Stand Up and Show Your Soul: Why we Need Poetry

Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.
-Mary Oliver 

And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.
- John O'Donohue 

Beloved friends of LaSalle, 

I've been reminded of the power of poetry lately. Several friends have been relying on poems much more regularly in this season and its been encouraging me. One texted me the exact right verses on a heavy day; another recommended an author I hadn't heard of that I know love; another sent me a paperback in the mail that arrived with a note and sits on my end table. Many of these friends are in helping professions, in ministry, or recovering from heavy and weary realities in their lives - and somehow we're all being drawn to the way poems can act as a balm to all that heaviness. 

There's something about the power of poetry, - it's tilted language and creative lenses, it's sparseness or it's metaphors - that helps us when we can't find the words as easily for ourselves. Often poets say what is true, and call a thing a thing - which can be world changing. In poetry so many women in particular can name power, the realities of being embodied, their wounds, sexuality, being silenced, delight, voice, loss, and ask questions and call attention to the things that we often let go unsaid. In poetry women can point back to ancestors, point forward to the next generation, and help us plant our feet firmly in community and with another in the present. In poetry our spiritual selves can be coaxed forward, and our hidden feelings brought to the surface; we can "stand up and show your soul" as poet Clarissa Pinkola Estes exhorts us.    

When you have some extra time, I encourage you to look up some favorite or new to you poets this week, especially female writers. There's the greats like Maya Angelou and Madeline L’Engel, Mary Oliver and Audre Lorde, Sylvia Plath, Gwendolyn Brooks, and younger voices like Rupi Kaur and Nayyriah Waheed.. Among many many others. And then maybe share a verse, or a book, or a snippet of beauty found within those pages with someone else. We heal in community as many poets tell us - the power and words of women can nurture us this season. And in closing, enjoy this timely wisdom from Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estes below - from her piece, Letters to a Young Acitivist:

In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails. We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear. Didn't you say you were a believer? Didn't you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn't you ask for grace? Don't you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater?

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good. What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take "everyone on Earth" to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these - to be fierce and to show mercy toward others, both, are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.

There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it; I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate. The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours: They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here. In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall:

When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for. This comes with much love and a prayer that you remember who you came from, and why you came to this beautiful, needful Earth.

- Clarissa Pinkola Estes