Published November 27, 2020
A Ritual to Read to Each Other: When You Can’t Read
January 6, 2021 By Leave a Comment
Published November 6, 2020
Searching with Shelly Miller, part 3
December 16, 2020 By
I said in part 1 that I took Shelly Miller’s new book Searching for Certainty with me to the beach.
I had lost my father only a month before and was worn out from caregiving. I don’t often write in books, but I couldn’t stop writing in Shelly’s. About halfway through, I flipped to the Acknowledgments and read this:
“Mom, even though we haven’t talked in more than twenty years, I’m thankful that you raised me to love beauty, express creativity, and be resilient despite adversity. Our shared struggles in the early years made me who I am today.” Acknowledgments, Searching for Certainty
I was stunned. The book had already covered some painful memories, but I assumed there would be some reconciliation between Shelly and her mother before the last page. But no.
Shelly is the best person I’ve ever known — period. I believe she was in the center of God’s will. Yet, there was this broken relationship. And that gave me hope.
I have broken relationships in my family too. I have grieved and prayed and schemed and questioned. Maybe all will not be repaired before my last day. Maybe God already knows this.
If I had gotten the chance to interview Shelly about her new book, I would have asked her how she ever managed to get through my book, which is all about my mostly-good-but-sometimes-hard relationship with my mother. How did she not throw the book across the room? I’m ashamed to admit I might have done exactly that.
I suspect Shelly had dealt with her pain. I suspect friendship and a desire to learn more about poetry overcame any parts of my book that might have stung.
As open and teachable as Shelly was to my poetry feedback, I want to be open and teachable to her book’s challenging lessons.
In chapter 3 of Searching for Certainty, she explores still life photography and invites us to “allow God to reframe what you are currently experiencing with the lens of Truth and being known by him. That same chapter includes my favorite sentence from the book: “Resurrection is free and it costs you something.”
When I read those words, I thought about a teapot I brought along on my beach trip. It was my mom’s, and it looks like Drummond plaid (my maiden name). I used to have my own teapot just like it, but it broke. My dad let me have this one when he moved next door, since he mostly drank coffee.
Reframing looked like this: Some things break; new things come.
The teapot was free to me. It cost breaking the other to receive a new one — one that is not just a cute vessel but a reminder of the last three years with my dad. I’m certain my mother would be very happy to know about the teapot’s new life.
I only wish Shelly were still here too, so I could tell her.
Searching with Shelly Miller, part 2
December 9, 2020 By
I am privileged to be in the Acknowledgements for Shelly Miller’s Searching for Certainty. She writes, “Thanks to Megan Willome for your stellar poetry critiques on the poems I included.”
Oh, Shelly, it was all joy.
She contacted me this spring:
“My editor is allowing me to include some short poems as epigraphs for chapters in the new book I’m releasing in October. To be honest, I read them and think are they even well written? I know that sounds funny but I really have no clue as to what I’m doing, just following my instincts when it comes to poetry.“
Of course I said yes. She responded:
“I’m totally open and teachable. This is helpful for me and I want to get better. Honored to have your help!I’m sitting outside, resting in my walled garden, sipping tea. It’s our first sunny warm day in London—feels heavenly.“
Shelly brought her photographer’s eye and her writer’s heart to her poems. And she was as open and teachable as she claimed.
After I sent my feedback, she asked great questions:
I would love to learn why you broke up verses as you did on each of them. And how did you decide to break it up into three stanzas? I don’t have the poetry intelligence to create architecture in that way but want to learn. No rush. Just my random thoughts. I’m wondering if this is something intuitive for poets or learned by experience.
No, it’s not intuitive. We all learn by doing. And Shelly learned quickly.
I have taught several workshops and helped many people with poetry, but I always enter with trepidation. Poetry is such a personal art. Shelly was taking a big risk, sharing with me. How would she respond to my feedback?
“I had to laugh when I read your sweet encouragement about coming into my voice and shorter being what I need to lean into. Laughing with God because your words were a sacred echo.I feel like being concise and clear has been God’s choice of spiritual discipline for me for at least a decade. It’s all leading somewhere and I’m grateful to be a student, but sometimes it can also be frustrating. Thanks for being part of that process. I am learning a lot each time we have these exchanges.“
I learned a lot too. Writing about spiritual topics is hard to do well and definitely not my area of expertise. Shelly showed me how it might be done with full faith and love and without sentimentality.
She came later to poetry, but after reading my book, The Joy of Poetry, she began incorporating it into her life, especially on her Sunday sabbaths. She deeply loved the poems of Wendell Berry.
When Shelly told me my book helped get her into poetry, I started sending her poems. She always responded.
But when she was diagnosed with a massive sarcoma, I debated what poem to send her. Finally I chose one from John O’Donohue’s To Bless the Space Between Us, “For a Friend, on the Arrival of Illness.” At Chronic Joy, I wrote about choosing the poem and Shelly’s response. (Although I didn’t say it was Shelly. Somehow I hoped she’d get better.)
There is one stanza of O’Donohue’s poem that makes me think of Shelly’s brief and intense journey with illness:
May you find in yourself A courageous hospitality Toward what is difficult, Painful, and unknown.
Shelly found that “courageous hospitality” and shared it with everyone she knew. Yes, the news that her cancer was terminal hit her hard. But when asked for prayer requests, she asked for simple things, like to be able to enjoy her food, to sleep well, to share good moments with family and friends. She went quickly. She went in peace.
Shelly Miller — our rest mentor — is now at rest.
Next week, what Shelly’s book meant to me. And to read last week’s post on my visits from a Shelly-bird, click here.
Searching with Shelly Miller, part 1
December 2, 2020 By
This is not how a book review is supposed to go.
The day I joined Shelly Miller’s launch team for Searching for Certainty, my father passed away. I did what I could to help promote the book over the next few weeks, but didn’t have the mental space to read more than the first couple of chapters.
Shortly after publication, I took her book with me on vacation and started again at the beginning. I did nothing that week but walk and read and rest. I was searching for answers, or at least direction. Shelly delivered.
Back at home, I sent her an email to thank her and broach the idea of doing an interview, but she never responded. She passed away only days later, on November 1, All Saints Day.
That Sunday I was cantoring at church and both excited and nervous to sing the Litany of the Saints. I’d recorded my pianist playing the first minute of the song and then drove to a secluded street where I could park and practice. Normally I drive while I warm up, but I needed stillness to hit replay while reading from the long list of saints.
Enter: Disruption.
A small bird, possible a titmouse, accosted my parked car. I wish I could say what kind, but I wasn’t paying attention. I had holy work to do.
The bird dropped from nowhere and started pecking at my side mirror. Then it pecked at my passenger window. Then back to the side mirror, and so on. I sang on, and it pecked on, almost violently: Look at me! Let me in to your Litany!
I ignored it. When I drove off, it finally flew away.
When I learned that Shelly had died that very day, I felt sure that the bird was somehow sent from her, trying desperately to get my attention. Look at me! Let me in to your Litany!
That Sunday was not the first time I’d encountered a Shelly-bird. On the day of her massive surgery to address her sarcoma, I went to a garden to pray for her, because Shelly loved gardens. In between the sanctuary and the Holy Family Center at St. Mary’s is Cynthia’s garden, named for Cynthia Collins Pedregon, who passed away from cancer. She and my mother were friends, so I feel close to both of them when I am in that garden. It was May, and the magnolia tree was in bloom. And an unseen bird, maybe a titmouse, was singing.
I sent a recording of the bird to Shelly, so she could listen while she was in the hospital, secluded from chirpy things. When she redid her website, in preparation for Searching for Certainty, she added a robin. In our interview, I planned to ask why.
Because poets don’t just post random birds. And Shelly was a poet.
More about her journey into poetry and how I got to be part of it, next week.
Introducing ‘A Wrinkle in Time’ book club
November 4, 2020 By
Published October 2, 2020
This book club is still accessible to Tweetspeak Patrons. Learn more here.
