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In this exquisite dual narrative laced with expressive art, poetry, journaling, and hands-on help, It All Belongs offers a unique pairing of perspectives to actively model spiritual tools and practices helpful for navigating life’s inevitable realities and unwanted journeys — while embracing the love, beauty, light, and joy in all our life’s moments.
For Judy Smoot, a devastating terminal Glioblastoma Multiforme diagnosis means putting the spiritual practices she has taught so many others to the ultimate, personal test. As an artist, spiritual director, expressive arts teacher, retreat facilitator, and innovator of a non-profit organization supporting people with chronic disease, Judy shows us what it looks like to live fully into our own mortality by living fully into hers. Actively modeling spiritual and expressive arts practices she taught to so many others, Judy lives into her own mortal battle in a way that prompts a friend’s observation, “Judy taught us how to live . . . and how to die.”
But that’s only half the story.
Following Judy’s death, It All Belongs then invites its readers to journey with Roy, Judy’s husband of nearly 40 years, as he struggles to embrace the twin realities of love and grief. With extraordinary vulnerability, Roy offers a rare window into his struggle to learn the rhythms of this bittersweet dance. From the raw angst of navigating immediate day-to-day realities, to deep introspection during a long road trip out west, to culminating awareness on a spiritual quest in Iona, Scotland, Roy models the journey through unthinkable darkness to emerging triumphant into a full and abundant life.
Woven into both sides of this honest, beautiful, heartbreaking, and awe-inspiring narrative, readers will discover spiritual tools and practices to equip them and their loved ones for their own inevitable end-of-life realities. In this unique pairing of perspectives laced with exquisite art, poetry, and journaling, It All Belongs brings hands-on help for navigating any unwanted life journey to embrace the amazing love, beauty, light, and joy tucked within even our most tragic experiences.
JUDY & ROY met in college at Ohio State, were married following graduation, and for the next four decades lived and loved in Georgia, Florida, Ohio, and Maine.
Roy enjoyed a successful banking career; Judy served as a Wellstreams spiritual director, a Dominican Associate, and an Expressive Arts Florida Institute (EAFI) graduate. Judy established Always We Begin Again (AWBA), a non-profit organization to support people with chronic illness. Later in life they made their home at “Sunrise Ridge,” their cottage and retreat center renovated and created in the breathtaking beauty of Ohio’s Hocking Hills.
MELINDA FOLSE is a writer, editor, and collaborator on a mission to tell stories that make a difference. She believes this story will strike a meaningful chord in every life it touches. It All Belongs is her eighth book, joining Grandmaster, Dream Catcher, and Lessons Well Learned as her favorite explorations of lives and passions well lived. She lives in Fort Worth, Texas.
“An insightful and touching testament to enduring love.”
In this spiritual healing guide, the husband of an artist and therapist who died of brain cancer showcases her drawings and writings, as well as his own journal entries and poems.
“This is an intimate book, revealing the journey of the heart from the inside. It is also a book of invitations, calling us to press against the edges of our lives through creativity and meditation, and discover what brings us alive. I recommend it for anyone looking for a wise companion who is willing to be vulnerable, to help us embrace our own humanity.”
PhD, REACE, Online Abbess of Abbey of the Arts and author of over 20 books on contemplative practice and creative expression.
What do you do when you’re facing the end of your life—or the life of someone you love? Available December 1 Preorder now! Hardcover
