During Advent, Christmas and Christmastide including the first Monday in January before Epiphany, we will explore ways to use poetry for meditation. On our Monday Lunch days beginning November 28th, seven or eight poems will be handed out for you to use every day during the coming week. They need not to be read in any particular order, you can choose. You may have one that is always meaningful to you, feel free to use it instead.
This time of year, finding the time to use the poems for meditation any given day might be a problem. If you have time, take a brief break and select a poem just to read, reading it aloud is often interesting. Other days, maybe you will have the time to spend with a poem for meditation, journalling, even writing your own poem.
It's all up to you how much or little you do, but making our Advent journeys together is going to be interesting for sure!
Advent begins on Sunday, November 27th so our first MLG will be on the 28th. Since I cannot be there, Geraldine has kindly consented to lead the program for that week. How to use poetry for meditation will be discussed, suggestions for making it happen. She will also hand out the first set of poems for the following week. (If you cannot be there and let me know, I can email them to you.)
We will begin the first Monday with things related to The Annunciation and when Mary goes to be with Elizabeth. Attached are two related sets of information to download with some background that I found interesting. One is about the Church of the Visitation in Ein Karem, Israel which is in the village where Elizabeth and Zechariah lived and where John the Baptist was born. The other is about The Magnificat, or Mary's Song, that she sang when she and Elizabeth met.
Ann Retzer