Pets and Poems: Kelly Chripczuk and "The Courage It Takes"

Poet Kelly Chripczuk writes about alignment, the alignment between the inner self and the outer reality we occupy. It’s a story as old as humanity, and as new as this morning. Each of us feels the disconnect between what we know and believe, especially about ourselves, and what and where we are. We might call this the tension between the ideal and the real. Whatever we call it, it is a condition we’re aware of, a condition we live every day. 

In The Courage It Takes, the new collection of 21 poems by Chripczuk, the idea of alignment is ever present. It’s most apparent in the disconnect she experiences between what she knows she’s called to do and the opportunities to do it. That disconnect creates a mental, emotional, and spiritual pain, a pain that can be mitigated and eased but never eliminated or cured.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

“Between Heaven and Earth: Poems” by Kelly Chripczuk

If you have faith, if faith in God has become part of your waking (and sleeping) life, you become aware of a conundrum. You are not yet a citizen of heaven, but you are also no longer a citizen of earth, what the Bible refers to as being in this world but not of it. In a very real sense, you are “between,” tied to one, longing for the other, but living between.

That’s the idea that keeps recurring as I read Between Heaven and Earth: Poems by Kelly Chripczuk. Chripczuk wears many hats – mother, spiritual director, pastor, wife, writer, and poet. She knows what it means to be “between” all those hats, and usually wearing most of them simultaneously. What do her poems tell us about living, longing, and what lies in between?

Quite a lot, as it turns out.

Chripczuk divides her 45 poems in the collection by roughly but not exactly thirds. The “heaven poems” are based on Bible passages, many of them written, she says, as part of her sermon preparation process. (I identify here; I take sermon notes in the form of rough drafts of poems.)

The “earth” poems are based in the experiences of real life, and are further divided by the seasons of fall, winter, spring, and summer. They include reflections in origami, work, grandma’s chickadees, the arrival of spring, wet wood, and more. But just became they are “earth” poems doesn’t mean they lack a spiritual dimension, just as earthly life for a believer doesn’t lack spiritual dimensions. Consider “Advent,” one of the winter poems.

Advent

The cat comes in

through the window after

his morning jaunt. Fresh air

clings to his mane, and I

bury my face in the fluff

around his neck.

I believe this is also

how Christ comes

into our midst – soft

and sudden, squeezing

in among us, smelling

of earth and grass

and morning frost.

Kelly Chripczuk

The “between” poems are exactly that, contemplations of the space we live between heaven and earth. This space is no less real than what’s covered in the “earth” poems, and it’s no less spiritual than what Chripczuk covers in the “heaven” poems. It is where we believers find ourselves, living between heaven and earth, trying to make sense of both, trying to guide ourselves and our loved ones toward an understanding of both.

The poems of Between Heaven and Earth reflect our tensions, our realities, and our hopes in simple yet profound ways.  

Related:

My review of Chicken Scratch: Stories of Love, Risk & Poultry.

Top photograph by Sven B via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Kelly Chripczuk’s “Chicken Scratch”

I’ve been reading about chickens. And chicken poop.

Kelly Chripczuk, her husband John, and their four children have chickens – about 18 in fact. They started with four or five and then expanded their chicken empire with another dozen or so, with the thought that they could make money selling eggs.

They have sold some eggs. The ones they haven’t sold are piling up in the refrigerator.

But the chickens have taught them about life. And Kelly has written down what they’ve learned and called it Chicken Scratch: Stories of Love, Risk & Poultry.

I smiled. I laughed. I watched as chickens with minds of their own went about their business, cackled when laying an egg, hid eggs, escaped into neighbor’s yards, bullied two Polish hens (one of which turns out to be a rooster), and sit calmly in a pine tree.

And these chickens have names, like Bleach-Blonde and America. They strut and preen and argue and scratch around the grass and aren’t terribly impressed when you try to take their eggs.

But Chicken Scratch is about far more than chickens. Chripczuk has four children (including twin boys), assorted pets, neighbors, and a 110-year-old farmhouse in central Pennsylvania. She’s learning from all of them, and sharing what she learns with us.

She even tells a beautiful life lesson from – I didn’t expect it – chicken poop. Seriously.

Kelly Chripczuk

Chripczuk also has something that fewer writers than you might think have, and that is she truly likes her readers. How do you know? She writes like she’s having a conversation with you over the fence, and she’s embarrassed that her chickens have misbehaved and you both know she’s embarrassed, but you’re so charmed that you decide you don’t care that the errant chicken just trampled your petunias.

And she’s honest with herself, like when she’s mad that the family hasn’t gotten itself together for the school program and it’s going to start soon so she jumps in the van because she will get them there on time and the first thing she does is back into her husband’s pickup truck.

So, yes, Chicken Scratch is indeed about chickens but it is also about life. You don’t need to have your own flock to appreciate and be charmed and moved by the stories Kelly Chripczuk tells.

Top photograph by Kim Newberg via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.