Finding Faith and Resilience through Poetry with Ellen Corcella/Wild Goose Festival 2025

Join Tara Eastman in this heartwarming episode recorded at the Wild Goose Festival 2025, as she interviews Ellen Corcella, an ordained minister with the Christian Church Disciples of Christ and author of the book Walk with Me. Ellen shares her transformative experience with Mary Oliver's poem 'Wild Geese,' which provided her with hope and clarity during a challenging time in her life. Ellen discusses how this poem, along with her journey through seminary and chaplaincy, led her to understand the importance of witnessing and being a compassionate presence for others. Listen as Ellen reads the powerful 'Wild Geese' poem and offers insights into the spiritual and theological connections she found within poetry.

Transcript

S6 E23 Finding Resilience in Poetry with Ellen Corcella at the Wild Goose Festival 2025

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: [00:00:00] Hi, this is Tara Eastman for Holy Shenanigans Podcast and I am recording live at Wild Goose 2025. And I have been walking around asking people some questions about stories, people, poems, and songs that have been a source of encouragement to them in times of challenge. Or what I like to call the messy middle of things.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Mm-hmm. 

Ellen Corcella: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: And so I have met a new friend at the Wild Goose and her name is Ellen. Yes. And Ellen, could you just tell us a little bit more about you? 

Ellen Corcella: Sure. , It's Ellen Corella. . . And very briefly, I'm an ordained minister with the Christian Church Disciples of Christ.

Ellen Corcella: This is my first Wild Goose Festival. Encounter, let's say, and it's wonderful. 

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: So you came here a little bit early for Wisdom Camp and you were presenting, right? 

Ellen Corcella: Yes, and I was presenting on behalf of a group known as Theology and Peace, and our topic was Peace in a Violent [00:01:00] World. And we.

Ellen Corcella: Using a theory of deconstruction of violence, how violence started, was it god or man? And then how humankind continues that cycle through wanting the same things, having rivalry over the same things, and then ultimately joining forces to scapegoat someone else who wants the same thing as well.

Ellen Corcella: And you see those forces at play. Very obviously in the current world. 

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Yeah. Yeah. So I'm curious to learn from people when they're in those challenging times, when they're in those messy situations. You know, what is a, word of encouragement or a person who. Kind of showed you some light on your path.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Mm-hmm. 

Ellen Corcella: Mm-hmm. 

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: And maybe a song or even a poem. Okay. So I think you found one, didn't you? 

Ellen Corcella: I did. I found one. It's Mary Oliver's Wild Geese. I first heard this poem when I was listening [00:02:00] to Krista Tippett podcast on being, and it must have been. A transition time in my life.

Ellen Corcella: My daughter was getting further in high school, so there's college looming, and then it was sort of like a change of identities. I was still clinging to my identity as a lawyer, sort of making money from that. Yeah. And it just seemed a dark time.

Ellen Corcella: felt pretty lonely and a little bit of dispear, like, how is this gonna work? I'm listening to Krista Tippett who does this podcast on this woman named Mary Oliver.

Ellen Corcella: And I hear her story, and I think Mary Oliver's probably a little more open about the difficulties of her childhood. Yes during that episode, and of course it resonated with me 'cause there was difficulties in my childhood as well. And so listened to this podcast and then she read the poem, wild Geese.

Ellen Corcella: The greatest line for me in that moment was. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely [00:03:00] the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese over and over announcing your place in things. And that's what I was struggling with was do I have a place in these things and where is that place I'd spent my entire.

Ellen Corcella: Life educating myself to be a lawyer. And I was a, successful lawyer. My identity was fully grounded in being a good lawyer. And you know, all of us are trying to prove to some parent or other that we can succeed. So there was this over success type of compulsion in me, let's just put it that way.

Ellen Corcella: And the feeling that you never will be so successful. And here I was sort of giving that up. So I was in seminary and I kept changing my idea of what I wanted to do.

Ellen Corcella: I'll study theology. Well, maybe I should just study how to be an ordained minister in a denomination I was not familiar with. 'cause I was raised Catholic, roamed around some non-denominational national churches. So I think that, the poem is. Very religious, spiritual, without saying it. Yeah. But it was clear to [00:04:00] me that she had a religious background and her images were reflecting something more than the literal words on the page.

Ellen Corcella: But the other thing that spoke to me is tell me about your despair. And I'll tell you mine. Mm. And you know, I didn't really have someone to talk to about. The despair eyes feeling or the uncertainty that I was feeling and that invitational language, right.

Ellen Corcella: Tell me about your despair and I'll share with you. Mine. It was something I'd never encountered, although it became important to me then, and I ended up being a chaplain in trauma hospitals and it became extremely important. To who I was as a chaplain. I saw myself as someone who sat with people.

Ellen Corcella: And I had to learn to open myself to be open to their despair. Wow. Tell me your despair. I had no idea that's where I would end up. 

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: And of all things and a poem. You find this point of clarity about your ordination 

Ellen Corcella: mm-hmm. 

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: As a chaplain? 

Ellen Corcella: Yes. Yes. I used it in my [00:05:00] ordination.

Ellen Corcella: I was already training as chaplain and in the ordination order of worship, I had the whole poem printed out on a separate page, so people wanted to pull that poem out. Yeah, they could, but you know, it was telling me I will find my place in the family of things even though I have felt displaced or disoriented for a long time.

Ellen Corcella: , In chaplaincy that combined with Henry Nouen's the wounded healer. Book where he, again, is talking about people's woundedness, but not other people's woundedness, our woundedness and how we can learn to not hide them. Like I had some trauma and I, never told people about it. Right. But his book resonated with this book, which is, your wounds are okay, And they can be really good sources of understanding the other person, and I could see it work. I can't tell you the magic, but. People would know who I was and would be willing to talk to me.

Ellen Corcella: And I didn't know why at first. And then I started to study [00:06:00] trauma and trauma and important care and all that stuff and what you need to do with trauma, which is just to have a witness. Right? But I didn't learn that till way later after I heard this poem, which. Tell me about your despair and it must have tapped into that desperate need.

Ellen Corcella: I had to have a witness, yes, an affirming witness, right to my despair, and the best thing I could do for other people was then become someone who's capable of hearing my despair. And I thought that was just such a beautiful gift when that happened. Each time it happened, it was just like it was a gift.

Ellen Corcella: To me, even though of course people would say, thank you for coming and, and things like that. But it was always to me, a two-way conversation so it was kind of like, you tell me your despair, and I'll tell you mine, I didn't tell them my despair. Mm-hmm. But we encountered something together.

Ellen Corcella: We really did. You know, 

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: and. Isn't it interesting that in your vocation, in your legal vocation and in your chaplaincy work that witness [00:07:00] is a part of both of them? 

Ellen Corcella: You just blew my mind. I hadn't quite put witness and witness together, but it is part of the both of them. Right. And I think helped me to become a, better chaplain.

Ellen Corcella: 'cause I'd already probably interviewed hundreds and hundreds of people over a course of a 20 year career.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: And church, sometimes um, you'd hear, can I get a witness? Right? Yes. That's right. 

Ellen Corcella: That's right. You know, can I have a witness? Yeah. And, i've become much more open about what happened to me.

Ellen Corcella: If I may plug, I wrote a book about what happened over the course of that called Walk With Me, A Journey through the Landscape of Trauma. But the reason I was compelled to write that was 'cause of what I just told you, that being witness to and learning that our wounds can be a source of healing for others and then seeing it, and I put some encounters in the book.

Ellen Corcella: Yeah. Actually happened. Mm. It makes me cry. I mean, it, it's just so powerful. Chaplains get to experience that in a way that I, I think sometimes pastors don't get to [00:08:00] experience on a regular basis 'cause you're moving from room to room, trauma to trauma. And then to see the transformation of both of us in the same room, I just found it very life changing. Yeah. 

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Yeah. 

Ellen Corcella: I became invested in poetry. So every time Krista Tippett recommended a poet, I read it. Now I have Mary Oliver's devotionals and I know what the summer day says, and I know all these other things, you know?

Ellen Corcella: Yeah. Summer day, what are you gonna do with your one wild and marvelous life, she was just beautiful and, I found a lot of beauty in her poems 

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Well, it was that song mm-hmm. That led you to the next step in your vocation of witnessing. Yeah. 

Ellen Corcella: Yeah, absolutely. And it let me know that . I was not alone in my spirit. 'cause no matter how lonely the world is still offering you something, right?

Ellen Corcella: And she's basically saying, look at the wild geese and see what's out there. 

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: And would you read it for us? 

Ellen Corcella: Oh yeah. If you, yeah, 

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: I would love it if you would read it for us. Oh, I'd love. 

Ellen Corcella: To read it, wild Geese by Mary Oliver. You do not have to be good. [00:09:00] You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

Ellen Corcella: You only have to let the soft animal of your body love. What it loves. Tell me about despair. Yours and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile, the world goes on. Meanwhile, the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies. And the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers.

Ellen Corcella: Meanwhile, the wild geese high in the clean blue air are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely the world offers itself to your imagination, calls. To you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting, over and over, announcing your place in the family of things. 

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: Thank you so much, Ellen, for sharing your story of this poem.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: What it means to you, how it led you from one [00:10:00] vocation step to another, and how poetry in itself gave you a support system. 

Ellen Corcella: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. It really did. It's, spiritual. It was not thick with theology, but it's totally theology, right? It is. And I've been very grateful for that and for Mary Oliver and many other poets.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: So there's a term I am just learning a little bit more about, and it's called Theo Poetics. Mm-hmm. And I was reading an article about. A particular poet who is also a theologian, and their statement was that they want to be a Theo poet. Okay. Yeah. Or a theo poetic. Yeah. Yeah. And so thank you for being a theo poetic Oh.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: With your life and your, your sharing your story today. Well, 

Ellen Corcella: thank you so much, Tara, for having me here. I was just hoping to wave you sometime in the Goose Festival, but this has, has been one Well, here we're here we're God works in mysterious ways. Yeah. And 

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: that's, that's how it is at the Goose. Yeah. You know, we make plans.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: God kind of laughs at us and says, but maybe you should stop and [00:11:00] have a conversation. 

Ellen Corcella: Yeah, absolutely.

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: That's where a lot of the beauty is found. Absolutely. So thank you for taking time to talk with me today. 

Ellen Corcella: Oh, you're absolutely welcome. And thank you for what you do all the time too. Thank 

Pastor Tara Lamont Eastman: you everybody for being with us on this. Always Sacred. Never. Stuffy adventure that we like to call Holy Shenanigans Podcast. May you be well, may you be at peace, and may you know that you are always, always beloved.