Compass: To Find My Way

Compass is a poetry book about expanding awareness of direction in life. I write of a growth process based upon observing and listening to nature in a way that is sensory and experiential. In the midst of this is also a spiritual awakening -- an awareness of living in an eternal realm that goes beyond the here and now, beyond what I can fully comprehend, but of which I can partake by a life of faith in God.

Arnolda May Brenneman graduated from Roberts Wesleyan College in 1983 with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in the Fine Arts. However, upon leaving college she was disillusioned both with the world of the arts and with herself as an artist. She and her husband settled in Pennsylvania, where she was inspired to home school their three children. In those years of educating their kids at home, she rediscovered the world of the arts, experiencing what she calls a renaissance of the arts in her life. Poetry began to come and song and then the dance, as well as a reawakening of the visual arts. Arnolda has been writing poetry for over 25 years and doing public readings of her writings and poetry at artists' gatherings, café and bookstore open mike nights, and at various worship conferences and meetings. Arnolda assists her husband, Jan, in In His Shadow Ministries, the vision of which is to foster a lifestyle of purity through prayer, worship and the arts, including the use of flags and creativity in worship.