The Writing Group

List

Be better 2015

Communication of the heart

Building a career and sticking with it whether it be manager in food or medical

Reaching out more to others who are hurting, letting them know how much God loves them.

Letting the past go and people go

Praying for peace and let God work in me.

Preparing myself to be a good Christian wife to my boyfriend Jim Anderson and always communicating

Encouraging others to be healthy and continuing to work hard

As the new year comes 2015, God brought me this wonderful man in my life. This man is a loving wonderful man that I love. I want to help each of us reach our career goals together and communicate always. At 40 yrs old I waited for a loving man. A man who is great just like my father Walter Weland was. Jim Anderson is a great man. Being a good communicator can help in many ways whether you are a caregiver, married, everyday life. It affects me greatly. It can bring out the best in you, a smile, laughter, joking, smiling, we have hearts and all deserve love. Communication to be valued is to be great. To be great is to be honored. I want to also be an encourager. My father was the prime example of how people should be. Communication, goals, reaching out is how we all should be. Great are we who truly believe in all we can be in the world. Great is he that is in the world. I want to always be the greatest I can be within myself and others around me. I want to be with the examples around me. I love people. I want to be the best whether it be in the hospital with patients or on the floor at the restaurant. A wise man once said to be great is a honor, but to spread happiness is a joy. I learn by example. A priest, pastor, older generations around. To be wise is to learn by example. To learn is to be an example.

The year 2015 should be a year of wonderful goals we reach to make the new year complete.

Learning to listen and picking my words wisely and being encouraging whether I am angry or upset.

~Ruth Morrow

The Writing Group: Foreword

The people who contributed to this collection of pictures, poetry and prose range roughly in age from thirty to eighty. Some live or have lived in the Tedford Shelter or in their cars or in tents in the woods; some live in subsidized housing. Some are unemployed; some live on disability checks; some have part time or seasonal jobs; others are retired.

What we all have in common is The Gathering Place at 5 Tenney Way, Brunswick, which is open Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. for coffee, snacks, companionship, cards, puzzles and on Thursday afternoons for writing.

Over the past four years, I’ve hosted anywhere from one to a dozen writers who have shared stories, laughed (a lot), and cried (a little). I usually throw out a general topic—the first, as I recall, was “Scars,” and the latest, as I write this, was “Doors I have Walked Through--- although people can (and do) write about anything that is on their minds. Some of the topics I’ve given will be self-evident as you read; other topics won’t matter: what’s important is the response. Some of the pieces have been edited from grammar and spelling, but we’ve tried to maintain the original voice and content.

When we first began writing four years ago, some people thought we were having an English class, so they moved as far away from our table as they could; when we began sharing what we’d written, however, they can back, at first to listen, and then over the next few weeks, to join us.

Why? For many of us, writing is a way to make sense of the world, especially when our minds are looping around a particular problem. What I’ve also learned is that all of us need to be heard—listened to, respected—especially if we’ve fallen on hard times and feel that no one care anymore.

What else have I learned over the past four years? Probably the most important thing is that despite common stereotypes, homelessness and poverty have many faces, many voices and that both homelessness and poverty go far beyond not having a physical place to live or a specific job to get to. “Homeless” might mean losing a job that has given you an identity for twenty years, losing a spouse, a child or a friend, losing your health. “Poverty” may mean any number of spiritual or emotional deprivations.

Someone once said that going into The Gathering Place, he couldn’t tell who was a volunteer and who was a client. Four years of writing and listening to stories have shown me that’s because there really isn’t that much of a difference between any of us.

--Rick Wile
Writing Group
The Gathering Place