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Expression through story, prose, poetry, painting, drawing, song, documented performance, and digital sound + video works are ways of sharing the inner life of the soul with others.

In this time, opportunities for connecting to express the complex reality of Faith are challenging. The St Peter’s review provides common ground for presenting the creative impulses that convey glimpses of our Faith journey to others.

On a recent spring afternoon, we sat at a Covid-safe distance with the sunlight warming us as we discussed the foundational thematic that would launch the new virtual publication. Our conversation naturally turned to the pandemic’s impact on our lives. We were reluctant to use this as the jumping off point for instigating contributions for fear of everyone’s state of Covid-weariness.

Yet, we wondered about what might lay just beneath the surface of the obvious loss, grief, frustration and discouragement of this time. When everything we use to qualify and quantify all that we hold as meaningful is stripped away, there seems not one thing that can be done to remedy the situation, no distraction, no escape.

It is in this place, with nowhere else to go and no doing to be done, that a space opens up where we can sit still, witness the self, meet the essential core of who we are, and find room for just being. It is here, that the authentic, creative and deeply personal impulse of the soul finds expression.

This train of thought brings to mind the words of poet Mary Oliver;

“This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.”

…and writer Jean-Paul Bédard;

“I pray for only one thing every day, and that is to be present in my life -- to wholly embrace the joy, the suffering, and the mundane. Our soul is not a byproduct of our faith, but rather, it is forged by each and every one of us as we clear our minds and open our hearts.”

Is this still-point a place we have been led to this year?

Is it not a place to stand face to face with ourselves, to sit with the state of our being as it is “just now”, and to meet who is there?

Isn’t this place primary to the foundation of a Faith-life and to authentic intimacy with ourselves and with one another?

These ruminations and questions underpin the call for creative work that erupts from the core place of bearing witness to just being.

It doesn’t have to be the blue iris, it could be weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones; just pay attention, then patch a few words together and don’t try to make them elaborate, this isn’t a contest but the doorway into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak. – Mary Oliver

– Denise Tessier Lawson in discussion with Tony Reynolds

Web citations April 5, 7, 2021 https://www.dailygood.org/story/2246/mary-oliver-poet-of-awe-fabiana-fondevila/ http://www.breathethroughthis.com/reflect/the-wildest-wisest-thing-i-know

Your contributions to the St Peter’s Review are welcomed.

Deadline for contributions: May 15, 2021 Email to Mike Werth, admin@stpeterscomox.ca

Or drop them off at the church office.

Contribution guidelines:

Photo Images of original art works – jpegs work best and if possible send in a high resolution

Performance work – documentation can be a photo-journal / writing/ video + sound recordings

Videos and sound recordings should be under 3 minutes in length.

When sending in poems, prose, and short stories, send as a Microsoft Word document. Limit length to 1000 words maximum.

When sending in your creative work Include:

Title of Work

What it is and the materials used to make it.

Dimensions of original work

If it is an digital work (video or sound ) include the length of time it runs in minutes and

Artist Name

About the artist – 50 words – short anecdote about who you are

Artist Statement (in reference to the work) – 50 words – the what + why this work was made

Contact information (optional): phone and email