Deep Joy, Steep Challenge
365 Poems On Parenting
by
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Deep Joy, Steep Challenge witnesses to the arduous bliss of parenting a child, inviting other parents to remember their hundred good reasons to fret, their thousand good reasons to sing.
“What is most personal is most universal.” The poems that follow, one
for each day of the year, will test this paradoxical assertion. The reflections in them, cast in easily readable poetic form, are decidedly personal—stemming from actual experiences with our daughter and son—yet the themes struck are far from unique. While I write on many subjects, often it’s the poems about my children that especially strike a chord in people, most never having met them.
Since our children were pre-adolescent at the time, these reflections relate only to early and middle childhood. Our hope, like that of parents everywhere, is that the foundation we were laying these early years would provide sufficient grounding in adolescence for burgeoning identity and eventual flight.
Exacting, exasperating, exhausting, rich, awe-inspiring, transforming—all are accurate partial descriptions of the high calling of parenthood, a calling from the Universe to marvel before its evolution reenacted, a calling from the Earth to nurture and embolden the children she entrusts, calls eliciting from parents all the intelligence, heart, imagination and spirit they can muster that they might mold nothing less than the future.
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About the Book
Exacting, exasperating, exhausting, rich, awe-inspiring, transforming—all are accurate partial descriptions of the high calling of parenthood, a calling from the Universe to marvel before its evolution reenacted, a calling from the Earth to nurture and embolden the children she entrusts, calls eliciting from parents all the intelligence, heart, imagination and spirit they can muster that they might mold nothing less than the future.
Deep Joy, Steep Challenge witnesses to the arduous bliss of parenting a child, inviting other parents to remember their hundred good reasons to fret, their thousand good reasons to sing.
About the Author
Finn spent ten years in the Society of Jesus after graduating from high school in
Among Finn’s writings is the internationally-known poem “Please Hear What I’m Not Saying.” His published works, all of which can be obtained through his website (www.poetrybycharlescfinn.com) or e-mail address {charlesfinn@ntelos.net), include the following:
Circle of Grace: In Praise of Months and Seasons
Natural Highs! An Invitation to Wonder
For the Mystically Inclined
Contemplatively Sweet: Slow-Down Poems to Ponder
Earthtalks: Conjectures on the Spirit Journey
The Elixir of Air: Unguessed Gifts of Addiction
All of Finn’s writings relate to the spirit journey. His own has been grounded in Catholicism and nourished by Jesuit, Taoist, Native American, Creation-Centered, and Quaker spiritualities.