There are places in the heart which do not yet exist,
and into them suffering enters so that they may have existence.
Leon Bloy

Don't know who Leon Bloy is. I don't attend church, but I am still
listed as a member at First Baptist Church. I received a book from
some church members a few weeks ago. I also received prayer
cards about a month after Dad's death. The book is called

Turning to God to Get Through Grief

I am not religious, but I believe there may be a god who listens to me,
and I've talked to him/her/it many, many times a day since Dad first
became ill and in the many long hours since his death.

I don't know that I'll read the book, but the day it arrived, it just opened
to that quote and that quote brought tears to my eyes once again.

Hey! and Yay for me!!! I am going to Dodge--
as in the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival.

Ordered my 4 day pass last week and booked my hotel room over
the weekend. I will be within 10 miles of Waterloo Village.
I've wanted to go for quite some time, and rather than sit around
and think about going, I decided to make the plan to go.

I so much want to hear Billy Collins read. There are many others I want
to hear as well, but Billy and Coleman Barks reading Rumi are my two absolutes.
Then there's Lucille Clifton and Mark Doty, and I have a feeling Donald Hall
may show up (Laurie tells me the poet laureate always makes an appearance
at Dodge, but he's not on the agenda).

Never been to Jersey. Looking forward to the road trip through WV (well...
hard to say one is looking forward to much of anything in WV...hate to sound that way
but I've been through there before and wasn't too impressed, but the folks are nice
in those parts), Maryland, Pennsylvania, and then Jersey.