HAIKU 2017
Walking in stillness
Shadows dance across the path
Illuminated
Monika Pieper Landoni
In the past five years, a poet named Monika Pieper Landoni has offered to me a haiku every year. She writes and creates it for me. She listens very well, and knows part of my journey of faith, life, work and calling. When I ask her to do a new one, usually in the fall, it often comes to her immediately. It has probably been percolating in her heart , soul and mind for awhile.
A traditional haiku is from Japanese poetry. It consists of 17 syllables in three phrases with 5,7,5 syllables in each of the three phrases. The poetry also plays with almost opposite ideas in the same poem ( this might be similar to Hebrew poetry found in the Psalms). In the one above, you can find walking/stillness, and shadows/illuminated.
What might this haiku mean for my personal journey of faith in the next year ? I will do a small cross stitch of the the words. Stitching, for me, is a silent calming way of getting to the words that have been given to me. This past year has been a different and difficult year for me. It began with a health concern with my eye last October. I resigned from my congregation at the same time , but we gave each other a year to still be together. It is tough to give up something that you love. It was a good year for me, but it got long at some points. The church gave me a wonderful send off at the end of August. But the formal relationship ends. It is not the same, ever. I am grieving the formal loss of being pastor, and the many friendships that we held tightly with the people of the church. For me, it is almost like losing my parents( It might be like losing your spouse, but I have not lost my spouse, so I do not know how that feels.).The grief is sometimes intense, but at other moments is it light. I feel it in my body, soul and mind. Why am I surprised that the grief is part of my journey now ? Being 25 years at one place, especially a church, means I loved the place. Why would I not cry ?
So, it is with this experience that I come to my haiku for 2017. What do the images of walking in the shadows mean for me. If you have any reflections, I invite you to send them to me.
Shalom and strength for your own journey of life and faith,
Fred
Ponder Anew 