Читать книгу Beyond Me - Carroll E. Arkema - Страница 7

I’d like to thank the editors at Wipf and Stock for publishing my book, and to thank specifically Christian Amondson and Matt Wimer for their prompt and detailed support in helping me to prepare and submit the manuscript. Thanks, also, to Springer Publishing for their generous permission to include my poems from the Journal of Religion and Health (JORH), and to Curtis Hart, current Editor of the JORH, and Carol Bischoff, at Springer, for guiding and facilitating the Permissions process.

I’m grateful to the patient who gave me permission to publish my poem about our work together, and to all the other important people in my life who have had an impact on me and who appear in—and/or inspire—these poems: especially my parents—Bernard and (the late) Cornelia Arkema—for their spirituality, love, and belief in me; my brothers and sisters-in-law—Dean and Gayle Arkema, and Ken and Pat Arkema—for their excitement and affirmation about having a book published; and the following friends and colleagues: Roger Plantikow, whom I’ve known for thirty-six years—my first and best supervisor, then mentor, and for the last fifteen years colleague and friend, and to whom this book is dedicated; Charles Mayer and Leslye Noyes for their early encouragement and appreciation of my poetry (Charles was the first to call me a “Poet”); Dan Bottorff, whose long-term friendship and shared Iowa farm origins have led to much laughter and mutual support; Donald Ferrell, who accepted my first poem for publication and encouraged me to send more, which he also published, and who graciously agreed to write the Foreword to this book; Donald Capps, whose writing is inspiring for the way it reveals his fascination with his subject or topic and his pleasure in communicating that fascination to the Reader: one feels his care for the Reader, and I felt it for me personally at his ready affirmation of my website and my work; Jaco Hamman, who showed an appreciation for the best in me from the time we met; Michele Galante, MD, my Homeopathic Physician, whose wisdom, care, and wholistic medicine have enhanced and many times restored my health and wholeness, and who has reflected the beauty in my poetry; and Sal Barrone, an artist friend who eagerly awaited my book.

A special thanks to Mairead Stack, my Life Partner, whose welcoming smile and feisty love and playfulness continue to give me a living experience of an undergirding love which embraces and catalyzes all that an intimate relationship has to offer. In this loving—and therefore safe—embrace, I’ve learned the transformative power of getting beneath my anger so that I can own, talk about, and suffer/endure the pain and insecurity underneath my anger. Being that vulnerable makes me more lovable and also makes compassion for myself a healing possibility. So what’s this got to do with writing poetry? Well, quite a lot. When I’m being with—feeling—my pain and insecurity, I’m less aloof and less defended. I’m being with the whole truth about myself, and I’m therefore open to the light and shadows in myself and other people as I work this all out in any given poem. With Mairead I’ve felt loved, forgiven, and delighted in—which has helped me do that for myself, for her, and for everyone. Also, her love of literature and the arts has enriched and inspired me.

Most of all, I’m humbled, awed, thrilled, inspired, and upheld by the presence of the Holy Spirit in my life, in my relationships, in my own healing journey, in my healing ministry, and in my writing. I can truly say, “Thanks be to God!”