It's All God, Anyway

This book of reverent and irreverent poetry invites you to rethink what is sacred. Beginning with a thought provoking essay, It's All God, Anyway, is a map of a spiritual life, and offers guidance on how to awaken to, and listen for, the divine in our everyday lives. Rooted in ordinary life, the poems are readily accessible. They are simple stories about how the author listens for the hidden dimension of existence revealed through the commonplace; demanding neighbors, dinners with loved ones, blazing sunsets, impatient mothers; even the rabbit who has adopted the neighborhood. By immersing yourself in these reflections, you will discover you are thinking of the divine and your own life differently. You are being invited--by recognizing that It's all God, anyway--to live with a different intention, with meaning, purpose, and deliciousness, even if you may sometimes be rooting around in the muck. By joining the author on her journey, you will deepen your own spiritual practice, and connect with the unique language that the divine has for you. The Holy One has innumerable ways of singing us closer. FOR BACK COVER: ""Our job is to be a living psalm, Jinks observes, and this luminous collection of poetry points the way."" --Diane M. Millis, PhD, Author of Deepening Engagement: Essential Wisdom for Leading with Purpose, Meaning, and Joy and Conversation--The Sacred Art ""It's All God, Anyway is a collection of prayerful poems that invite us to see the mysterious, loving unity that underlies all of reality."" --Jacob Staub, Rabbi; Professor of Jewish Philosophy and Spirituality, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College ""These are poems to experience, because they are invitations to see and celebrate, to taste gladness and delight, to embrace and be embraced by the presence of God and the sacred in the exquisite and unadorned present moment; yes, even in the shmutz."" --Terry Hershey, Protestant Minister; author of Soul Gardening and Sanctuary: Creating a Space for Grace in our Life ""Jennifer (Jinks) Hoffmann . . . helps you recall what your heart knows but has forgotten: that the rush of mystery frightens a little, that we are called to love not only when life is gentle. If you open the door to the worlds contained within this book's covers, chances are good that indeed . . . God may walk in."" --Howard Avruhm Addison, PhD, Rabbi; Associate Professor for Instruction, Temple University; Director, Jewish Spirituality Program, Graduate Theological Foundation ""This book invites you into a sacred conversation between Jinks and her ever present God, in the ordinary and the everyday."" --Kristen Hobby, spiritual director; retreat leader; meditation teacher; author of Nurturing a Gentle Heart ALREADY IN BACK MATTER: Jennifer (Jinks) Hoffmann's loving and lingering attentiveness to the wonders of the world around her suffuses every poem in this deeply reverent but always earthbound book. While her own perspective is rooted in Judaism and Jungian psychology, her heart and mind are open and welcoming to the ways of others. The poems, with their profound respect for mystery, passion for connection, and gratitude for the lavish gifts of existence, will surely beguile readers into accepting Hoffmann's embracing invitation: ""deepen your own covenant with life."" ─Judith Viorst, author of Necessary Losses and other non-fiction, fiction, and poetry books for adults and children Jennifer (Jinks) Hoffmann is a poet who stands with one foot firmly planted in the Eternal, and the other in the joys and sorrows of daily life. With an extraordinary breadth of poetic vision, Hoffmann unifies these two realms in a state of being she calls ""God."" This is not the biblical deity of Sunday or Sabbath school, but the thread of mystery that illuminates the mundane, that invites us to ecstasy, that penetrates and disturbs the ego's hardest armor. In her unpretentious and available style, Hoffmann spurs us to seek and find God in the most unlikely pla