Kathy Coffey
Writing for Ministry & Personal Fulfillment

August 16 - 22 

Massage Therapist
By Kathy Coffey

If healing has hands
they are hers. Rivers of mercy
flow down the tense neck,
the knotted muscles,
the contorted spine.

Weeks of “mind over matter”
soothed by hands that pull
like artist’s brush through
rich ochre. She banishes the
demons drumming the shoulders.

Grace must be like this:
touch melting stiffness.
Miraculous, the gifts we
give each other. Don’t
stop. Don’t ever stop.
(America)

Robert Frost once remarked, “For me the initial delight [while writing] is in the surprise of remembering something I didn’t know I knew.” And, the great British writer E.M. Forster asked, “How do I know what I think until I see what I say?” Surely writing can be toil. Having worked as a writer and editor for nearly twenty years, I know that well. But all along the way, this remembering “something I didn’t know I knew” surprised me with delight.

Even in this era of blackberries, text messaging, and emails, instant communication involves writing. We may not be wedded to books and magazines, newspapers and letters like we used to be, but writing remains an essential form of communication.

Kathy Coffey’s retreat on Writing as Ministry and Personal Fulfillment will be a gift to us, especially those of us who have had a desire to write, but somehow have not had the know-how to begin or perhaps the impetus to continue. Whether we write as part of our work and ministry or as a means of personal expression and exploration, this retreat will prove beneficial. Kathy has guided university students in the craft of writing and mentored professionals. As a distinguished writer herself, she also understands the challenges of organizing our thoughts, focusing our attention, and putting pen to paper.

So bring your journals, the beginnings of your memoir even if written in a spiral notebook, an article you’ve nearly completed, or fragments of poems. Besides Kathy’s good guidance and guided writing activities, you will be among kindred spirits in a beautiful place.

-- Carl Koch, Director

“Gerard Manley Hopkins Visits Islamorada”
by Kathy Coffey

Time and space no barriers now,
imagine he jets to Florida.

Fair skin swathed against
whitebeam blaze of sun, his eyes
squint at penciled curl of cormorant
punctuating a sea that cups pastels.

Bones aching from wintry Wales.
he seizes a pen to respond — and oh
the fireworks breaking then! Again,
he kisses his hand to the stars.

How he would've sprung rhythm,
setting the carol of creation
to a reggae beat. His cloud puffballs
tinted in apricot, dappled with mango.

He would've coined words
to capture the lilting ballet of
glassy palm fronds in the wind
the stitch of fish, needles of sea-light.

"Nothing is so beautiful" as this
he might’ve murmured. Beauty
God's haven, "dearest, veriest ven."
persistent pulse. Poetry our praise.

So I, observing in his absence
approximate his cadence. .
(NCR Sept. 7, 2007)

Some of Kathy Coffey’s books

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