Living the Comma #29

[The Stage is on Fire] is a page-turner in which, much like life, there are no easy answers and yet each step of the journey yields insight and hope. This work of heart must not be missed!

Melanie Faith

Creative Writing Teacher, Essayist & Poet.

Katie Steedly’s first-person piece [The Unspeakable Gift] is a riveting retelling of her participation in a National Institutes of Health study that aided her quest to come to grips with her life of living with a rare genetic disorder. Her writing is superb.

The Society of Professional Journalists

In recognition of receiving the Dateline Award for the Washingtonian Magazine essay, The Unspeakable Gift.

I thank you … It is the authenticity of your “class notes”; and it is the delicacy and skill with which you present the nuances of classroom life and the actuality of your students’ and fellow teachers’ lives.

Maxine Greene

Philosopher and Education Scholar

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Silence. Food and Culture. Richard Rohr.

The spring has many silences:/ Buds are mysteriously unbound/ With a discreet/ significance,/ And buds say nothing. — From Laura Riding Jackson’s “The Spring Has Many Silences”

Dear Writer Friends,

Maybe writing is about naming silences. Maybe writing is about paying attention. Maybe writing is about exploring mysteries and miracles. Maybe writing is about a little bit of all that. Spring’s silences require noticing. Spring’s silences celebrate curiosity. Spring’s silences sing a song as big as oceans and skies.

Writing’s power is the power of the bud. It is is the power of seasons and surprise. It is the power of muscles and memory. It is the power of moving mountains by carrying small stones. It is the power of carving angels from marble. It is the power of questions and thinking.

Writing Prompts About Food, Family and Culture

We host a party on Kentucky Derby Day. We make Kentucky favorite foods as part of the party. We make burgoo (a meat stew), hot brown dip (a dip based on Louisville’s Brown Hotel open-faced turkey sandwich), benedictine (a cucumber spread) and pimento cheese sandwiches, Derby pie, bourbon balls, and mint juleps. I grew up eating these foods. Over the years, I have shared these foods with people everywhere I have lived, from coast to coast.

I want to encourage writing about food, family, and culture. The New York Times Learning Network published a list of food and culture writing prompts.

Choose one of the Times prompts and write about the food and culture connected to your story.

Conversations with Authors — Richard Rohr

Franciscan friar and ecumenical teacher, Father Richard Rohr bears witness to the deep wisdom of Christian mysticism and traditions of action and contemplation. Founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation, Father Richard teaches how God’s grace guides us to our birthright as beings made of Divine Love. He is the author of numerous books, including The Universal Christ, The Wisdom Pattern, Just This, and Falling Upward. — Center for Action and Contemplation

Richard Rohr on the Trinity and Contemplative Practice | Trinity: The Soul of Creation

Richard Rohr on his book “Falling Upward”

Daily Meditations — Wisdom from Richard Rohr

Take time this week to notice buds and blooms and flowers. Take time this week to consider the connection between food and culture to your story. Take time this week to check out the work of Richard Rohr. Touch grass. Breathe deeply. Seek delight.

From the heart of the comma,

Katie

Thank you for Living the Comma with me. This community is truly love and light. Subscribe to the Wide-Awakeness Project and share your light. It has never been more important.

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