Hope That Heals: Reflections on a Life Journey is the author's first published work. After six decades of writing in diaries and journals, Ms. Clem has selected a group of poems that she extracted from those records. The collection includes observations from eight aspects of life, which, together, focus on the place of hope in human health and healing. Vacations spent near the oceans, bird watching in various landscapes and waterscapes, living with two beagles, probing for answers to personal questions and challenges, learning to relate to people, studying and making music, and wrestling with a lifelong call to serve God in word and deed are among the circumstances from which the author's poems arise. This wide range of thought covers years when Ms. Clem found verbal expression more difficult than writing. After developing verbal communication skills, the later work evolved into writing at a new level. The development of freedom in maturing thought and speech gave rise to deeper and more complex writing. She has long dreamed of sharing her observations and discoveries, in the hope that they will be helpful to others, perhaps even encouraging them to share their own.
About the Author: When Betty Jane Clem began this project, she thought of her poem collection as reflections on the people, places, events, and inner development one experiences through life. Her experiences centered on mental, emotional, and spiritual development. Writing enabled her to integrate what impressed and influenced her. She believes this kind of journey has value for others. This brief volume fulfills her dream to share her progress toward wholeness. Ms. Clem spent her youth in Staunton, Virginia, where she enjoyed the close family atmosphere. She received a BA degree in English from Radford University, and a master of divinity degree in theology from United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. She spent twenty years in ministry with the United Methodist Churches in Ohio and Virginia. She changed employment when her emotional health was impacted by life events. She spent the following twenty years on the national staff of the American Red Cross, working with and for the people that make our world diverse. Betty Jane is in the seventh decade of her life and says she has learned as much from writing about life as she has from living it. In retirement, she fills her days observing the world around her, creating word pictures of what she learns, and enjoying music, gardening, and reading. And yes! She is a dog person.