s changes to your operating plans, how much of your daily routine was oriented toward superceding the limits you saw ahead in your day? Commute times impacted departure plans, wake-up times; bedtimes. Kid’s activities, sport events, club meetings meant food preparations and grocery shopping were scheduled during, or in-between everything else.

Our constraints can easily become our focus, which concentrates our efforts toward overcoming them, and leads to taking comfort in the degree of predictability we can establish in our lives. Thus we (unintentionally) come to think of our reactions to limitations/constraints around us as actions that are moving us forward instead.

In early 2020 many of the “given” constraints in our lives fell away. The plans we had made to keep our lives in order no longer applied and may not do so again for awhile. New demands have arrived, along with new limits to the fruitfulness of our efforts to meet them. And many of us feel like we are flailing at a curtain of darkness and confusion.

When the lights go out, we can keep looking for the switch,

or we can learn to see in the dark.

Maybe the pathways we’ve been traveling were built in response to limits we no longer have to work around or against. Maybe we’ve measured our own successes by our abilities to manage our lives within those constraints.  Now is the time to examine what has consumed our efforts and defined our focus. Now is the time to determine what focus and direction we want in our lives, and design our life choices toward a mission and purpose we specifically choose; a clear view of how and who we want to BE in this world.

The uncomfortable inapplicability of our usual plans to our current situations (as we have adapted to the pandemic) may actually be bringing us a gift.

Every change presents an opportunity.

How much of your life has been a reaction to circumstances? What do you want your life to BE? Turn your efforts TOWARD your goals, rather than AWAY from what you have been trying to avoid, and LIVE FORWARD into possibilities you may never before have imagined.

No. This is GOOD global warming; the kind that brings people together and kindles their spirits, then fans the flames of goodness and mercy and open-handed sharing that feeds as many as accept the gifts offered therein. This is a celebration of the gifts of words; words that greet lives and nestle in to create change.

Professor Emeritus of Hope College (Holland, MI), Jack Ridl, and friends and fellow poets, Mark Hiskes (Holland Christian High School English Teacher) and Kathleen Markland, are each celebrating the release of extraordinary poetry collections you will want to add to your own experience:

Saint Peter and the Goldfinch, by Jack Ridl – Wayne State University Press – 2019 https://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/saint-peter-and-goldfinch

Standing with Alyosha, by Mark Hiskes – Dos Madres Press – 2019 https://www.spdbooks.org/Products/9781948017374/standing-with-alyosha.aspx

A Pen, A Brush, a Book, by Kathleen Markland – Saugatuck Independent Press – 2019 https://www.amazon.com/Pen-Brush-Book-Kathleen-Markland/dp/1090763093