Are We Seeing This?

Over the last few years, I have been swirling in settings full of dense meaning and possibility. As a pastor, a pandemic food hand-offer, a care coordinator, a husband, a dog owner, a friend, an insert-role-here...

I've seen stuff!

Within the seeing is the building of meaning and metaphor and, at best, hopeful possibility. A hat trick that, in my case, leads to writing prose and poetry. Which in this specific case, has led to a dense, albeit little, book of thought and feeling built around a simple phrase...

Are We Seeing This?

This meaning a lot of different things.

The ants on our arms.

Men with "froggy" fathers.

The bombastic greeting of Oliver, the Australian Shepherd.

The way that when my Grandpa died, he suddenly was everywhere.

The way a hole that I stood in with my other Grandfather as a child is still, through a deep time perspective, holding us. Even if he is gone from his physical from.

The way mushrooms in the basement burst past their physicality into an invitation toward whimsy.

The way images of Norway can momentarily break a cycle of self-loathing for a formerly homeless client.

The way the land holds the city.

The way a branch bounces and the way that bouncing is associated with so many other pieces parceled about, proximal and not.

This being the flowing moments of mystery seeping themselves toward a confluence with the One-Love Harmony (a Presence of many names) trying to draw all things toward.

Are We Seeing This is my best attempt at pointing to the little glimmers of light and story woven within the common and everyday. And the miraculous woven within that.

It's ultimately a book seeking to point toward connection and confluence. With each other, ourselves, different species, this earth, Divinity, pain, hope, love, loss, etc.

Some pieces are playful, some heavy, but all seek to speak to that.

That, in this case, being this.

Are we seeing it?

Autorentext

Mike, in the words of his late hero Brian Doyle, is a story catcher. Someone on the lookout for meaning and levity. He is a pastor at All These Branches, a progressive spirit community. He is a care coordinator with Catholic Charities. A husband to Emily. A dog dad to Ollie. And a friend to many. A fan of beer, moss, frogs, snails, mushrooms; amongst other things.