Edward J. Rielly 
Beautiful Lightning [PDF ebook] 
Spiritual Poems in a Difficult World

Beautiful Lightning, as the subtitle (Spiritual Poems in a Difficult World) indicates, includes poems that face often challenging, if not unpleasant, events, but can still exhibit the sudden brilliance of lightning. Lightning can be dangerous, but it can also enlighten and demonstrate a beauty of its own.
These poems, composed by an experienced and award-winning poet, lead the reader through an array of moments seen through a spiritual prism. That the spiritual dimension of a poem is not always explicit fits human experience, as the divine is not only present in obvious places, such as houses of worship, but also in the most commonplace of locations and moments. There is spirituality in a young girl in a doctor’s office pointing at something no one else sees, in spring mud, in sun shining in one’s hair, in a mother making bread pudding for her family. Something as common as rain recalls God’s refreshing and strengthening grace.
Conversely, the overtly religious can call us to make a connection we have not made before. For example, a poem about Barsabbas, rejected as a replacement disciple, summons readers to consider their own rejections and what they can make of them.

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Edward J. Rielly, professor emeritus and former director of the writing and publishing program at Saint Joseph’s College in Maine, is the author or editor of approximately thirty books, including the memoir Bread Pudding and Other Memories: A Boyhood on the Farm, children’s picture books, biographies, cultural histories, literary studies, and collections of poetry. His Answers Instead received the Mildred Kanterman Memorial Award from the Haiku Society of America in 2016.