Back and forth

My mission statement: our words can become tire swings

A couple of years ago a company asked if I would write some copy for their product.  They didn't know much about me other than I wrote a poetry  on Facebook. 

I jumped at the opportunity because I have often dreamed about having enough money in my bank account to buy brand named peanut butter. 

The company asked me to create a “mission statement” for who I was as a writer so they could “get to know me.” 

I sent the person who contacted me the following poem as a response. 
I never heard back. 

While I continued to only eat generic peanut butter, it was this experience that helped me lean into this journey.  Before writing this little thing out I hadn’t thought about why I was sharing my writing with the world.  

This also became one of the pillars of my writing retreats I host.  

               

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                   ***my mission statement***

the words we form
on our tongues

can become bombs
or acorns

every time we speak
to each other
we have the choice

to ruin 

or to raise 
each other

when I die
will I be surrounded
by a forest of comforting
words that I planted?

or will my final
resting place be 
an ashpit where I
detonated my pride
over and over?

oh, Spirit

help me grow
a grove of 
kindness that
stretches from
valley to valley

oh, Divine Light,

help me become
an arborist of hope
whose redwoods
hold treehouse chapels
where the congregants
hold hands and count
each other's tears

oh, Mysterious Love,

help me cultivate
a vast wilderness of 
empathy and mercy
whose soft bark smells 
like Easter lilies and
where the blooms yawn
themselves awake while
singing cosmic psalms

oh, Unending Creator,

help me become a courageous
Johnny Appleseed that refuses to
cut down trees to build an 
ark out of my self-righteousness
where I can float away on the
suffering of this world

oh, Mystical Mover of My Heart,

teach me how to let every word
I utter be a source of shade
instead of a cause for shame

before I return the source

I want to plant
roots of love so
deep into this world

that they get tangled
up in the mantle

and keeps the
world from spinning
quite as madly as it
does today 

this is my purpose

to turn my acorns into action
to turn goodwill into a Giant Sequoia
to turn branches into bright pew bench
to turn judgment into a jungle of kindness

this is why I'm here
and not to sound too preachy
   ~ but I think it's why you are here too

we are here to grow
  the most incredible towering
trees of compassion
 for each other to climb in

oh, Eternal Artist

help us replace our nooses
with tire swings 

so we can take turns rocking 
back and forth under the thickets
of our most gentle wishes for
each other

back and forth
back and forth
back and forth

~ john roedel

Photo by Emme Kearns on Unsplash

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Come write your messy human heart out with me by the Pacific Ocean with me this October!

Very Human Writing

Pacific Grove, California · October 19–23

Sure, the machines can sure mimic grief and love now. But…they’ve just never felt it. You have. Five days on the California coast, no performance, no polishing. Just the part of you that writes to stay alive. You don’t have to be a writer. You only have to be willing to pay attention to your own life.

A notebook full of honest surprises. The voice underneath all the noise.

Come join a collection of unafraid storytellers ands start excavating the words and stories buried somewhere under the topsoil of your heart!

Space is limited!

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John Has Books!?