Volume VI, Issue 37 September 11, 2017 Word of the Week: lifesaving Dear ,
Many thanks to WordPlayer Mary Gregory for forwarding me today’s featured writing, a short, beautiful meditation by Henri Nouwen called "Writing to Save the Day" that includes the words "By writing we can claim what we have lived and thus integrate it more fully into our journeys. Then writing can become lifesaving for us and sometimes for others too."
Mary sent this meditation all the way back in April, and I've been saving it in my inbox ever since. Do you do that with certain emails, save them because you want to do something with them, and you're not quite sure what that is?
Then came the big house project of '17—replacing our waaaay overtired old carpet, which required emptying all my bookshelves (a daunting task), along with clearing off all surfaces.
My good friend Bridgett offered to help me, and the project grew to include some major clearing out of things I've been saving for various reasons, mostly sentimentality and "I-may-need-that-some-day" syndrome. Here's one example.
Finally, some fifty years later, I was able to let go of this
remnant of the Mary Poppins blanket my mom left on my bed for me one ordinary day.
Why now? In part because Bridgett said she'd donate it to a place that uses stuff like this for bedding for rescue dogs. How's that for a worthy end of a blanket's life? But also in part because I could
claim, thanks to Nouwen's words, how important it was to me that my mom knew how deeply I loved Mary Poppins and that she deliberately bought the blanket for me just to make me happy.
I was my mother's fourth child in five years and two months, born in the fourth city she'd lived in since marrying my dad.
I often heard from her, when she was tired and stressed (which was often) how much work and trouble it was to have four children. I can count on one hand the gifts she gave me that weren't for a birthday or Christmas. And this was one of them. It truly was life-saving to curl up under this tangible proof that my mother did love me.
And now that I've claimed the story, I don't need the blanket. (Though having a photo of it is nice.)
Love and light,
Maureen Upcoming WordPlay
UNDER CONSTRUCTION:
YOUR
WRITING
Starts this Wednesday! 1 spot
left!
(Fulfilling Writing Dreams & Goals; Creating New Writing; Revising & Polishing Your Writing)
This class is designed to fulfill your writing dreams and
projects. You’ll set goals and support structures and watch your writing flow! You’ll also get feedback on your work (any genre) and learn revision tools and methods. Each week, writing prompts will generate material for new writing or further a piece in process, whatever your preferred genre. Through examples of accomplished writers, you’ll learn techniques to aid you right where you are in the process.
* For the benefit of participants, an audio recording of the class will be made each week so that participants are able to listen to classes they miss and/or review material covered at any convenient time and place. These recordings are available throughout the class session, along with all handouts, in a shared Dropbox folder.
WHERE: Covenant Presbyterian Recreation Center, 1000 East Morehead Street, Charlotte, 28204. Click here for map.
WHEN: Wednesday mornings, 10:00 a.m. – noon. September 13, 20 and 27
October 4, 11, 18 and 25
November 1, 8 and 29
December 6 and 13 COST: $425 TO REGISTER: If you’re interested in attending, please email us at info@wordplaynow.com to be put on the waiting list.
----------------------------------------------- FALL WRITING RETREAT
2 spots left!
Renew and delight yourself. The Fall Writing Retreat is an opportunity to create new pieces of writing and/or new possibilities for our lives. Enjoy various seasonal prompts; they elicit beautiful material that can be shaped into essays, poems, stories, or articles. After a communal lunch, you’ll have private
time which can be used to collage, work with a piece of writing from the morning, or play with a number of other writing prompts and methods. You’ll take home new ideas, new drafts, and new possibilities.
$97 includes lunch and supplies.
WHERE: South Charlotte area. Details
will be provided upon registration.
WHEN: Saturday, September 23rd, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
* We’ve also scheduled our Winter
Writing Retreat for Saturday, December 16th and if you’re interested in registering for both, we’ll bundle them at a 10% discount. Your cost for the two retreats would be $175. If you’d like to register for both retreats just click this link to be taken to
PayPal.
More WordPlay opportunities here. Featured
Writer
Henri Nouwen
Photo courtesy of http://henrinouwen.org/about-henri/his-life/
Featured
Writing Writing to Save the Day
by Henri Nouwen
… Writing can help us
to concentrate, to get in touch with the deeper stirrings of our hearts, to clarify our minds, to process confusing emotions, to reflect on our experiences, to give artistic expression to what we are living, and to store significant events in our memories. Writing can also be good for others who might read what we write….
Read the whole meditation here: 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
"lifesaving."
PROMPT: Write about a moment of "lifesaving," using any meaning of the word, whether it's an actual (or fictional) saving of someone's life, a metaphorical lifesaving, or a saving of a significant life
memory. 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. 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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