Category: Spirituality/Inspiration

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January 27: In the Middle of a Long, Cold Winter

This company also publishes “Write The Poem” which I will also share in an upcoming blog post

I was browsing through our local used bookstore on a lunch break last week when, on my way out the door, a book caught my eye. Its title, Write the Story, glimmered in gold lettering down the spine, as if to plead: Hey, over here! See my sparkle? Take me home with you!

Already reaching for the doorknob, I changed course and went back to check it out. I expected a how-to on the writing process. Instead, I discovered the hidden treasure of a delightful writing challenge. Each page bore a titled topic with ten pre-determined (seemingly random) words to be used in the writing of a story.

The pages appeared to be blank except for one on which someone had penciled a story to satisfy one singular challenge and apparently moved on with life, abandoning the book and donating it to the bookstore, where it now rested in my hands. Treasure, indeed!

Poems to be written. Winter seeds of poetry, all scattered between the covers of one book. Destined for me, cast off like a stray no one else wanted, knowing all the while that a cultivator of words and writing would be most likely to pick it up, fall in love with it, take it home, and feed it.

I bought it and realized that other members of my small-group Stafford Challenge writers must have a copy. When we commit to writing a poem a day for a year, we all need a little prompting from time to time when the well runs dry or life gets too busy to think deeply like a poet. Once back inside the car, I turned on the heat and warmed up. I ordered three more copies online from the parking lot to send to Glenda Funk, Barb Edler, and Denise Krebs upon their arrival. Then I took a few snapshots to send them in the mean time.

Today’s title: In the Middle of a Long, Cold Winter

Words: opera, redeem, razor, lungs, grace, futuristic, tread, vest, powder, milkshake

In the Middle of a Long, Cold Winter

like that one lingering note

concluding a futuristic opera
treading frozen spring water

winter cleanses our lungs

razor-sharp alveoli icicles fall
sun breaks out in a crescendo
of seasonal transition
melting the white powder
milkshake from the mountainside
grace of its forgiving kiss
beckoning crocus, groundhog-like peepers
stretching up through frozen ground
ready to crawl out of bed
emerge from quilted slumber
shed their corm-sewn bud vests and
sing a new song



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Wednesday Wondering About Apples, Razors, and Makeup

There’ve been heated debates lately on our small rural Georgia county’s discussion page. People are bashing others who went to support the monks in their march through Georgia for peace. Some said there were maybe 6 or 8 monks and a dog on this trek. I saw the places advertised about where they were going to be and when, but I was busy and did not go. I cannot agree with anyone who would bash a monk or anyone who supports anyone else who adheres to a belief system that is their own or different from their own; that’s our fundamental freedom – to choose our religion and to make our choices.

Now if monks were tearing down towns and setting fire in the streets, rioting and smashing windows and shooting people or blowing up buildings, then that might be a different story. But I have never known a monk to misbehave or cause harm to others. For me? I choose the Bible. I believe it is the only way to Heaven. I will still break bread at a table with others who believe differently from me and celebrate that we are human beings here on this earth for a very short time to experience life. That’s enough. It’s not my calling to spit on my brothers who believe differently – – Jesus didn’t do that. He said to love them.

I’ll go a step further: I’ll love their dog, too. And if I had been there, I would have cheered them on for their fortitude. Whether I believe what they believe in or not, I believe in those who protest peacefully and find ways of making statements that do not harm others. Our country was founded on religious freedom, and we are on a slippery slope when we take aim at the religious beliefs of others. Christianity itself has its own denominations, and we respectfully agree to disagree on scriptural interpretation by attending different churches. In my day, the Methodists and the Baptists would get together for an evening game of softball and shake hands at the end of the game. We didn’t throw down over whether Baptism should be sprinkling or dunking. It just didn’t happen.

And it shouldn’t today. I believe in my maker, knowing the freedom is mine. I’m grateful to live in a country that still gives us all the freedom to do that, and I hope I never forget to consider what could happen if that freedom changes. I reflect on my father’s words today: be confident enough in your God that you are not threatened by anyone else’s.

all these people

parsing the scripture

bashing monk watchers

yet they

eat forbidden fruit

wear makeup

shave legs

what gives?!?

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On Kate Baer’s Latest Book: How About Now?

How About Now?

Kate’s done it again ~
written her best poems yet

…..dessert poetry!

how about now kate baer

Reading and writing circles in my life that started as groups but quickly became those who are now friends and sisters enrich my life in ways that bring depth and meaning to ordinary days. At the end of this week, one group will celebrate the finale of the second year of The Stafford Challenge, led by Brian Rohr in memory of William Stafford and will kick off year three with a launch party the next day. I’ll be there for both, but at first I wasn’t quite sure.

I didn’t participate in a small writing group with this larger group during its first year, deliberately waiting to feel the climate. Once you’ve participated in a few groups, you realize that there are some unhealthy ones out there and that it’s always best to stand back and take a long, hard look at who’s at the party and how they’re behaving before deciding whether to go all in and put your heart out there.

By the middle of the first year, I could sense that the larger group had plenty to offer, but I was still hesitant to take part in a small group with such an eclectic mix of personalities. I prefer positive people still growing as writers, and I’d sensed that there were a few who perceived themselves as professional poets with red pens, ready to offer venomous feedback on everything that didn’t align with their thinking. The few times I ambled into the Facebook group and posted a poem, it reminded me of a small town social media group with spiked collars and leather jackets and on…something, maybe steroids or stronger, and that simply wasn’t for me. I’d written a poem about my daughter’s birthday, and one lady accused me of being a racist because I’d used the expression gypsy vagabond. I took the poem down, satisfied that I’d finally confirmed that the idyllic pond was trolled by poet-devouring piranha.

I realized it wasn’t just me when one of my writing friends from my favorite larger writing circle shared that she, too, had experienced a troubling exchange in that group. Fast forward, and it turned out that four of us whose groups spanned to other circles were looking for a small group to continue in The Stafford Challenge, and so we formed our own that meets on the first Monday night of each month. We share what we’re writing, what we’re reading, what we’ve written, and what we’ve read. We talk grandchildren and husbands and children and pets, and we talk life. We inspire each other to keep writing, and we nudge each other to try new forms and techniques. We encourage and empower. There are no red pens.

That’s how I learned of Kate Baer. My friend Glenda Funk, a retired teacher from Idaho who travels the world with her husband Ken and is an avid reader who is also owned by some extremely spoiled and entitled Schnoodles, shared Kate’s book of found poems I Hope This Finds You Well, and I joined the fan club instantly. I didn’t think Baer could put out a better book of poetry, but Glenda mentioned last week that she’d just finished the latest Kate Baer, How About Now, and I finished it in one sitting yesterday. By the end of the day, I might have ordered one of those blue shirts on her website shop – – 1-800-How-About-Now. And the print of that favorite poem, How About Now, that you can read here.

And of course I surfed around, looking for more to dig deeper into Kate’s life and inspiration. The best reading I found was this interview https://cupofjo.com/2025/12/11/kate-baer-house-tour-pennsylvania-poet/ where we learn just how common her life is, and we realize that this is the way of the truest poets – the gifts of seeing the wonder in the simple things and being able to share it in words to tug at the hearts of readers with such enormity.

Consider my heart tugged, and consider me grateful for all the readers and writers in my life who offer such joy. You are what I think Kate Baer refers to as The Cure. Which, by the way, is my own personal favorite poem from her latest book.

P.S. I wanted to share one Substack author’s link about Kate’s Found Poetry in I Hope This Finds You Well.

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Remarkably Bright Creatures: A Found Poem

Sometimes I like to open the book I’m currently reading to a random page and find a poem hidden there in the pages, peeking around the corners of other words, just waiting to be discovered. It reminds me of Augusten Burroughs’ Running With Scissors, where he and his friends did what they called a “Bible Dip” anytime they needed scriptural guidance. They’d open the Bible and drop their finger onto the page and read the verse to see what wise answers pertained to whatever the matter at hand.

Right now, I’m reading Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt, and I can’t stop turning the pages. It is humorous and heartwarming, and all at once I can go from one breath with tears welling and one to full laughter, the kind where you’re alone in a room in your favorite chair and you know if anyone is watching, they will think you’ve finally gone over the edge. It would pair well with Sy Montgomery’s Soul of an Octopus, and already I’m wondering whether I need a box of tissues like I did at the end of that one after I’d bonded with Octavia and found myself overcome with sorrow upon learning her fate. I can feel the faucet of tears coming on now just thinking about it, so I’m shifting gears and doing a Poetry Dip to find some words and phrases on two of Van Pelt’s pages (20-21) and weave them into a poem.

Words are funny like that. They will find you where you are and walk alongside you, knocking on your mind as you sit in thought, demanding attention. My own One Little Word for 2026 continues to salt and pepper moments as I think of all the ways I need to heed its urging and all the ways I can bring its nuances into my own writing. I’ve tried to show the onward movement in today’s poem, navigating the currents of the stages of grief.

Tentacles

tragedies ~

rawness,

despair

clustered,

soaked through

grief

~ cascaded,

etched,

blurred

into a sea

of sunshine

over the crest

Special thanks to Two Writing Teachers for giving writers space and voice

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January Shadorma

A shadorma poem is one with six lines, in this syllable sequence: 3/5/3/3/7/5. My One Little Word (OLW) of 2026 is Onward!

Onward!

what we bring

into this new year

depends on

what is worth

keeping ~ and having the strength

to let the rest go

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My One Little Word of the Year for 2026

Years ago, Ali Edwards challenged a growing following of folks to choose ONE LITTLE WORD to take with them through the year as a sort of guiding light or inspiration. 2026 will be my fifth year of choosing a word to walk through the year with me. In 2022, my One Little Word was listen. I learned so much that year holding that one word that for 2023, I kept the same word again – listen. In 2024, I chose pray. In 2025, I chose enough – and life has had its way of showing me some ironic twists on that word.

There is power in words – a strange magic. There is killing and healing and nurturing and reassurance and hope. There are dreams and hard realities, wishes and escapes and triumphs and failures. What I’ve learned by choosing my One Little Word is to choose it carefully – because it has its way of revealing its truths and meaning in ways I never expected. This is not just some flippant exercise where people string some letters together and leash them like a stray dog to drag into a new year, hoping the mystery of the universe will reveal itself. I had no way of knowing last year at this time, as I had finished cleaning out a house and barn in 2024 with the dream of getting our belongings down to just “enough,” that Dad would die smack-dab in the middle of 2025, leaving a lot of loose ends untied, including a house and seven storage rooms filled with a lifetime of more than enough. Since June, the weight of these things and their encumbrance has felt anchoring – and not in a healthy or freeing way. There is still much to be done in the two-steps-forward, one-step-back dance of getting rid of things…..and of letting things go (and there is a difference). It takes time, but the important thing is getting through it. Thank God for my brother and sister-in-law, who have saddled the horse and taken the reins. No pun intended.

How does anyone choose a word? Do I choose a word I need to do, like listen or pray? Do I choose a word I want to do, like read or travel? I believe in verbs. They’re actionable.

Enough was another story, though. This word functions as adjective (enough food), adverb (tall enough), pronoun (have you had enough?), noun (there is enough for everyone), and even as an interjection (Enough!). It all depends on the placement of the word in the sentence. But enough does not function as a verb. It’s the most passive word I’ve chosen as a One Little Word (OLW).

So how? How do I pick one word? Am I overthinking all of this? I need to pray, to listen, to do, to plan, to act, to forgive, to express, to read, to write, to diet, to focus, to breathe, to rest, to exercise, to clean, to laugh, to cry, to grieve and to smile. I want just enough, not too much, and not too little. I feel like a character in a cartoon on a journey standing at one of those signs with a thousand arrows in all directions, not sure of which way to go but feeling packed and ready, map of possibilities in full color in the side of my bag, but there is this ball and chain around my ankle. I simply need to get in motion. To amble, to saunter, to skip, to run, to perambulate, to jump, to not sit still, to not stand by, to take action on movement, to leap, to walk. To go in some direction. Onward.

Onward.

Here’s a word to get me through days, through meetings, through books, through situations, through decisions. Momentum to keep turning the pages, to forge ahead into new experiences and new chapters.

Onward.

It’s an adjective, an adverb, and can be an interjection. It keeps moving in a direction, not standing still or getting stagnant, pressing on but not missing the important moments, either – just not getting bogged down and feeling like my wheels are stuck in the mud.

Onward.

Not necessarily forward or backward, upward or downward but whichever direction seems best to choose. Like bedward at 9:00 p.m. Onward, toward or at a point ahead in time or space.

Onward.

For the last six months of 2025, I’ve felt anchored by the weight of belongings and random antiques and collectibles that were not my acquisitions. I’ve felt handcuffed in the anger and sadness of grief. It’s time to cut it loose…..to let it go…..to move….

Onward.

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Kentucky Travels – December

I sit in a rustic green rocker on a porch facing the Rough River in Falls of Rough, Kentucky this morning with a cup of coffee. A thousand birds are worshiping their maker in glorious song, competing with the heater that sits adjacent to the front porch. Here is my list of choir members so far:

American Robin

Belted Kingisher

Northern Cardinal

European Starling

White Throated Sparrow

Yellow-rumped Warbler (butterbutt)

Song Sparrow

House Sparrow

Tufted Titmouse

Mourning Dove

Carolina Wren

Red-tailed Hawk

House Finch

Blue Jay

American Crow

Ring-billed Gull

Canada Goose

It’s the robins who are leading in worship here this morning. They all are competing for the title of soloist extraordinare. In the distance, I hear a woodpecker, but he is beating the drum and not singing, so I cannot tell what kind he is.

The river is still, smooth as glass and muddy. and of the ten or so cabins in this remote area, only one other is occupied. There isn’t another soul outside, so I hold the only ticket to this private concert-for-one.

At least for now. The boys will be up shortly.

OOh, ooh – and just now, the woodpecker flew across the river to a hole in a tree, and I can see that it is one of the smaller varieties. And then it attempts its own clownish note, and Merlin declares it is a Northern Flicker.

The sky is a steel gray with morning clouds supposed to burn off by mid-morning. We came in after dark last night and can hear the falls rushing under the bridge we drove across, but that will take a walk or ride to see them.

for just this moment

the rest of the world stands still

I bask in birdsong

Then, all at once, every bird ceases to sing, as if their concert has ended with one Amen in unison, and they have other things to do, other places to be. I am left alone in the silence of this porch, where three small noses are sniffing under the front door to take in the world here outside and to remind me that they, too, have their own offerings to give. That’s my beckoning to get up and help Briar walk them on their leashes down to the water’s edge and hold on tight, at least where Fitz-the-brave-hunter-of-anything-that-moves is concerned.

I can see how Ada Limon, the U.S. Poet Laureate who lives in Lexington, Kentucky, finds her writing groove here in this state. There is magic in the air for those who take the time to notice.

Later today, at 2:00 Kentucky time, I’ll attend my grandson’s first birthday party. He’ll be one tomorrow, and what a joy he is! In the flurry of activity and excitement, I will think back to this porch and all its lack of demands and be thankful that God gives us children when we are young, so that in our golden years we can fully appreciate the power of the front porch.

Falls of Rough, Kentucky along the Rough River

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Lights Reflecting Hope


this morning, cloistered

in the silence of what used

to be sheltered woods



dogs still sound asleep

I rise and the wood floor creaks

I wrap, tie my robe


take my medicine

my toes find my snuggly Uggs

on my way to the


best part of the day ~

writing by Christmas tree lights

faint glow of the screen


illuminating

syllables, finger-tapping

meaning from chaos


deep-breathing morning’s

chill of pine-scented fresh air

(coffee competing)


tiny lights bounce off

ceramic Nativity

figures into the


stillness of the room

proclaiming hope in the midst

of these troubling times

My husband’s 1970s ceramic Nativity set made for him by a favorite aunt (missing a piece or two)
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Revisiting 90 Ways of Community

Do you love journals and pens? Are you a particular-type-of-pencil snob? Are you drawn to notepads, Post-It Notes, notecards, and writing tablets of all shapes and sizes? If you said yes to any of these questions and you’ve ever had a secret wish to write poetry but aren’t sure how to start, I might can help.

I want to provide a link to a special book that is a completely free download here in digital form or a cost-of-printing book form here. Each chapter is filled with poems that explain the type of poetry, a prompt to get you started, instructions, and a mentor poem to show a sample by another poet for inspiration.

If you’re looking to set a goal of writing, this book can launch your new healthy habit!

Today is the day!

Write a poem, write a song ~

The world sings along!

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December X Marks the Spot

Mo Daley of Illinois introduced the X Marks the Spot poem in one of our monthly Open Writes through Ethicalela.com. To write one, find any page of print and make an X from corner to corner or across any part, then list the words the X touches. Using one, a couple, a few, some, most, or all of those words, write a poem. I chose a recent essay by humorist David Sedaris, “And Your Little Dog, Too,” for my X and used chained haiku for the form.

Here are the words I listed:

unconscious hole bent sells past shout seemingly walking foot mountain addicted leg snarling registered recreational pushed realized obnoxiously illicit downtown

Aha Moment

walking downtown past

addicted Christmas shoppers

who obnoxiously

pushed through seemingly

illicit mountains of junk

I realized it ~

we’re too hell-bent on

recreational spending

to give homespun gifts