Beautiful Lightning: Spiritual Poems in a Difficult World

Beautiful Lightning as the subtitle (Spiritual Poems in a Difficult World) indicates includes poems that face often challenging if not unpleasant events but can still exhibit the sudden brilliance of lightning. Lightning can be dangerous but it can also enlighten and demonstrate a beauty of its own. These poems composed by an experienced and award-winning poet lead the reader through an array of moments seen through a spiritual prism. That the spiritual dimension of a poem is not always explicit fits human experience as the divine is not only present in obvious places such as houses of worship but also in the most commonplace of locations and moments. There is spirituality in a young girl in a doctors office pointing at something no one else sees in spring mud in sun shining in ones hair in a mother making bread pudding for her family. Something as common as rain recalls Gods refreshing and strengthening grace. Conversely the overtly religious can call us to make a connection we have not made before. For example a poem about Barsabbas rejected as a replacement disciple summons readers to consider their own rejections and what they can make of them. These poems illuminate spirit in the material world. A babys small fist one tear a lone lost sheep a mosquitos bite the drive-thru line for coffee. Nothing exists outside one source of creation. Coming home is always a family affair and Ed excludes no one and nothing. Spiritual life is a means of resisting exclusion and alienation. From farm boy to professor Ed mines the mortal coil for simplicity and mystery. --Anna Bat-Chai Wrobel historian teacher poet Dr. Riellys Beautiful Lightning a multifaceted window into mystery is a tour de force of poetic expression. Readers will delight in sharing in the authors story narratives including his mothers making bread pudding and reflections on topics such as birth aging and death. The poems in this collection serve as exquisite entryways into spiritual reality embedded in the ever-changing seasons of human experience. --Marilyn Sunderman RSM Professor of Theology Saint Josephs College of Maine What does He ask of us? begins Beautiful Lightning and the question echoes throughout this elegant book. What indeed? The gentle dignity of Riellys language and graceful symmetries of form and imagery create a safe sacred space where readers can explore the answers. I love how Rielly trusts us to find God and maybe a little bit of ourselves in his work. --Lora Homan Zill writer artist publisher Time of Singing: A Journal of Christian Poetry Edward J. Rielly professor emeritus and former director of the writing and publishing program at Saint Josephs College in Maine is the author or editor of approximately thirty books including the memoir Bread Pudding and Other Memories: A Boyhood on the Farm childrens picture books biographies cultural histories literary studies and collections of poetry. His Answers Instead received the Mildred Kanterman Memorial Award from the Haiku Society of America in 2016.