Negotiating the Shadows

This book invites the reader to experience Lent as a spiritual journey. It begins on Ash Wednesday with an invitation to engage with Christ, to have daily conversation with him, and to walk with him through the struggles and challenges of daily living. Each day offers a poetic, insightful meditation on Scripture verses that voice the human spirit's longing for the Holy Spirit. As the journey unfolds, the reader will experience the searing heat of the desert sun and the confusing shadows of the wilderness. The invitation to follow Christ, seek Christ, and be found by Christ leads the reader through the perils of the season with the promise of Easter morning. Those familiar with biblical texts will be drawn in by the vivid images and relevant messages of the poems. Similarly, those for whom biblical texts are less well-known, will find intriguing and accessible images that might even prompt a desire to learn more. Lay people and clergy across denominations will find comfort and challenge in the familiar being made new should they accept the invitation to follow Christ into the desert and the wilderness contained within us all, and persevere until the journey ends in resurrection. ""Rachael writes with a keen intellect, a gift for creative phrasing, an idiosyncratic scriptural perspective that is both insightful and challenging, and an impressive invitation to trust in the absoute truth, love, and goodness of our Creator and Redeemer God. Sometimes the reader will have to reread and review a meditation in order to grasp its profound spiritual nuances. These meditations will guide many to a deep and meaningful spiritual Lenten journey."" --Merle Jordan Professor Emeritus of Pastoral Psychology Boston University ""In Negotiating the Shadows Rachael Keefe offers poetry for today and a prophetic word for tomorrow. Opening up this small volume of poems and meditations, the reader will find that she is holding in her hands a missive of hope, a gift borne by a writer who has traversed the shadows, finding precisely there the blessing of the Beloved. From the silent depths she brings words drenched with holiness, offering them to those who hunger for something good and true and yes, bittersweet. Her words bring comfort and challenge to those reaching out for new life. This book is truly a rare gem!"" --Sharon G. Thornton Professor of Pastoral Theology Andover Newton Theological School_ Rachael A. Keefe is the chaplain at New Hampshire Hospital, the state psychiatric hospital. Ordained in 1992, she has ministered in a variety of settings-parish, community, and healthcare.