Ann Ahrens 🇺🇦

@aahrens430

Author: Suffering, Soul Care & Community: The Place of Lament in Corporate Worship. (Wipf & Stock, 2023) annahrens.com Chaplain, musician, writer

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Ann Ahrens 🇺🇦@aahrens430· 9d

Of all the plants in the garden, Zinnias remain my favorite.

Ann Ahrens 🇺🇦@aahrens430· 18d

He sure has been focused on it. Just not in the way they want us to believe. Oh, the irony.

Ann Ahrens 🇺🇦@aahrens430· 19d

This quote from Eisenhower is beyond sobering. Me thinks he is rolling in his grave, given the actions of Trump and Hegseth.

Ann Ahrens 🇺🇦@aahrens430· 28d

Reading the news about Trump’s decision to destroy federal lands for profit. Couldn’t help but think of this one by the mighty Mary Oliver.

Poem by Mary Oliver about political greed and the wanton destruction it causes.

Ann Ahrens 🇺🇦@aahrens430· Jul 11

Happy Caturday from Faye, aka Miss Fancy Paws.

Ann Ahrens 🇺🇦@aahrens430· Jul 8

This quote by Kagan is sobering:

Ann Ahrens 🇺🇦@aahrens430· Jul 2

Actually, it’s not hard at all to wrap your head around Trump’s corruption. I can’t think of a single thing he has ever done as president (or otherwise) that didn’t serve his interests.

Ann Ahrens 🇺🇦@aahrens430· Jun 27

My 96 year old mother lives on social security (she was a restaurant cook and maid until well into her 70’s). So, you can imagine her income is well below poverty level. Her food stamps were cut by Trump and now she eats on roughly $40 a week. That’s your Republican Party, folks.

Ann Ahrens 🇺🇦@aahrens430· Jun 21

Normally I’m raging at Trump for, well, a thousand reasons, but this genuinely made me laugh out loud:

Ann Ahrens 🇺🇦@aahrens430· Jun 16

Lack of education is not the problem, but rather lack of spiritual and emotional health, as demonstrated by this paragraph:

Ann Ahrens 🇺🇦@aahrens430· Jun 5

Absolutely horrifying. This paragraph, in particular, makes my blood boil.

Ann Ahrens 🇺🇦@aahrens430· May 14

As Mary Oliver wrote, “To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.” Good for you for following in her footsteps.

Ann Ahrens 🇺🇦@aahrens430· May 8

How delightful to see all these wonderful animals fill my screen for Sir David Attenborough’s 100th birthday.

Ann Ahrens 🇺🇦@aahrens430· Apr 26

“Maybe the world, without us, is the real poem -Mary Oliver “From The Book Of Time”

Ann Ahrens 🇺🇦@aahrens430· Apr 25

“Beauty the brave, the exemplary, bursting open…” From Mary Oliver’s “Peonies”

Ann Ahrens 🇺🇦@aahrens430· Apr 21

Yesterday, my neighbor was found deceased in his home by another concerned neighbor. I watched as he was carefully carried away in a body bag. Such finality. As I looked over this morning at his now empty home, this poem came to mind. Life is precious and fragile. “Another morning and I wake…”

Ann Ahrens 🇺🇦@aahrens430· Apr 10

“Make your life the first life that you save.” From @josephfasano.bsky.social #NationalPoetryMonth

Ann Ahrens 🇺🇦@aahrens430· Apr 9

Bravo, Pope Leo!

Ann Ahrens 🇺🇦@aahrens430· Apr 8

As a chaplain, I found Green's dismissal disturbing. Hegseth knows nothing of the work of chaplains. They are not pastors, but fellow journeymen and women. @markhertling.bsky.social describes it perfectly in this quote:

Ann Ahrens 🇺🇦@aahrens430· Apr 8

“Maybe our world will grow kinder eventually.” -Mary Oliver #NationalPoetryMonth (Franz Marc was a brilliant expressionist painter who died of a shrapnel wound to the brain in WWI)

Ann Ahrens 🇺🇦@aahrens430· Apr 6

@marcalanschelske.bsky.social - thank you for this remarkable book. Your writing is lovingly convicting and I hope you will write similar books in the future for other periods of the year.

Ann Ahrens 🇺🇦@aahrens430· Apr 4

This seems incredibly apropos for our times of raging, narcissistic leaders bent on destruction, their vain attempts to fill the black holes of their egos unfulfilled. From Mary Oliver’s “Flare” #NationalPoetryMonth

Ann Ahrens 🇺🇦@aahrens430· Apr 3

I confess that, at times, I resist joy for fear of its loss, or because something bad is happening or is about to happen. "Don't be afraid of its plenty" calls me in the opposite direction. I'm grateful. #NationalPoetryMonth

This is a poem by Mary Oliver entitle "Don't Hesitate" in which she cautions people against resisting joy for fear of its loss, or for fear that something terrible is happening or is about to happen.

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don't hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that's often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don't be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

Ann Ahrens 🇺🇦@aahrens430· Apr 1

For this first day of National Poetry Month. From @josephfasano.bsky.social

This is a poem about a parent who awakens in the night worried for what all the violence of the world will do to him and his children. He goes to his child and Neil’s next to his bed and puts his hand on the child’s chest.
When I wake at night and terror
Of the world, we are lead to our children;
and I fear that the body isn’t
Sacred, and the darkness has fallen
On the good Earth; When the cities burn
With the fires that are kind has made,
And everything, and nothing’s
In our hands

I rise
And go to find my child
Sleeping in his own arms in the dark-
And I kneel there, and I lay a hand
Like small rain on his trembling chest
And I feel his heart
As it prunes, it’s little-

And I listen, I sit awake
And listen: This little
That sings the
Of: Open
And close again
-
An ancient, change-
The;
The night has not yet come.
We cannot save each other now
We can.

Ann Ahrens 🇺🇦@aahrens430· Apr 1

@radiofreetom.bsky.social is spot on in this article: www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...

Ann Ahrens 🇺🇦@aahrens430· Apr 1

Thanks James. Here’s a short video with morning Robin song, as they do in the Spring. This is at 5:45 am. Simply lovely. Robins are always the first up in the mornings. They apparently have a unique lens in their eyes that enable them to see light before other birds.

Ann Ahrens 🇺🇦@aahrens430· Mar 28

Mary Oliver “…..the way the wild wrens sang though they hadn’t a penny in the bank….”

Ann Ahrens 🇺🇦@aahrens430· Mar 22

A sweeping and through provoking look at Robert Mueller. Sadly, the last of his kind.

Ann Ahrens 🇺🇦@aahrens430· Mar 20

All these meteorologists saying, “Yippee! Another day in the 80’s!” are mildly annoying. This, I say, is discrimination against cold weather lovers. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Ann Ahrens 🇺🇦@aahrens430· Mar 14

Good morning. She’s a beauty! This little clown says “Happy Caturday to your kitties!”