Sky Mesa Journal

by Judith Deem Dupree, Dean Nelson (Foreword)

Jesus told us where he ""lives,"" and that he would prepare us a place there. Is our death the entry point? Must we struggle on, trying to be perfect? At a heavy pain-point in life, Judith was given a summer at an old, run-down ranch. And she wrote. Sky Mesa Journal is the account of a soul's unraveling and reweaving--and the simple metaphors of nature that moved her forward. The birds and beasts and ragged hills spoke up--in paradigm. They told her what she had never really known of that sacred understanding: God's Kingdom. It happens down deep or not at all. This mysterious inner ""landscape,"" she discovered, is the summation of our best intents and dreams and fairy tales, the answer to our hidden poverties, our inexplicable wanderings. The hills are alive! They have spoken! This is the gist of what happened on Sky Mesa Ranch. This journal is about life lived on a larger scale, for having seen the small signposts raised before her. The journal simply tells how it happened for one disheartened soul. It has been many years since that summer; for Judith, nothing has ever, ever been the same. ""During a sojourn at a ranch named Sky Mesa, Judith Deem Dupree sat daily to record not simply what she saw with her eyes, but felt with her soul. These observations, remarkably personal and therefore encouraginglyhuman, are the music she created, solo pieces played beforean audience who quickly discovers theharmonies in their ownpassions, 'not the cheap stuff. . .but something Spring-clean.' What a blessing she is."" --James Calvin Schaap, Author; Emeritus Professor of English, Dordt College, Sioux Center, IA ""InSky Mesa Journal, Judith Deem Dupree invites us into her journey of discovering the abundant gifts of slowing down, attentiveness, curiosity, and compassion. With the heart of a mystic, Dupreegleans profound wisdom from the humblest of places andcalls forth a holy/ordinary way of gently and radically befriending ourselves, one another, and our world."" --Brianna Van Dyke, Editor-in-Chief, Ruminate Magazine Judith Deem Dupree has authored three books of poetry: Going Home, I Sing America, and living with what remains. She founded and directed Ad Lib, a former workshop/retreat for the arts, and created Mountain Empire Creative Arts Council in her home county. Judith taught creative writing at various workshops and conferences before retiring. An avid environmentalist and gardener, she is a fervent observer and blogger of the flux and flow of life."

150 pages, Paperback

Published July 29, 2016

Reviews

[Susanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Sky Mesa Journal, Judith Deem Dupree invites us to journey with her through the hard, painful, dry places into the refreshment of spiritual oasis. Her poetic words and musical phrases mirror the rhythm of nature that surrounded her that summer a quarter century ago. Yet she revised this journal over the last few years as Writer-in-Residence for Ruminate Magazine, shaping and reshaping it with meditations on our modern world and its problems to be solved: Our crumbling environment. Our greed and covetousness. Global hunger and poverty. The "Mid-East mired in deeply and viciously in fratricide." The ever-present problem of evil and the sin in our own hearts.

Near the end of Sky Mesa Journal, Judith writes:

"You, each of you, need a Kingdom-of-God place--a Sky Mesa--some-Place to go to within when your soil is baked and cracked with drought and there is no water, no cloven clouds on your horizon. May you find your way to it. May he lead you there! For you it will be smaller or larger, greener or hillier or flatter, a back lot or back country or back bedroom, alone or not. But within its fluid borders lies your Promised Land. It's all there inside you, waiting."

That's where we want to go. That's where we need to go. We each need to find our Sky Mesa.

And may we do so.