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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 doctor's office pointing at something no one else sees, in spring mud, in sun shining in one's hair, in a mother making bread pudding for her family. Something as common as rain recalls God's 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.
About the author
Edward J. Rielly is a professor emeritus of Saint Joseph's College of Maine, where he created and directed the Writing and Publishing program. He is the author or editor of 30 books and lives in Westbrook, Maine.
