Just Because: Prayer-Poems to Delight Your Heart

Poetry is a lot like prayer. Prayer is a lot like poetry. Why? Because they both arise from deep attentiveness to life. Reading this book is a uniquely beautiful experience that affirms Melannie's deep attention, not only to life, but to God's place within it. She invites readers to see everything as if for the first time: a rose, a grain of sand, a baby's laugh, a particular hurt, an interior joy or dread. Her prayer poems have the uncanny ability to put readers in the presence of the universal and eternal, thus connecting them with God, others, with nature, and the entire world. All the poems in these pages are invitations to prayer. They are simple, varied in form, and diverse in content and theme--and prayerful. Each is followed by a brief commentary about how the poem came to be; reflection questions for personal pondering and group sharing; suggested Scripture passages that relate to the poem; and an activitity or two for prayer and play.

Melannie Svoboda, a Sister of Notre Dame of Chardon, Ohio, is author of When the Rain Speaks, When the Moon Slips Away, and other books from Twenty-Third Publications. She currently writes, directs retreats, and gives talks.