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Sunday Gathering
January 21 @ 9:00 am - 12:00 pm
Join us!
Sunday’s Schedule:
Please note: Jack Ridl was unable to attend the Gathering on Sunday, January 21 and was replaced with Beth Buelow.
Speaker: Jack Ridl is the author or editor of 14 works of literature published by Wayne State University Press, CavanKerry Press, and St. Martins. His collections have been named Best Poetry Collection by Foreword Review and The Society of Midland Authors; and he has been nominated 17 times for the Pushcart Prize. Named Michigan Professor of the Year by The Carnegie Foundation, more than 90 of his students have earned their MFA and more than 100 are published, several having won first book awards.
Musician: Kyle Rasche (rhymes with Kashi) has carved his place as one of West Michigan’s most dependable songsmiths of the poetic, soul-bearing sort. 2021 saw his foray back into the solo-songwriter world, with a pile of new songs, and an updated list of accolades—including being named a finalist in Kerrville Folk Festival’s prestigious New Folk Songwriting Competition.
Sunday’s Program and Reading: Damage Done; Damage Undone
Music: Kyle Rasche
Gathering Host: Valerie Engeltjes
Music: Kyle Rasche
Meditation: Beth Buelow
Moment of Silence
Reading/Teaching: Jack Ridl
excerpt from Saint Peter and the Goldfinch
The chickadees would take a seed, fly into the
branches of the hemlocks surrounding the
house and batter to get to the meat. Time and
time again they returned. Peter tried to count
then wondered why, stopped and thought about
what to plant in the pots, where he would place
them within the striped grass that made a nest
for the house to sit within. He liked thinking he
had nested. He liked thinking everything here
could be taken away. He had cosmos,
impatiens—no perennials until bloom and loss
became a ritual, sacred. There was a breeze.
There was the tea. And then there was a
goldfinch, just one, at the thistle feeder, its
startle of yellow and black seamless within its
feathers. Peter watched as it took the seed, sat
above him. He watched as the bird flew to the
feeder, flew back to the same branch. St. Peter
and the goldfinch here in the day’s beginning. He
could not bow his head. He knew joy’s coupled
sorrow. He knew that this was time. He knew
what the earth knew.
— Jack Ridl
Music: Kyle Rasche
Gathering Host: Valerie Engeltjes
Music: Kyle Rasche
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