I want to share with you the poem “Blessing for a Writer” by Pat Schneider.  If you click on the poem above to enlarge it on your screen, you should be able to read it.  The poem has especially blessed me in this time of being away in a beautiful place for focused listening and writing. I pray it will bless you in whatever place you find yourself this day.

The photo above is of novelist Amy Greene.  She has written two novels, “Bloodroot” and Long Man”.  Amy grew up in Appalachia and tells the stories of her homeland.  What a joy it was to hear her do a reading yesterday and then sit around a large farm table with her and other writers for dinner in this rural setting.  I sometimes have to pinch myself to believe that I am really present in this place, and ask myself, “HOW DID I GET HERE?”.  There is just such a Mystery present!  I love that and yearn to live into it.

Amy emphasizes “PLACE” in her writing style.  She says displacement begins to happen when we stop telling our stories.  She feels that you can’t really separate people and place, and she likes to believe we all come home in one way or another.  “We want to know story and story comes from home, the place that shapes us.”

Amy talked a little about “ancestral memory”, something she believes lives deep within us.  The poem above speaks to that as well.  I resonated to those words because I had already been feeling the roots of my Grandfather and Great Grandfather who were preachers in Kentucky.  Amy said to me, “Yes, that land is quite similar to Eastern Tennessee where we are right now….the essence of the “place” is the same.”

I found a connection to this writer.  She told me that she noticed me and felt drawn to me when I walked into the room where many were gathered to hear her.  She looks so much like my niece Ann that I had the same feeling.  Amazing how the Holy Spirit moves in “the surprise of mystery”!

nk