Poems of love, death, a little sex, ALS, dementia, and the widow’s life thereafter
Our love songs have no shadows. We dare not acknowledge the deep love that can coexist with loss. But in this timely and timeless collection, Peg Edera offers what we didn’t know we needed: a proposal in the dark, a squad car filled with lilacs, tears saved for the right time, toast and honey.
The world of illness and dying is demanding and complex. Peg documents the love of her life, her husband Fred: his diagnosis with frontal temporal lobe dementia and ALS, the loneliness of missing him before he was gone, worry for their daughter, and grieving in all its dimensions and untimeliness. Fred died at home, shortly after he turned sixty-seven.
In writing, Peg uncovered tender truths, unlikely humor, the faithful awareness of deep-hearted love in an unpredictable world. And hope for the future.
Love these poems for their magical discovery of love’s perennial voltage despite lost life. By wild honesty, here the good goes on in new forms. Our culture is filled with love songs, and equally filled with silence about loss. What’s often missing in both realms is present in these poems—detailed reporting on the enigmas of true connection: a proposal in the dark . . . a squad car filled with lilacs . . . tears saved for the right time . . . toast and honey . . . all we can do with the impossible . . . and the Temple of What Is Next. Peg Edera’s poems offer the tough tenderness it takes to live through hard times.
—Kim Stafford, author of Wild Honey, Tough Salt
Tender, self-questioning, attentive, profound, heart opening, genuine. These poems touch on human universal issues in profound ways. They give us courage, demand belief, teach us about grief, life, love and the way forward.
—Esther Elizabeth, author of When I Die Tell Them This: A collection of poems about where I stand
At the living core of this work is an openness to love, active & passionate, difficult to sustain yet worth the travail. In the midst of what could easily be called the daily nightmare of the dementia of her husband, Peg finds a way to remain open to Fred as a human being, open to herself, and open to life as its ragged nature and exquisite detail enfolds them both. These poems are the home-place where this openness—enhanced by Peg’s poetic gifts—finds a nuanced medium that proves to be at once harrowingly honest and generative ground. Ultimately, these poems are a place where one can begin to trust that beyond hope, there is a redemptive glance.
—John Fox, author of Poetic Medicine: The Healing Art of Poem-Making
Peg meets her life with poetry. In this truth-filled, heartbreaking, sometimes very funny collection, we are gifted with a poet’s wisdom and a wise woman’s knowing words.
—Judith Tripp, psychotherapist, author, and leader of the Women’s Dream Quest
Available from Fernwood Press: http://www.fernwoodpress.com/2018/11/20/love-is-deeper-than-distance/
Available from Barclay Press: http://www.barclaypressbookstore.com/Love-Is-Deeper-Than-Distance.html
A tiny institution that drew a mere handful of students on its first day may have seemed too inauspicious to garner local media attention. Indeed, the unpretentious training school opened with little fanfare. And yet, a century and a quarter later, the school endures—in a new location, with a new name, and with an expanded mission.
Did you know that a group of boys is called a noise? Or that a group of girls is called a giggle? It makes perfect sense that a group of family members is called a mess! This collective noun book celebrates the anticipation of your birthday and the uniqueness of your family. Celebrate your next birthday with a Mess of Relatives!
The world hungers for peace. People are starved for peace. No doubt this points to a universal, timeless hope, but now it seems acute. We see peace rallies and vigils, blogs, workshops, internet activism, relief work in war-torn areas, mediators working with families and nations, and ordinary folks everywhere trying to reduce the effects of racism, discrimination, and economic injustice. What Howard R. Macy offers here is an exploration of important biblical ideas about peace. They center on the Hebrew word and concept of shalom. That vision of shalom can deepen our thinking and shape our living for peace because the Bible speaks to our despair. It gives us some goals for peace and a basis to hope that peace will be achieved. The hope we see in the Bible does not come from the idea that humans are terrific. Instead, peace will come because God is good, trustworthy, and free and faithful to act.
There is no greater privilege in the Christian life than to serve as a spiritual leader within the body of Christ. Unfortunately, we are in the midst of a genuine crisis in the church today. Pastors and other spiritual leaders are leaving vocational ministry faster than we can replace them. This is due primarily to the crippling effects of burnout, a pastoral pathology resulting from a lethal combination of extraordinary job-related stress and woefully inadequate self-care. Most of us know someone experiencing burnout. They might be serving in your church right now, or more than likely, they may have recently left. They may be your friends; they may be part of your own family. So what is the cure? We find clues in the life of the prophet Elijah, in his practices of physical refreshment, spiritual renewal, and vocational realignment. And as you will see, when practiced on a regular basis these renewing rituals or rhythms of grace prove to be life-saving disciplines for spiritual leaders.
In this narrative biography of her Quaker father, Charles Walker, author Brenda Walker Beadenkopf tells the story of her father’s involvement with the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s. Walker became a key trainer and writer of training materials for the civil rights movement and a steadfast supporter of Dr. Martin Luther King’s nonviolent campaign. This book provides a unique inside view of the training and support that took place behind the headlines.
A poem she wrote has been translated into multiple languages, set to music, and featured in a best-selling book on spirituality and the twelve steps. But until recently, the author of “Breathing Underwater” has been virtually unknown, and the collection containing that famous poem has never been published. Richard Rohr calls it “stunning”; other writers and poets describe Carol Bialock’s debut collection as “brilliant and luminous”; “lighthearted and holy”; “dynamic, immediate, ecstatic”; “a book of love and God … bursting into bloom.”
Sweetness of Unity: Three Hundred Years of Quaker Minuting. Judith Roads, 2019.
HESTER AND SOPHIE