Poetry & Warm-Hearted Lunch - Winter Series, Mulmur, Ontario. Canada

We are working with the theme “Theologies of Tenderness in Poetry,” which has emerged quite naturally in response to the contentious atmosphere that appears to be flourishing in early 2025. 

Poetry has a language and reach that stretches past the well known boundaries of doctrine, and as such offers a way to see the grand quest of the divine in the simplest of everyday interactions. Poetry embraces entanglement, pays no heed to the foolish illusion of separation upon which our current politics and economics are based. Poetry looks always for connection. 

Here, is a sample from our autumn luncheon grace, from the best of our poetic theologians, Mary Oliver. She writes in her poem, Praying, 

 "It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones; just
pay attention, then patch 

a few words together and don’t try to make them elaborate, this isn’t a contest but the doorway 

into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak." 

Is that not a beautiful reflection?

In these two winter luncheons we will share poems that offer glimpses of the fleeing temples we may create from our small kindnesses and attentive greetings one to the other. We shall see how blessings can be gifted by animals and plants and sky. We shall see how how spaciousness can invite encounter with the yet to be imagined. We shall look for the fierce tenderness in poems that offer us an alternative viewing to the current culture. 

I hope you will join Alissa and I for a contemplative and nurturing afternoon. Alissa will be dreaming up a deliciously joyful menu to pull us from our end of winter doldrums. We can looking forward to her culinary magic. To learn more about Alissa’s work, visit her website The Contemplative Cook.