Notes from Mary Ann Welter

Poetry has been a focus today. Stefan said: "The power of poetry is like a daily vitamin or maybe a heart medication." He also described poetry as an "endless well." He encouraged the pilgrims to consciously ingest goodness and beauty every day, whether in form of poems, nature, music, whatever nourishes.

We spent time on "The Fountain" by Denise Levertov with our new group of pilgrims.

Questions were offered along with the invitation to let questions arise within each person. In small group time, participants were encouraged to choose from any of the offered questions or start with their own question(s) for sharing with one another.

Some slight re-working of questions based on the three strands of biblical passage of Woman at the Well, read today from an edgier translation (The Message) which portrays a feisty back and forth between Jesus and the Samarian woman. Second strand: Levertov's poem "The Fountain." Third strand: The first beatitude.

Questions for today:

• At this threshold of my life, what is my own question?
• Other way of saying it: What is my song, my poem?
• What is my experience of crossing boundaries (as Jesus and the Woman crossed several in their conversation)?
• What happens when we cross boundaries?

The word "threshold" is important in Celtic spirituality and involves both the letting go and the embracing or the leaving and acknowledging.

This was a new question today:

• As we go over or through a threshold, what are we letting go?
• What must be left behind?
• Are we afraid to let go?
• Can we move from letting go to embracing the unexpected well or source of refreshment, even when it is something forbidden or when crossing a boundary?

Prayers tonight were for an end to the violence in Egypt, for many personal intentions of those gathered, for children — especially for an end to child abuse, and for all people doing good work in the world.