An Amphibian Book
This wonderful book by Pat Schneider is a combination memoir and meditation on writing as a spiritual practice. She is the author of ten books including five collections of her poems. Schneider also serves as an adjunct faculty member of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California.
Prayer and Writing Begin in Mystery
"Prayer is, for me, an intentional openness to the presence of mystery in my life. Sometimes it is labor, sometimes ecstatic surprise. Sometimes both." Schneider notes that we have to both pray and write alone and in stillness. In each activity, we hold a place in ourselves where we can honestly confess, "I don't know." It is a mystery.
The Presence of Mystery
Schneider is constantly looking for ways back into the presence of mystery in everyday life and things. She catches an intimation of that in her poem "The Patience of Ordinary Things":
"It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How the soles of feet know
Where they're supposed to be.
I've been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And the soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?"
