Daily Nourishment for November 1, 2024: All Saints’ Day with Guidance from Lauren Winner
Daily Nourishment Read Time: 50 seconds
Pause/Prompt/Practice Time: 15 minutes
A Note from Lauren: This week’s offerings will be calendar-themed, as we move toward All Hallows’ Eve and All Saints’ Day.
Pause.
Today is All Saints’ Day, the day on which the church celebrates those people who have manifested holiness in particular and peculiar ways.
Slowly, silently or aloud, in honor of All Saints’, read Natasha Trethewey’s poem about Saint Gertrude:
Articulation
— After Miguel Cabrera’s portrait of Saint Gertrude, 1763
In the legend, Saint Gertrude is called to write
after seeing, in a vision, the sacred heart of Christ.
Cabrera paints her among the instruments
of her faith: quill, inkwell, an open book,
rings on her fingers like Christ’s many wounds—
the heart emblazoned on her chest, the holy
infant nestled there as if sunk deep in a wound.
Against the dark backdrop, her face is a wafer
of light. How not to see, in the saint’s image,
my mother’s last portrait—the dark backdrop,
her dress black as a habit, the bright edge
of her afro ringing her face with light? And how
not to recall her many wounds: ring finger
shattered, her ex-husband’s bullet finding
her temple, lodging where her last thought lodged?
Three weeks gone, my mother came to me
in a dream, her body whole again but for
one perfect wound, the singular articulation
of all of them: a hole, center of her forehead,
the size of a wafer—light pouring from it.
How, then, could I not answer her life
with mine, she who saved me with hers?
And how could I not, bathed in the light
of her wound, find my calling there?
Prompt.
An excerpt from a wonderful interview with Trethewey:
In your poem “Articulation,” you describe a painting of Saint Gertrude, and the piece also seems to become a tribute to your mother.
Trethewey: [Saint Gertrude’s] calling was to be a religious writer. She had a vision of the sacred heart of Christ, and that’s what called her to devotion, and to devote her life to writing religious text. Obviously, I’m making a connection to her, her call to devotion, and to the kinds of writing that I do. The poem ends, “How could I not, bathed in the light / of her wound, find my calling there?” My calling is to answer my mother’s life with mine. That is my highest devotion. Christ gave his life for us, and the faithful are supposed to be devoted. That’s how I feel about my mother.
Trethewey connects her calling wrote with both her mother and with St. Gertrude. If you were to write a poem that connected your writing life to both a long-dead person you’ve not met in the flesh and to a member of your family of origin (or to another adult who was of key importance to your childhood), about whom would you write?
Practice.
Here are four paintings of saints. Which painting most intrigues or arrests you? Write a poem in response to it. Perhaps include a person to your early life in the poem.
Here are four paintings of saints. Which painting most intrigues or areests you? Write a poem in response to it. Perhaps include a person important to your early life in the poem.
Want More?
Read Seamus Heaney’s poem about St. Kevin
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Workshops, Gatherings, & Resources
—New Resource: A Solo Writing Retreat for Election Season and Beyond
—New Resource: Parenting with Art® Lectio Divina Cards Information about ordering these cards can be found in my Books + Spiritual Direction + Retreats & Gatherings email newsletter . To stay in the loop on all of my work, writing, book recs, and more, subscribe to that weekly newsletter at charlottedonlon.com/subscribe.
—October Co-Writing is live. All SDW Members get free co-writing through November. If you aren’t a member and would like to join us, please contact me at charlotte@charlottedonlon.com and I’ll hook you up.
—The Great Belonging Project is live here and The Great Belonging Project October Refresh will take place Oct 1-Oct 31.
Today’s Daily Nourishment was provided by Lauren Winner. Lauren Winner is a writer, professor, Episcopal Priest, & spiritual director.
Read Lauren’s full bio here.
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