Exploring the F-word in religion at the intersection of scholarship, activism, and community.
A Poem 3/27/23
We see the beginnings of fruit trees.
The first fruit, my Jewish friend says:
The best of spring—as fruit
Is what makes luxury, she says.
We could just eat vegetables –but
With fruit we have extra luxury, we have extra—
We have wine. Cheers- we have luxury.
Despite halting attempts to live my life with hope, I’ve failed. My experience is not unique. We suffer. The recent pandemic, including its side effects of loss and displacement, is but one example. Suffering can leave a sense of hopelessness in its wake. One place I look for balm is in poetry.
As with most poetry, Emily Dickinson’s (1830-1886) work requires me to pause and ponder. What is being said? Not easy to tell, nonetheless, I often do find meaning in her poems. If I understand her thrust at all, much of the meaning I glean disorients me.
Continue reading “HOPE, PAIN, DESPAIR, AND JESUS by Esther Nelson”
The following poems were written after making a decision to move into an apartment for the winter, and then struggling to understand what went wrong. Instead of community I met with hostility, and as we know one breeds the other, and for a time I got caught by my shadow too.
Called home out of necessity and need, the longer I stayed the harder it was to leave even when 16 feet of snow crashed down from the roof blocking the entire front of my house. ‘The Peace of the Wild Things’ is in my blood and as hard as I try, I can’t seem to make an adjustment to living in a town where crows and men rule, and birdsong is absent though migration is under way.
Continue reading “Shadows on the Wall by Sara Wright”
Part of what poetry does is to give us the world around us seen with a clear eye, without judgement or preconceptions. You are stating just what is, but always with a foot in both worlds, always seeing the mundane in its place in the universal. In “The Earthen Cloak,” I was blessed with the hospitality of a Quaker friend who guided me through a hidden graveyard deep in the woods, where Friends had chosen to be buried under trees and amid rhododendrons, leaving a legacy of their own love of the Earth. (It’s legal to be buried “straight into the ground” in North Carolina, without a casket but often with a shroud.)
Continue reading ““O Mystery” and other poems by Annelinde Metzner”Elvis Presley (1935 – 1977) popularized the song “In the Ghetto” written by Mac Davis in 1969. The following TikTok video, featuring an artist with whom I am not familiar, is better—in my opinion—than any other rendition I’ve heard. Such depth! Such raw passion! Such strength! Such vulnerability!
https://www.facebook.com/100064420368301/videos/1352885832113207/
Here are the lyrics:
As the snow flies
On a cold and gray Chicago mornin’
A poor little baby child is born
In the ghetto…
What if everyone said everyone was their Valentine?
I mean you are walking down the streets telling strangers:
You are adorable.
You are my love.
Kiss. Kiss.
Well, maybe not, I am thinking of those candy hearts, with the sayings, my favorite Valentine’s candy.
But what if everyone in the world on Valentine’s Day, February 14th,
decided that that the world, the Earth, was their lover?
Squishy hugs and smacking kisses,
and loving her with what she wants.
What if we all decided for twenty-four hours to love everyone
in the way they wanted, in the way they needed?
To respect women?
To say please and thank you and excuse me?
To honor difference and listen to all these voices
who have been silenced?
To give the sweet chocolate of understanding to those
who have been so misunderstood?
To take fifty Happy Meals to downtown L.A. and pass them out to the homeless,
yelling, “Happy Valentine’s Day!”?
This poem is dedicated with gratitude to my “Women in the Mabinogi” writing group…
Rhiannon comes to me in my dreams.
She ebbs and flows like the waxing and waning
of the moon.
Steady hoofbeats,
clop, clop, clop
and then, in a rush of beating wings
she vanishes,
leaving a swirl of tiny white petals that spiral like stars.
I walk with care
clearing paths
iced over
lead feet
dragging
a broken foot
my companion
Listen to
first spring
bird song –
chickadees
and doves!
This past summer, my family and I lovingly carried my brother’s ashes to a favorite spot of his, in the woods at our grandparents’ Catskill farm. My mind was on the simple, beautiful ritual, each of us stating memories and scattering some of the ashes around the tree, and singing a few songs. It had slipped my mind that this tree grew at the entrance of the very meadow where, at age 11, I felt urgently compelled to create a ritual for myself, just at puberty, where I connected with the Grandmothers of the four directions. No one had taught me this, and I am still in wonder at what we carry with us, undoubtedly from prior lives. I feel that this poem was my self initiating myself into the world of the Goddess, and preparing for my own future.
In this poem, the Grandmothers are speaking to me, with a bit of disdain and fond teasing.
Continue reading “Return to the Grandmothers and 2 Other Poems by Annelinde Metzner”Just for right now,
let the swirling soften.
Exhale into the day,
wherever you are,
whatever is happening.
Allow a cloak of comfort
to settle across your shoulders
and enfold you
with peace and restoration.
Draw up strength from the earth
beneath your feet.
Settle one hand on your belly
and one hand on your heart.
Feel the pulse of the sacred
you always carry within.
Breathe in
and know you are loved.
Breathe out
and know you are free.
Trust that you are carried
and enfolded
as you go along your way.
A chill is in the air and Winter’s Queen has spread her gray cloak across the land. She has stilled the leaves and frosted the hills, has quieted the scurrying, and placed her fingers firmly on the pause. In this waiting place, hushed and chilled, we remember the preciousness of the light of renewal, we remember how essential the warmth of connection. Just as the earth does, let us, too,
lay aside what is unnecessary and draw close to one another once more, rekindling the fire of community, offering one another what nourishment we can. Let us enter a time of deep restoration with intention. Let us listen to the call of contemplation that twinkles in these dusky hours of replenishment and renewal. Let us pause and wait with grace.
Feminism and Religion 