Come and listen to short stories and poetry that offer a window through which to explore with one another life’s journey from birth to death.

Why short stories? The Irish novelist Niall Williams says that “We tell stories to pass the time, to leave the world for a while, or go more deeply into it. We tell stories to heal the pain of living.”

And why poetry? The poet Mary Oliver tells us that “Poetry is a life-changing force. For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.”

In the Gembrook Retreat Meeting House, surrounded by native trees and birds, we shall immerse ourselves in stories and poems which illuminate the contours of our lives – past, present and future.

Some of the questions we might explore through the prism of prose and poetry include:

How have our lives been shaped by when and where we were born?

What are the gifts given to us in childhood that have remained deeply within us across the years?

When our imagined future is lost, how do we come to terms with this?

For what do we live and for what do we hope as the end of our life approaches?