The WordPlay Word-zine Volume VII, Issue 13 March 26, 2018 Word of the Week: kinship Dear ,
This week, so close to both Easter and Passover, seems like the perfect time to focus on kinship—our connection to every other human being on the planet.
It's an easy idea to toss around, but a challenging one to live by. But that will not keep us from trying, and being grateful that there are people who point the way for us. The great spiritual leaders, of course, but also the great writers.
That's what my Soul Sisters book club members Dede, Wendy, and K.J., and I, along with our two missing members Elizabeth and Kathy agree. But Father Greg Boyle, the founder of Homeboy Industries and author of a new book called Barking to the Choir, points the way, with humor as
well as heart.
Barking to the Choir is this week's featured writing, and to give you a taste of Fr. Greg, whom I've twice had the privilege to meet and hear speak, here's a short clip of him talking about kinship.
Wishing you the joy of kinship, whatever your beliefs and whatever holiday you may be celebrating this
week.
JOIN ME AT
SENSORIA: A CELEBRATION OF LITERATURE & THE ARTS FOR A SPECIAL CELEBRATION!
I hope you can join me and my beloved
teacher, mentor and friend Irene for this year's Irene Blair Honeycutt Legacy Award Presentation and Reading ( it's free, as are most Sensoria events, and it's on Monday, April 9th at 7 p.m. (preceded by a reception at 6 p.m.). More important, I hope you come for as many Sensoria events as you can
make it to! You'll be glad you did. Full schedule here.
Upcoming WordPlay
EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW
ABOUT POETRY
* But Were Afraid to
Ask
There are at least ten thousand ways to write a poem! In this lively presentation about the art and craft of poetry based on Maureen’s latest book of poetry, Ten Thousand Cicadas Can’t Be Wrong, participants will learn how content, sound and form work together, and get to try their hand at the process. They’ll
also have the opportunity to ask every question they’ve ever had about poetry.
WHEN: Wednesday, April 11th, 2018 from 10:00 a.m. until noon
SPINNING WORDS INTO GOLD Does writing fulfill you? Do you wish you were writing more? Jumpstart your writing life and learn to keep your words flowing. Learn specific techniques and exercises to create nonfiction, poetry and/or fiction. Whether you would like to keep a journal for your own personal growth, spin stories for your loved ones, or further a career as a professional writer, experience the satisfaction of developing a writing practice
that works for you—come spin words into gold.
WHERE: John Campbell Folk School. 1 Folk School Road, Brasstown, NC 28902
WHEN: Sunday, May 6th through Saturday, May 12th, 2018
COST: $630 (plus room and
board)
TO REGISTER: To register, click this link to be taken to the John Campbell Folk School website to register.
Featured Writer
Father Greg Boyle
Gregory Boyle is the founder of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, CA. Now in its 30th year, Homeboy traces its roots to when Boyle, a Jesuit priest with advanced degrees in English and theology, served
as pastor of Dolores Mission Church, then the poorest Catholic parish in Los Angeles, which also had the highest concentration of gang activity in the city. Homeboy has become the largest gang-intervention, rehabilitation, and reentry program in the world, and employs and trains gang members and felons in a range of social enterprises, as well as provides critical services to thousands of men and women each year who walk through its doors seeking a better life. Father Boyle has received the
California Peace Prize, the James Beard Foundation Humanitarian of the Year Award, and the University of Notre Dame’s Laetare Medal. He was inducted into the California Hall of Fame and named a 2014 Champion of Change by the White House. He is also the author of the New York Times bestseller Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion. (bio courtesy of amazon.com) Featured
Writing
an excerpt from the introduction to
The kinship of God won’t come unless we shake things up—to “lose the earth you know”—to bark up the wrong
tree, and to propose something new.
“Barking” declares that the real world is not what it is cracked up to be. At Homeboy Industries, we don’t
prepare for the real world—we challenge it. For the opposite of the “real world” is not the “unreal world” but the kinship of God. Therein lies our authenticity as people of faith and card-carrying members of the human race……What if we ceased to pledge our allegiance to the bottom line and stood, instead, with those who live the bottom? Us versus Them . . . or just Us? Good people/bad people . . . or just God’s people? Judgment or awe? Not some accepted/some rejected?
……
Homeboy Industries (and this book) wants to bend the world to grace, and it doesn’t need to turn up the volume in order to accomplish that. It aspires to put a human face on the gang member. If this doesn’t happen then kinship is impeded. It is also meant to soften our conventional take on who
this gang member is and ushers in an abiding belief that we belong to each other. It is anchored in the truth that all demonizing is untruth.
When we opened Homegirl Café on East First Street eight years ago and the wildly colorful sign sat above the front door, a woman I didn’t know called me screaming, “Why would you name it such a thing? You have ruined our neighborhood.”
……
How do we awaken from the dream of separateness, from
an abiding sense that the chasm that exists between us cannot be reconciled? For it would seem that the gulf in our present age could not be wider between “Us” and “Them.” How do we tame this status quo that lulls us into blindly accepting the things that divide us and keep us from our own holy longing for the mutuality of kinship—a sure and certain sense that we belong to each other?
Having said all this, this book feels more playful than not. Like talks I’ve been inclined to give latterly, they feel more like “stand-up” than “stand-up-to”—getting folks to laugh rather
than calling people to some grim duty.
……
Kinship is the game-changer. It is the Pearl of Great Price. It is the treasure buried in the field. Let’s sell everything to get it. Yet we think that kinship is beyond our reach . . . más allá de esta vida. Yet Gospel Kinship always exposes the game,
jostles the status quo in constant need of conversion, because the status quo is only interested in incessant judging, comparisons, measuring, scapegoating, and competition. And we, the Choir, are stuck in complacency.
I need this conversion. That’s why I’m writing about it.
Our settling is a sleeping from which we are asked to awaken. I met some magicians from Magicians Without Borders, who go to refugee camps and the Third World and desperate communities and speak the language of magic. They wanted to bring the same ministry to Homeboy. The currency of magic, they told me, was “appear, disappear, and change.” This describes much of the pedagogy of Homeboy Industries and the stuff of attachment repair. They sold the idea to me based on a
principle of Harry Houdini’s. Houdini felt that the purpose of magic was not just to amaze and amuse. It also sought to awaken hope that the impossible was indeed possible. Not bad. Why settle for less?
Click here to check out Barking to the Choir.
WordPlay Now! Writing Prompt
This is WordPlay—so why not revel in the power and potential of one good word after
another? This week, it's "kinship."
PROMPT: Write about an encounter that demonstrates kinship—
It's fun to play with prompts in community with fellow writers, and to be able to share the results when you're done. You can find out
about WordPlay classes, workshops, and retreats here. MAUREEN RYAN GRIFFIN, an award-winning poetry and nonfiction writer, is the author of Spinning Words into Gold, a Hands-On Guide to the Craft of Writing, a grief workbook entitled I Will Never Forget You, and three collections of poetry, Ten Thousand Cicadas Can't Be Wrong, This Scatter of Blossoms and When the Leaves Are in the Water. One of her long-held dreams came true in July of 2015 when Garrison Keillor read one of her poems on
The Writer's Almanac. You can listen to it here. She believes, as
author Julia Cameron says, "We are meant to midwife dreams for one another."
Maureen also believes that serious "word work" requires serious WordPlay, as play is how we humans best learn—and perform. What she loves best is witnessing all the other dreams that come true for her clients along the way. Language, when used with intentionality and focus, is, after all, serious fuel for joy. Here's to yours! |
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