Ticket to Party

Want to keep me? Make it easier for me to leave.

That's the philosophy behind a strategy that, more often than not, helps businesses retain executives. How do savvy businesses make it easier for executives to leave and, surprisingly, get them to stay? Besides offering professional development opportunities, they encourage social networking, by hosting events where execs will meet others beyond their immediate circle.

How cool is that? We regular-people have a word for "social networking event." It's called a party. I'm guessing there needs to be some kind of synergy. Executives at a party-social-networking-event meeting other executives, discussing, to some extent, business.

Which is just to say, this past Tuesday I participated in a social networking event, otherwise known as a Twitter poetry party. As a manager and culture columnist for HighCallingBlogs, this is the kind of sanctioned fun that will keep me at HCB for a good long time. (Part of my job is to meet poets and writers, engage in social networking, and write articles about poetry.)

All right, I know you want hear the best part. Who was at the party? What did they say (um, tweet)? You can read more about that at Tweetspeak Poetry.

For my part, I drank water (sorry, that's so unpartyish, isn't it?) and tweeted the poems below. Our theme for the night was Love in Character. I focused on Pocahontas & John Smith, Cleopatra & Mark Antony, Cyrano & Roxane, Lancelot & Guinevere, Shah Jahan & Mumtaz Mahal (of the famous Taj Mahal tomb), Elizabeth Bennett & Darcy, Scarlett & Rhett, Romeo & Juliet, Samson & Delilah, Owl & Pussycat, and Yuri & Lara...


Stop asking questions,
Mr. Darcy, with your
dark brown eyes... kisses
need no answers

*

Lara, I watched you
through the window,
choked on the scent
of goodbye

*

Mr. Young has
his Janet, now tell me,
who is Yuri?

*

Mumtaz,
the air is silk,
morning raises yet again
its veil of longing

*

Lancelot, you were my
green earth, the round
table upon which
my heart spun

*

Roxane,
don't ever doubt it,
for what it's worth
I loved you silent
as the stars

*

Dear Rhett,
this is Juliet
speaking. What
kind of fool are you
to spurn love?
I would die for
my lover's touch

*

Darcy, you too
could know purple,
could lie amidst the
heather. Let your eyes
but look on me

*
I am missing you,
Rhett, the lilacs are in
bloom beside the house
like purple flame

*

I watched them
shave your head clean,
strip your strength
in fallen locks, now I am
missing you, your hair
like rope around my wrists

*

The curry leaf
floats, curls
'midst black onion
seeds, brown sauce,
and I think once again
I taste your love
upon my tongue

*

I still remember
how your bangles
whispered glass love
through the halls, your hair
coconut fragrant, hands
henna red

*

When you stepped
under the Eastern Hemlocks,
John, I still had a few stray baby
teeth. You licked them sober, tall,
I left the shores

*

Mumtaz, would that
you could echo voice
over this dry river
through this dark tomb,
light my heart once more
like stars.

*

Vault of marble
cave, emerald-studded
calligraphy holds my love
for whom, at death, I plucked out
artists' eyes.

*

Had we but honey,
quince and money
a pea-green boat,
we could have
fled the sand,
put war behind

*

Who said love was
softer than the asp,
it bites the heart

*

Forgive me, Mark,
your ship arrived
my almond eyes
could never let
you go


MORE FUN:
Would you like to try writing a love poem, in character? Post your offering by 6:00 pm, Thursday November 5, for links and possible feature at HighCallingBlogs.com. Drop your post link here in the comment box so I don't miss it. Don't be shy! :)

God & the Song writing project: Right now at InCourage, they're GIVING AWAY a copy of Stone Crossings: Finding Grace in Hard and Hidden Places. One of my favorite SC chapters speaks of God as our Song of Songs lover. Would you like to try writing a love poem or vignette about God using the voice of a Song of Songs lover? (be as shy or brave as you wish :). Drop your post link here and I'll link to you.

Also, thanks to Michelle Gregory for asking me to share my writing journey. Check it out— includes the story of a very unfortunate string of rhymes.


Love Lane photo, by L.L. Barkat. Hat tip to Bradley, for the Wall Street Journal article.

Top 10 Steps to Make Your Blog or Book Go Viral

Viruses used to be simple. I'd sneeze, you'd catch my cold. Those were the days.

Yesterday, I perused a bunch of articles about Penenberg's new book Viral Loop: From Facebook to Twitter, How Today's Smartest Businesses Grow Themselves Reading these articles, I learned that spreading a cold just got more complicated. Not impossible, mind you, but way past a simple sneeze.

You can read some of the informative articles (I've linked to them at the bottom of this post). Or you can grab the high points here. These are the Top 10 steps to make your blog or book go viral...

1. MENTION your blog or book a lot. Stone Crossings. (Um, that's just me mentioning my book. I think it's very important to follow these steps with the same level of dedication a germaphobe would have about washing her hands. Because the minute I mentioned Stone Crossings, you may have washed it away (sorry, this does not imply that you are a germaphobe).

Anyway, whether or not you're annoyed by yet another mention of Stone Crossings is probably secondary. As Bill Wasik learned when trying to stop Peter Bjorn and John, even bad buzz can be good. Stone Crossings. :)

In all seriousness, I would be very careful about this step. It's better if other people mention your blog or book; see #4 below.

2. GET COVERAGE on popular blogs. Trust me, a bikini just won't do. It's got to be real coverage, like full body armor. Oprah, Rick Warren, Paris Hilton, where are you? I need coverage.

(I was going to mention Stone Crossings again here, but I was afraid to annoy you. However, I SHOULD mention that Penenberg got coverage on popular tech blogs, because his book is technically technical. Still, I bet he wouldn't mind a footnote from Paris Hilton. Viruses aren't necessarily fussy about how they spread. In my case, I figure everybody could use a little grace, so I'm not going to flinch either when Paris decides to make a video about Stone Crossings: Finding Grace in Hard and Hidden Places.)

3. TWEET A LOT. That's what Penenberg is doing. And from what I can tell by cruising his tweets, 'New' is a vital component. He tweets about Newsday, Newsweek, and the New York Times. (Ah, serendipity! I live in New York. Do you think this will tip the scales for sales of Sto.. Oh, seriously, I couldn't bring myself to say my book name again. Maybe you could say it for me?)

4. TWEET Retweetably. Did you know there are scientifically proven ways to get retweeted on Twitter? There are. And there are ways to pretty much guarantee being ignored. I've used a few myself, in both directions.

Unfortunately, the article that will tell you how to get retweeted didn't have any data on the usage of two words very dear to me: Stone Crossings. However, if these words count as self-reference, they would reduce my chances of being retweeted. Because, as the article will tell you, "Tweets about work, religion, money and media/celebrities are more retweetable than those involving negative emotions, sensations, swear words, and self-reference." Oh, and I was sad to learn that I must release my penchant for the semi-colon. It's the least retweetable form of punctuation.

5. OFFER VALUE to people. Penenberg notes that you can't control a viral loop. Bad things might happen if you try (or not). The best thing to do is give people something they want to spread the word about. As Penenberg says, "To get it, you have to give." If you're trying to make your blog go viral, this isn't so hard. Write well. Be generous with links. Highlight the good work of others. Books are trickier. You can do some giveaways or provide excerpts and reviews. But a book is a material object. That obviously complicates matters.

6. Recruit a design firm to DEVELOP an interactive website. I like this idea. It seems simple enough. When someone rolls over the Viral Loop website icons, they pop up messages like, "Click to explore bebo's story" and "Click to explore Tupperware's story."

How hard could it be to do this for my book? I could have little messages that say, "Click to explore the Evocative Creek Story" or "Click to explore the Fifth-Wife Car Story." You know, stuff like that. The only hard part of this step, in my humble opinion, could be the price tag. (Still, maybe I should talk to cool designer 23 Degrees.)

Penenberg's website also offers visitors a wiki opportunity, where they can add their own information or provide links and commentary. Would this work as well for a non-tech book? What do you think?

7. Find someone to DEVELOP A FACEBOOK AND iPOD application/widget. On the app, include a click-through button to your blog or buy-this-book page. Penenberg's application includes infographic, game, and research project related to his book. It estimates the real time value of users to various social networks, like Facebook.

Btw, did you know that Michael Jackson is apparently worth more than God? The Viral Loop app says so. (Hey, Chris Cree, HighCallingBlogs techno-genius... I need a Facebook and iPhone app for Stone Crossings. Is that too much to ask? Check it out, I already designed the art— see top of this post)

8. MAKE YOUR FACEBOOK APP/widget topical. Not as in topical skin cream, but as in make it relate to what you're trying to spread. This is obvious. The problem is that it's not simple. For someone like Penenberg, it takes creativity, but it's not impossible to create an app that will test and promote the theories of a technical book. However, as you've seen when you looked at my artwork for a Stone Crossings Facebook app (you did look, didn't you? Click picture for enlarged view.), well... who would know whether to laugh or cry at the absurdity of a widget on grace.

9. GET INVITED to be a guest Editor at Publisher's Weekly. (Anybody have some spare PW stationery sitting around? Bring it over and we can secretly pen a few invitations to ourselves. :) Obviously, this step is going to take some finegaling. In the meantime, though it might be a conflict of interest for me, as Managing Editor of HighCallingBlogs to invite myself to promote Stone Crossings at that awesome site, you could get to know me and someday get your blog or book featured.

10. USE EMAIL opportunities. Calacanis notes that he gets about a 60% RSVP rate through email, versus 30% from Twitter and 10% from Facebook. I'd say this is the one to be most careful about. Nobody likes to be spammed with read-my-blog or read-my-book notices in their inbox. Legitimate ways to email a list include offering a Subscribe by Email option in your sidebar.

If you made it this far, I'm assuming you're truly interested in making your blog or book go viral. These days it takes more than a simple sneeze. Still, I can say "God bless you."

P.S. It doesn't hurt to make a video too. Sorry, that's 11 steps to viral success.

RELATED ARTICLES:
CrunchGear's Viral Loop: Using Facebook and the iPhone to Promote Something Called a 'Book'
The New York Observer's Adam Penenberg's Crazy Viral Book Blitz
Fast Company's Viral Loop: Jason Calacanis Q&A From the Top of the Leader Board
Publisher's Weekly's Viral Issue: The Viral Loop
Fast Company's Report: Nine Scientifically Proven Ways to Get Retweeted on Twitter (this one's pretty cool because it also includes words most likely to get you retweeted and those most likely NOT to get you retweeted)
D: All Things Digital's Viral Loop: What Are Your Facebook Friends Worth?
Mediaite's Viral Loop: For Facebook, Michael Jackson is More Valuable than God
Fast Company's Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg on the Value of Viral Loops
Trenchwar's fun theory What Do Ninja Turtles, Hush Puppies and Pokeman All Have in Common?
HighCallingBlog's 7 Easy Tips to Grow Your Blog Audience

Original Viral Loop art by Studioe9. Viral Loop Christian Parody art by L.L. Barkat.

Trees Are Blushing "No"

Pokey.

That's the word Linda left out.

She made a pool, a stack, a pile. She fished, sorted, pulled, picked. And pokey got left behind (Are we surprised? Pokey is always fifty steps back, where we're likely to forget about it.)

When I saw the poem Linda made, without pokey, I commented that it would have been quite a different piece if she'd used that word.

It's a wonder, isn't it, how words have personalities?

This week, caught on the parkway, I sat thinking about the word hibernate. After all, winter is coming; trees are blushing "no" and weeping, but winter is coming. The word hibernate is one way to think about the nature of this change...

"Coming"

I like
the word
hibernate.

It is not
a killing word,
a crisis

word a
trauma word.
It is

a tender deep
warm primal
lay me

down to sleep
word, a nestle
into rest

word that
touches darkness,
unafraid.

Photo: Towering Pines at rehab center (yes, we've been spending many hours visiting Grandma since her knee surgery); photo by L.L. Barkat.

POETRY FRIDAY:
HighCallingBlogs Parking-Lot Poetry
Prairie Chick’s Just Breathe
Laura’s Trains
Linda’s A Stroll
Mom2Six’s Brakes
Glynn’s Slowing at the Faulkner Bookhouse
Monica’s Calligraphy Slows
Sarah’s The Dawn
Kelly’s escape
Bina’s Celebration of Slowing
nAncY’s book
Maureen’s Not a Rush
Marcus's The Price of Renewal

Technology Fails Me Home

Rain tap taps. Air is frost-ready. Weeks go by and, still, I have no heat. It is coming at last, later this week, but in the meantime here I am...

Sitting by the fire. Lugging logs from the garage. Tending, turning. Warming hands. Bundling. Noticing.

Like Gerald May in his wilderness, I sit alone and stare at flames dancing. They melt away thoughts, worries, logic and analysis. I find myself, as he did, feeling there is nothing in particular to do. This amber movement mesmerizes, frees. Unlike May, I also sit with others and wonder, is this how hearth came to be associated with home?

When the house is chilled as it is now, we come from our respective corners and meet unplanned before the fire. My big girl draws, paints, writes, leans on my leg as I read, think. I reach out and press her long dark hair between my fingers. I put my hand on her back, and she, unawares, curls her toes against mine. Little One comes too, chatting, smiling, tossing her hair and tangling it. I brush it back in place and smile too.

I love my technologies (yes, Sam, I do). But for these few weeks I marvel that at least one of them has failed me home.

Birch on Fire photo by L.L. Barkat.

RELATED:
HighCallingBlogs Things that Go Bump in the Night
Glynn's It Was Lone Elk Park, but...
Monica's Which Fear?
nAncY's book

Drift Me

Night comes and I realize I'm bound up. I can feel it ...as if cords are laced from one part of my insides to another, and little tension-elves are pulling them tight, tight, tighter. My breathing is shallow. I keep sighing, as if to catch elusive breath. The day has done me in, or maybe the week... okay, the month.

It has been long, too long— sitting inside, letting life wrap and tug. I remember these words, written during my year of daily outdoor solitude and I'm filled with the urgency to be freed...

There were days when I would go outside only to think, “There is not a single new thing I will find here.” In these moments, it felt utterly true, and I felt I was wasting my time in my excuse-for-a-woods. Then, in the next moment, the trees above me would shudder in the breeze, and something would blow past. Seeds, maybe, releasing themselves to the wind, raining over me.

Then I would start to relax, to breathe. It occured to me that I breathed differently when I was outside, and that with each breath I lost some care of the day. I became a lady’s corset, unstrung by the wind, unlaced by black-capped chickadees.

Why have I gotten away from this? The commitment over, I guess, life rushed back in, but my heart still needs rain, seeds, wind, sky. The Ann's are reminding me to come back to lazy moments, to let God drift me.


Sunset Over the River photo by Sara. Used with permission.

RELATED:
Ann K's book Not So Fast: Slow-Down Solutions for Frenzied Families
Ann K's post Catch a Falling Star
Ann V's Slow Down, A Primer
High Calling Blogs Power of the Slowing
elk's Four Windows
Mom2Six's Still
S. Etole's Take Time
LL's Stumble into Loveliness and Morning with the Moon
Kelly's A Broken Still
nAncY's into
Maureen's Reading GoodNightMoon
Bonnie's The Beauty of Whitespace
Esther's Ditch the Leash
Joelle's This
Ann K's From the Rush to a Hush
Jennifer's Hush...
Bonnie's The Call of Love Whispers
DSMama's The Best Part
Kirsten's Cemetery Walking
Monica's Slow to See the Spinning
Jessica's Sit Down!

HOW ABOUT YOU?
Do you have a story to share, about the need to slow down, or your experiences with "slowing"? Drop your link in the comment box and I'll link to you here (links back are appreciated, though not required; that way, others can see what we're up to and share too). Let's celebrate and drift together...

_______

Poetry prompt: Make a "word pool" of at least five slow words. Yeah, I guess molasses counts. But verbs are good too. Create a poem using a minimum of one of your slow words, but feel free to use the whole pool. Post your poem by Thursday, October 22, for links and possible feature at High Calling Blogs. Drop your post link here in the comment box so I don't miss it. Thanks!

He Dared to Call it She

Did you do it as a child? Lie down in a field, look up? Did you watch the clouds— see now a dragon eating a fairy... see the fairy morph into a boat sailing away from fire? Did you let nature show itself, name itself, speak?

During a year of daily outdoor solitude, I saw the world with childlike openness. The hemlocks were Rip Van Winkle, sleeping. The pine a manly tree of life and then a mother's lap. A bush, leaning with crooked fingers seemed to be Grandmother. The squirrels were cowboy vigilantes.

I took this as imagination's fine work, based on deeper sensibilities that urged themselves upward— the way I suspect certain languages were formed, that assign gender to words (Why is a table feminine in Spanish, and why a painting? Why is money masculine and an eraser masculine too?)

Rereading May's The Wisdom of Wilderness: Experiencing the Healing Power of Nature, I noticed what I had not observed the first time around. May experienced nature as a She. I know he struggled with this at some level because he says...

I've thought about it a lot. I considered that the whole experience might be my own creation. It began in a midlife time when I had suffered losses and was under stress. Could my psyche be kicking up its Jungian heels and manufacturing a disembodied woman-sense to meet some unconscious need? I could never say for certain...

I'm guessing that some of us might struggle with May's experience too, particularly since he concurrently sensed the Divine in nature. I think May knows this. I think it's partly why he spends a moment trying to explain. But then he forgets about defense and simply shares his experience. He dares to name the She he senses... like a child, simply watching the clouds, letting them speak.


Sky photo by Sara. Used with permission.

RELATED:
High Calling Blogs Power of the Slowing
Monica's Pacing
Liz's The Power of Slowing

Remembering Real

At last, the day.

The Real Mary goes to # 21, Anonymous, signed "Grace and Peace." Congratulations! Please contact me by Monday, October 12, 6:00 pm. EST, with your name and address and I'll send along your copy. And if you like, you've also won the chance to guest-post on Beliefnet, to share your thoughts about the book.

[UPDATE: Alli from SC is the new winner of the giveaway, as Anonymous has let the deadline for contacting pass. Thanks, Anonymous, for your gracious comment. And congratulations, Alli! :) Please contact me by Wednesday at 6:00 pm EST.]

Since today is poetry Friday, I'm also offering... a poem! In answer to our The Real... prompt at High Calling Blogs...


"Page 5"

The menu
says strawberry
shortcake

with whipped cream

but here's the deal:
I remember what's real,
my mother's child-small

hands turning flour

sugar, shortening
the "size of a big egg"
so the old recipe

instructed, I remember

sun-kissed fields of
furrows, hills my
grandmother's rough

patched, yet painted

hands turned and raised
for strawberries blushed
and bleeding real juice

not perfumed water

that pretends ripeness
cut and strewn over too-
sweet cake. I remember

cream, real, whipped.

_________

A special thank you again to everyone who posted about and linked to/tweeted/or Facebooked the giveaway. You made it a Grand Celebration. And thanks to Scot McKnight for writing a fine book.

POETRY FRIDAY:
High Calling Blogs Real Business Men Read Poetry
Monica’s Attracting His Gaze
Laura’s Fast
Bonnie’s The Bloom of Becoming
Maureen’s The Real Me
Glynn’s The Real Poet
A Simple Country Girl’s Little Things
Kelly’s Real Time
Claire’s This Concept of Real
Monica’s The Real Paul
Tweetspeak’s Poems of the Ruby Moon
Fred's Cooking 1 and Cooking 2
Deb's Mothers, Mary and Obedience

The Real Mary photo, by L.L. Barkat.

Waiting for Monica Tenney

This is the writer's life. Days and nights of putting down words. Not knowing. Not knowing where they will make their way, or if they will make their way. The words feel good under our fingers; we hope for them, we wait and wonder... will anyone receive?

Sometimes we hear through a back door or a painted window... a person reading our words and saying yes, a person turning and holding what we molded. Sometimes we stumble upon Monica Tenney.

Today her words came to me in the mail, though she does not know it. Maybe she too, just now, wonders where her words will go. Monica, they came here to my door. Your words about my words...

In each of the twenty chapters of her elegant Stone Crossings, Barkat revisits events and emotions from the past, weaving in scripture.... Her writing is... lyrical in places, and— to this reader— reminiscent of the prose of Annie Dillard. It is often laced with a quiet humor that itself is a kind of grace. Barkat is attuned to both the natural world and the poignancy of everyday domestic scenes. With an astonishing intimacy, she tells...

Barkat's book would make an excellent subject for a small group study...

Thank you, Monica. You found my words and I, in turn, found yours.


Dog in the Window photo, by L.L. Barkat. Excerpt of review by Monica Tenney from Congregational Libraries Today.

The Danger of Mary

"May it be unto me..."

Those are inspiring words. They suggest an enviable attitude-of-heart. Like I said before, oh to be gracious, like Mary long ago.

But they are dangerous words too— perhaps not for the reasons that first come to mind. (And this is a good place to express my delight over the offerings many of you are making, in your own posts and poems... offerings that delve into the wonder of Mary's resolve to face danger for the love of God.)

Anyhow, let me explain a secondary danger.

This weekend I'd planned to go to a birthday party (sorry, Sis! :), but instead lay sleeping in the grips of a nasty cold. The secret of enjoying such disappointment is to bring a few books to put beside your pillow. When you wake, you are treated to an opportunity to lie in bed, read and muse (green tea and chocolate are optional; I self-medicated with both.)

When I woke and poked through the book stack, I pulled out The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self. Before falling asleep, I'd enjoyed the preface of The Wisdom of Wilderness: Experiencing the Healing Power of Nature, in which May had spoken of spending time outdoors to discover your inner wilderness, which is "the untamed truth of who you really are."

What?

Upon opening Miller's The Drama of the Gifted Child, the message was the same, "In order to become whole we must try...to discover our own personal truth, a truth that may cause pain before giving us a new sphere of freedom." The truth Miller speaks of is partly to move past denying one's emotions and needs, to "experience consciously certain feelings" that childhood may have taught us it was dangerous to feel... "jealousy, envy, anger, loneliness, helplessness, or anxiety."

If we never feel these things (and many who experience difficult childhoods— or whose parents experienced hard childhoods— do not feel these things, or work very hard to repress them), we risk a lot... unexplained seasons of vengefulness, depression, perfectionism, addictions, even rage.

And this is the danger of Mary— to sit only with "May it be to me...", to interpret it as a self-effacing submissiveness and denial of needs and feelings... not to see the other side... a woman who felt free to cry, ask, mourn, fight.
________

I do believe Scot McKnight captures the balance of Mary's personality— the woman of feeling, fighting. There's still time to win his book; just comment here before Thursday, Oct. 8, 6:00 pm EST. The winner will be offered an opportunity to write his/her thoughts about the book in a guest post on Beliefnet!

There's also time to offer your thoughts about Mary and/or grace. Just drop your link info here and I'll link to your post. Or respond to our poetry prompt, "the real...", for possible feature and definite links from HighCallingBlogs. Drop your poetry link here before Thursday, Oct 8, 6:00 pm EST.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE:
Book club discussion of The Wisdom of Wilderness, at HighCallingBlogs
Monica's Wilderness Call on the Freeway

"The Dress" sculpture by Sara. Photo by L.L. Barkat.

Did I Really Pray That?

"Hail Mary, full of grace..."

It was one of my first responses. And it surprised me.

I'd just experienced some ungracious treatment. Surprising. Baffling. Seemingly designed to hurt. And this was what came to mind.

The words are part of a Catholic prayer. But as far as I could tell I wasn't praying. Not to Mary, so it seemed. This felt more like the kind of supplication I'd written about in God in the Yard. An inchoate longing. Oh, to be full of grace, like Mary long ago.

The ache was so keen it brought to memory a beloved book... Scot McKnight's The Real Mary: Why Evangelical Christians Can Embrace the Mother of Jesus.

In this book, McKnight asks, "What kind of woman would sing a song [a poem!] like this?"

His answer is a steady look into the face of Mary. McKnight gently reminds us that while this woman had her foibles, she was full of grace. And I can tell you, that's just what I needed to hear. I sought to respond to this message in gratitude.

Most of you know I'm not a big promoter of books. I only share what I like. I only speak to you what speaks to me. Today, I want to go one step further and give what gave...

Simply comment below by 6:00 p.m. EST on Thursday, October 8, and if your number is picked by the Random Generator (no worries, it doesn't hurt), I'll send you a copy of The Real Mary: Why Evangelical Christians Can Embrace the Mother of Jesus. And know that if you are here reading this today, you have my prayers to be full of grace.


"Grace Revisited" art, Mineral Pigments and Gold on Kumohada Paper, (c) copyright Makoto Fujimura, 2002. Used with permission from Makoto Fujimura. Also available as Grace Note Cards at the International Arts Movement Store.

"Graced" photo taken at Laity Lodge, by L.L. Barkat. (Scot has spoken at Laity Lodge, but he showed up exactly one day after I left. Ah well. For an interview I did with him, that reveals his approach to writing, read Writing the Natural Way.)

____

AND YOU?

Would you like to share your own thoughts on Mary and grace, parenthood or friendship and grace, or just... grace? Post a poem or story and drop your link info here. I'll give links to All at the bottom of this post. For now, I await your grace...



YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE:
TUC's If Jesus Were My Son
Amber's On the Mother of God
Jim's Grace in the Streets
Glynn's May it Be to Me
Kelly's this grace
Joan's There's Something About Mary (Joan is offering the winner a GUEST POSTING opportunity on BELIEFNET.)
Laura's Giving it All Away. (And, in celebration of a brave teen, she's giving away 2 copies of her book Brody's Story)
Monica's Attracting His Gaze
Marcus's Hail Mary, Full of Grace and Controversy
HighCallingBlogs Turning Point Poetry
Cindy's The Mary Beyond, Human, But More
Jessica's Resounding
nAncY's home again
Heather's Forever Grateful
Ann's Grace to Please the Lord
Maureen's poem The Etymology of Mary
Glynn's He Had to Be
Jennifer's Dangerous Love: A Sword to the Soul
Bonnie's Do You Enjoy Fear Gazing
Jubilee Conference's Motherhood, Vocation, and a Free Book
Bradley's [challenging] Something About Mary
Tina's Amazing Grace
Kim's Entering the Story
Glynn's final of the triptych You Son, Now
Deb's Mothers, Mary and Obedience