“The poet is the priest of the invisible.” Wallace Stevens Growing up, poetry was a banal and delusional literary expression…that rhymed. That it was typically understood only by scholars in ivory towers who puttered between a daybed to bookshelves. That poor image of poetry was relieved from its post thanks to the poems of Wendell Berry, Mary Oliver and Gary Snyder. As the years have stacked upon each other so has my poetry collection. I’ve discovered many vibrant voices of today’s poets, those walking the planet with us right now. Part of my hope for Contemplify is that it will …
Author: Swanson
Cultivating Contemplation & a Mysticism of Rhythm (Life of a Day Finale)
“This is not a dress rehearsal – this is your life.” William H. Murray We began this series with a line from a poem that pulls back the curtain of life…a poem that helps me re-member the fullness that lay awaiting in each of my days. Old Albert Camus got there first when he wrote, “I realized then that a man who had lived only one day could easily live for a hundred years in prison. He would have enough memories to keep him from being bored.” (p.79, The Stranger). The life of a day is not news, but a …
Compline (Life of a Day #5)
“The church is near, but the road is icy.The bar is far away, but I will walk carefully.” – Russian Proverb I raise this frosty pint in your direction for this fifth installment of the Life of the Day series here on Contemplify. So for those just jumping in, there is this contemplative rhythm in some monasteries of the Christian tradition called the Liturgy of the Hours. Today’s episode is the fifth of a series I’ve been doing on the reimagining of the Divine Hours into my own personal reflective interpretations as a contemplative in the world. The intention is …