Michele Bilyeu Creates With Heart and Hands: So Let Us Pick Up the Stones

Feb 10, 2023

So Let Us Pick Up the Stones

"So let us pick up the stones over which we stumble, friends, and build altars.

Let us listen to the sound of breath in our bodies. Let us listen to the sounds of our own voices, of our own names, of our own fears.

Let us name the harsh light and soft darkness that surround us.

Let’s claw ourselves out from the graves we’ve dug. Let’s lick the earth from our fingers. Let us look up and out and around.

The world is big and wide and wild and wonderful and wicked, and our lives are murky, magnificent, malleable, and full of meaning.

Oremus.

Let us pray."

Pádraig Ó Tuama
Irish Poet and Theologian

For the full interview please go here:

https://onbeing.org/programs/padraig-o-tuama-marilyn-nelson-choos sep2018/

From the podcast "On Being" by Krista Tippetts

"Where to turn, to find my place of standing, when it feels like the world is on fire? This question surfaced in a public conversation I had just a couple of years ago with two poet/contemplatives, Pádraig Ó Tuama and Marilyn Nelson. They have both been quiet, vivid inspirations and teachers, to me and to many — Pádraig bringing social healing, poetry, and theology together; Marilyn, a lyrical excavator of stories that would rather stay hidden, yet as she coaxes them into the light, they lead us to new life."

Still placing at 46th/100 of top quilting blogs

10 1/2 million viewing visitors!
Boggles my mind but makes me happy.

One of the last things my beloved father said to me was to ask if I was still a teacher or a writer.

"Oh yes, I said. I've always taught and always written.
I have a blog!"