Wednesday Workshops
May 31, 2025
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I received word last week that my poem “Examen” will appear in the Spring issue of Time of Singing, A Journal of Christian Poetry. I can’t decide if my ditty is simply a morose self-portrait of a grumpy old man readying to meet his maker – or a surprisingly hopeful entreaty for one more, perhaps final, love. One thing is sure. My poem was written by a guy who has too much time on his hands, pondering the ravages of age that are manifesting themselves before his eyes. The Daily Examen is a core practice of the Jesuit religious order. It calls for prayerful reflection on the events of the day in order to detect God’s presence and discern his direction. It’s a technique formulated by St. Ignatius Loyola the founder of the Jesuits, in the sixteenth century. Here's the poem. It's not the Examen Ignatius had in mind, I know. Examen I watch my body deteriorate daily, my personal slack tide far behind, that static moment when the body ebbs and yields to inevitable decline. My face is yeasty as risen dough, and flesh slides down to turn my smile to frown. Knees that jammed my Trek up mountains are worn and weary. Equilibrium goes rogue, and I clutch handrails both up and down. Eyesight disappoints, memory humiliates me at every turn. And my feet. My feet. Spawn of an alien strain whose mildewed digits disgust even veteran mycologists. A fleshy, fragile creature now, I’m wary of falling, that unwelcome herald of death spiral. Where’s the wind that powered me when I gobbled up 26.2 miles and left the pack to chase behind? Where’s the muscled mass of me that moistened the fair sex by mere presence? Turned to sponge. Only my soul remains fixed and fresh. And I’m awake to it. Awake, also, to the expectation of seeing you soon face to face. Which calms the night and floods my day with light. I’m at that awful stage of life when family members and friends are shuffling off one by one into eternity. Like lightning bugs on a June evening, their radiance seems to last just a fleeting moment, then they recede into the dark. Before the advent of helicopter parenting, we kids were allowed to play outside until it was too dark to see a thrown Spaldeen. We were creative, and made up all sorts of ad hoc games and activities. At least in New Jersey that’s what we did. When the lightning bugs appeared, we’d catch them in our hands and – using needle and thread supplied by our unknowing mothers – we’d try to string the tortured little wretches into glowing necklaces. We wanted to keep them gleaming forever like living, luminous pearls. It never worked. (Image from original oil painting by James Coates.)
The program was titled Living With Spiritual Integrity in an Age of Fragmentation. We attendees voiced a common goal: to have a day of respite from witnessing the criminal dismantling of everything we hold dear. Our guide was Mark Kutolowski, the founder and co-director of Metanoia of Vermont. His work there focuses on recovering the Christian contemplative tradition, exploring the role of nature as a path toward deeper union with God, and fostering the connection between prayer and the body. His counsel to our group at a conference center near Hartford, Connecticut, was simple – pay attention to how Christ modeled a peaceful heart in the midst of chaos. This was counter-intuitive and difficult for my Type-A personality, which is prone to seizing a problem by the throat and shaking it until it cries “Uncle!” Remember, Mark noted, there was a reason Christ chose to be born into Roman-dominated Palestine, with all the de-humanizing treatment of the Jewish citizenry by a rapacious occupying force. To answer the pop-religion question of What Would Jesus Do (WWJD?), Mark traced how Christ did the exact opposite of what I – and you, perhaps – would do. Christ taught radical love, as in love every person who comes before you. And by the way, pray for the welfare of your enemies. Because that’s what “Love your enemies” means. Christ preached downward mobility, as in radical detachment. He urged his followers to accept suffering, as in turn the other cheek. He demonstrated utter dependence on God, as in trusting that five loaves and two fish would feed five thousand. Then He took a second look at the thou shall not list that Moses brought down from Mount Horeb. And presented His own list – thou should: · Embrace being an unimportant person · Engender gentleness · Be reconciled to, not resentful of, pain and sorrow that come your way · Live in alignment with God · Show active compassion · Free yourself from earthly comforts · Nurture a peaceful heart · Recognize that there will always be a cross to bear
I’ve gotten lots of reactions to my blog last week about death. People asking if my health is okay. Daughter sending me teardrop emojis. A friend writing: “At least your brain appears to still be functioning pretty well.” It’s understandable. Our entire being is oriented toward preserving our life, and every living creature, from flea to falcon, will fight like crazy to stay alive in the face of death. But we don’t think or talk about our dying very much. We shun that. We take out a life insurance policy and prepare a will, maybe, and consider ourselves prepared. All of which is foolish. We all seem to assume we’ll live to 70, 80, 90 or beyond. Most people do not. Yet we are convinced our own death is far, far away in an unknowable future shrouded in mists. Thomas Merton, the renowned Trappist monk, author, and mystic, wrote this in his journal in March 1966: “Thinking about life and death – and how impossible it is to grasp the idea that one must die. And what to do to get ready for it! When it comes to setting my house in order, I seem to have no ideas at all.” Less than three years later Merton would be dead, accidentally electrocuted by a toppled floor fan as he stepped from the shower. I am already past the average life expectancy for American men. Every day that I continue in this dimension is a cherry on the sundae of my life. But my attitude remains convinced that my passing is far in the future. My head swirls with projects I want to finish: a novel that’s under way, a memoir in the form of a book-length poem, a volume of my collected haiku. I want to expand my teaching of poetry as a tool for emotional healing. For almost three years I’ve worked with patients and their caregivers in Manhattan to guide them in writing poetry to address the stresses of cancer treatment. Last autumn I launched a day-long program at a Connecticut retreat and conference center along the same lines – how to write poetry to alleviate emotional trauma. I will conduct a second program next week. A group in Washington has booked me to do a program via Zoom this summer about writing poetry to move toward a more peaceful mindset in the face of chaotic current events. As a result I’ve caught myself negotiating with God. How about “maybe ten more years to finish all this?” Then what, Peter? You’ll be ready to lie down and breath your last? On June 1, 1897, the New York Herald reported Mark Twain to be “grievously ill and possibly dying. Worse still, we are told that his brilliant intellect is shattered and that he is sorely in need of money.” Twain was in London at the time, covering Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee for the New York Journal. The following day, the Journal skewered the Herald‘s account as false and offered Twain’s denial: “The report of my death was an exaggeration.” I can relate. (Image: “Death and Life” by Gustav Klimt, 1910.)
New Zoom workshops in writing healing poetry
For the past three years, I’ve been guiding patients and caregivers in writing poetry to ease the emotional trauma of cancer diagnosis and treatment. Growing out of this work, I’ve launched fee-free Zoom workshops for anyone interested in making use of healing poetry.
This is not so much an “academic” program as a contemplative one. A safe place to share without critique in an encouraging group environment. Not how to write better, but writing to feel better. And, of course, I do this on a volunteer basis.
Last week I held the first of these “healing verses” programs.
How was the initial session? Well, a woman who identified herself as a grandmother wrote what she said was her very first poem. She wasn’t even sure if it could be called a poem.
It was so sweetly compelling and laden with love that I suggested she give it to her children and grandson so they can come back to it again and again to rekindle her memory after she’s gone.
“Yes,” I said, “I would most certainly say it is a poem!”
In my classes at the American Cancer Society’s New York City facility, Hope Lodge,
we’ve found that poetry can be easy, beautiful, and uplifting.
I've conducted these sessions at Hope Lodge for the past three years for patients from outside the area who are in Manhattan for treatments at the city’s oncology centers, like Memorial Sloan-Kettering. I’ve also led day-long programs at retreat centers to guide participants in writing poems to ease emotional trauma of every kind: grief, rupture of a relationship, illness, and more.
My approach to healing poetry is based on the proven Expressive Writing protocol developed by Dr. James Pennebaker. At the University of Houston, he demonstrated that self-reflective writing about pent-up emotions can lift their burden, enabling the writers to find strength in their own words and thereby gain a new sense of control.
His methods have been replicated more than two thousand times and have become an academic pursuit in their own right.
The Wednesday Workshops have a one-hour format:
• Reading and discussing a healing poem
• Time for participants to draft their own poem
• An “open mic” period to read their work if they want to
I’ll hold these workshops starting at 7 P.M. every other Wednesday. Participants may invite any family or friends who might benefit from exploring how poetry can smoothen the rough edges of life.
In the first program last week, we looked at how Lebanese-American poet Kahlil Gibran and Langston Hughes, a leader of the Harlem Renaissance, faced up to fear by writing poems.
To join our next session on June 11, all you have to do is click this link, and you’ll find my smiling face. I promise, my workshops won’t be like this:
After English Class
By Jean Little
I used to like “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.”
I liked the coming darkness,
The jingle of harness bells,
Breaking—and adding to—the stillness,
The gentle drift of the snow . . .
But today, the teacher told us what everything stood for.
The woods, the horse, the miles to go, the sleep—
They all have “hidden meanings.”
It’s grown so complicated now that,
Next time I drive by,
I don’t think I’ll bother to stop.