How an Online Book Club can Build Community & Add Beauty to Your Life

Join us as we discuss "Mining the Bright Birds: Poems of Longing for Home"

Oil by Melody Boggs, vireo nest

I stand at the edge of our yard, heart filled with gratefulness to God for this paradise. We have the singular privilege in our Seattle suburb of living in a home that skirts a greenbelt filled with old woods sloping down to apartments below us. This winter season reveals maple, fir and cedar, shrubs of mahonia and huckleberry hugging stately birch trees. Finished lilacs and spires of forsythia crowd each other, with ferns vying for room at their roots.

Inspired to gather redtwig dogwood for a window sill ‘bouquet,’ I’m tiptoeing in the winter morning chill to capture some of their flagrant maroon beauty to accompany me while I spend my daily moments at the kitchen sink.

There is so much beauty in winter where I live. The 47th latitude in the Pacific Northwest offers a vision all its own when the abundant trappings of green are gone. Resting my eyes on the horizon over tops of trees reminds me there’s an invisible Kingdom more real than the one within my sight. 

Things that Remain, Winter

There are always birds, hungry messengers

of God’s mercy, present at the feeders

 just outside my view. The sky still a showoff,

shape-shifting celestial jellyfish, moving

with the mood of moisture in the Heavens.

Leaves photosynthesize, adorn limbs and

branches, a scrim of green’s palette against

gray trunks, slender shrub, fading grass.

And You, everywhere present with Your

creation buried in the invisible

that speaks your name.¹

*****

The theme of longing for Heaven—my true home—while discovering who I am, runs like an unconscious ribbon through much of my writing. The poems that result from this recorded journey are often anchored in the calendar of Creation—the variation of seasons, the song and call of birds as they change through the year. All are tangible reflections, signposts that mark my comings and goings. As each new year unfolds I’m more convinced than ever that the way we chart our lives is less a straight line on a calendar of days and more like a song cycle moving upward into the future, circles growing closer to each other as we move towards the center, where God is.

The poems in my newest book Mining the Bright Birds reflect this circular, upward journey, tracing the path of our days with its stops and starts, learning and relearning to be all that God has made us to be. For the closer we move towards God the more like ourselves we become.

The contents in my newest book Mining the Bright Birds: Poems of Longing for Home lean towards finding these answers: As I move closer to God, what will be my compass? Where am I being drawn? Who has God made me to be? Poems in each section–Waiting Spaces, Seasons, Tuning and Wayfinding—shine a light on these questions amid personal discoveries and the daily unfolding of life that challenges and changes us all. Sometimes there is a glimmer that shows the way.

Your Invitation

Why don’t we take this journey together? If you are inclined towards poetry or want to tiptoe into reading it more in the coming year, you’re in the right place!

I’ll be holding a virtual book club beginning the last Monday in January & the three following Mondays in February. We'll discuss the poems in my book Mining the Bright Birds: Poems of Longing for Home. We’ll gather over Zoom and talk about the poems, share which ones speak to us and I’ll offer glimpses into the whys and wherefores behind their writing.

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Remarkable things happen when people gather ‘round a book–connections are made, discoveries and aha’s abound, and we feel joined in ways that would not happen otherwise. Earlier this year I participated with a friend and author around her book and ended up meeting a remarkable artist in Georgia who shared a love of my favorite author—Elizabeth Goudge. We ended up exchanging a rare book I owned for one of this new friend’s paintings. I was gobsmacked at her suggestion to do so and am tickled to be connected in this way. And the painting she sent is a perfect match for my poetry book. God’s hand was in all the details of our meeting and that’s why I’m convinced an online Book Club can build community. Melody’s is painting is featured at the beginning of this post.

Won’t you join me?

My idea for this online gathering is simple: All subscribers are invited and the only requirement is that you purchase a copy of the book. And of course you’ll need access to a Zoom account.

Deadline for sign ups is January 15th. We’ll begin on Monday January 29th at 4 pm Pacific Standard Time.* Meetings will be 60 minutes. 

Simply use this Google doc for sign ups by following this link with five short questions (including one optional) and I’ll be in touch. It will be so great to have you!

I look forward to the New Year by making friends with poetry and you!

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Book Club Dates are four Mondays—January 29th, Feb. 5th, 12th and 19th at 4 pm PST.

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1. From Mining the Bright Birds: Poems of Longing for Home, p. 45