Greening

<p><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)><em>Greening: Poems in the Unfolding of Our Lives</em></strong><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)> by Stephen W. Smith is an invitation to travel through the unfolding seasons of our lives: pruning wintertime; fallow ground; greening abundance; pilgrimage pathways and more. </span><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)><em>Greening</em></strong><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)> is a portal to explore the soul's flourishing and thriving as well as many of the seasons of life we all experience. Rumi describes a place to perhaps read a poem; find each other again in turbulent times and take:</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>There is a field. I'll meet you there.</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>When the soul lies down in that grass...</span></p><p></p><p><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)><em>Greening</em></strong><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)> is a field to meet in to explore ideas longings faith and love. These are poems are a reflection contemplation and inspiration.This is more than a book of poems. It is a companion for the soul--a bendecition as Celtic Scholar John Philip Newell describes Stephen W. Smith's poetry. It is a book that invites the reader to soften to unclench and to participate in the long journey or renewal as contemporary poet David Gates writes of Smith's poems.</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Written in six sections of poetry along with six essays to explore the various seasons of the soul </span><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)><em>Greening </em></strong><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>becomes a sort of roadmap for the spiritual journey. Stephen W. Smith is the author of numerous books including the best selling </span><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)><em>The Lazarus Life </em></strong><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>and </span><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)><em>Soul Custody</em></strong><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>. His vocation has been in caring for the soul--his own as well as many others.</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>The author Seth Godin writes Poetry exists to slip important ideas through the filters we've built to keep them out. Smith says it like this: </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>We need something to slip around our homes and come into our hearts through the back door because most of our front doors are locked and protected. </em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Poetry exists to help us feel safe-not behind lock doors but as a way to find our way so that we together can move onward and upward. Poems are the key to unlock our hearts to find ourselves and each other. They are keys to open our hearts in freedom to see the world and hold our faith in a whole and holy new way.</span></p>