Get Well Wishes, Prayers, Poems and Blessings by June Cotner

The tenth book I read in 2017 is a poetry book - Get Well Wishes, Prayers, Poems and Blessings by June Cotner.

We set aside 15 minutes of every weekday to read poetry. In those 15 minutes we each sit silently reading from whatever poetry book we are presently working through. Sometimes it's not so silent, if someone happens to be reading a book with funny poems. When our time is up we sometimes read aloud a poem or two that we just read and really liked.

I wasn't sure about this book when I started it but I actually liked, and recorded, a number of the poems.

Here are a few of the notes I took while reading:

I Will Not be Overcome
by Julian of Norwich (1342-1419)
I know at times I will be troubled,
I know at times I will be laboured,
I know at times I will be disquieted,
but I believe that I will not be overcome.

Here's a quote from a writing titled So You Mustn't Be Frightened by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926):

"Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any misery, any depression, since after all you don't know what work these conditions are doing inside you? Why do you want to persecute yourself with the question of where all this is coming from and where it is going? Since you know, after all, that you are in the midst of transition and you wished for nothing so much as to change."

Live Quietly

by Jim Croegaert

God help us to live quietly

Amidst the clamor,

To find that slower pace

that gentler place

Where our hearts can listen,

Where we can listen to 

Our hearts.

I recorded lots more, but I'm going to stop there.