A Lenten Read

Two Funerals, Then Easter

During this season, from Lent to Easter, I usually host some kind of poetry group or workshop, leading readers through my collection of poems Two Funerals, Then Easter, encouraging them with various prompts, to practice their own writing through poetry, and musings over topics such as grief, hope, and the way the two so often hold hands.

But this year, I am recovering from illness, in my second trimester of pregnancy with a little boy, editing and acquiring books for Lexham Press, helping my husband serve at our church, and spending the majority of my time playing with stickers, reading books, and digging for worms with our two year old.

I am also following my husband’s example and forcing myself off social media for the season, because it always helps to step away from something that can gain too big a foothold in my life - with my time, my affection, and my attention. I find that taking regular breaks from things like Twitter helps me reassess whether or not I am using a tool in healthy ways, or whether I have let it have more control over me than I have over it.

So this year, no book club, but rather a simple invitation to get yourself a copy of the collection (you can purchase it here, or write me for a signed copy - I have a few at home) and read it in the days leading up to Easter. Here are some writing prompts you can try as you read:

• Try taking the title of a poem and forcing yourself to write your own poem with the same title. When you’re done, you can even change the title to something you like better! You’ll find that having a title can spark so many thoughts and ideas. It is a place to start.

• Try doing the same thing, but with the first line of a poem. Take that first line, and finish the poem on your own. If you want to go back and change that first line to make the entire poem your own, you can! Or you can leave it, as a nod to another poet, because we are all in this together.

• Consider following the themes of the book - grief to glory - and write poems within those themes. Write out some of your grief, until you reach a place where you can write about the glimpses of sunlight coming through your window. The small, but mighty, blade of grass you saw poking through the snow. The coming again of our Lord Jesus.

• Write an email that you’ll never send.

• Write about a person who embodies courage.

• Write about a time when you couldn’t get out of bed, and how you finally did.

• Write about Jesus.

Then tell me all about it.

Warmly,

Rachel