I hadn’t read Boethius or Petrarch in 1967. If I had, I may not have been so taken, when one late spring afternoon, I read Wendell Berry’s two-sentence poem “To Think of the Life of a Man.” I read it standing alongside the shelf of literary journals in the Johns Hopkins bookstore. I had come to be there by a circuitous route. I had dropped out of college, been rejected by the draft, returned to college, married and with my wife risked all we had to attend the Hopkins Writing Seminars on the chance that I might become a poet and novelist. Each morning my wife went to her job and I went to my desk. Afternoons I went to the library or the bookstore where I read but rarely bought. In nearby Washington, the first protests against the Vietnam … Read More »

The now disbanded songwriting duo Harrod & Funck played in a now defunct coffee shop called The One Way Café in Morgantown, West Virginia.

These days I would avoid an establishment called the One Way Café, preferring the Everyway Café or Leave My Theology Out of It And Just Make Me Some Damn Coffee Café.

I’d heard of Harrod & Funck from my friend Jessie, who’d heard about them from her sister, Michaelanne. Jessie also turned me on to Radiohead. She got me to read The Brothers K and Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

Jessie and I lived with two other girls in an old, carved-up house on Willey Street. Yellow-orange carpet covered the wall by the stairs, as though it had crossed the floor with such gusto that it just couldn’t stop.

It was 1997, the year that Joshua Harris published his crazy popular … Read More »

In my previous post I talked about the importance of silent waiting. While I hold that adding regular intervals of waiting worship to one’s religious life is optimal, I realize not everyone will go that route. So in terms of practical application I’d like to focus on a method that combines verbal queries with intervals of expectant silence.  One such method is Rex Ambler’s Experiments in the Light, which has proved a powerful method for many people. As it is most commonly practiced, an individual—alone or in a group—reads the following prompts aloud with five to six minutes of silence between each prompt.

1. Relax body and mind. Make yourself comfortable….Be relaxed, but alert. Let yourself become wholly receptive.

2. In this receptive state of mind, let the real concerns of your life emerge. Ask yourself, ‘What is really going on in … Read More »

One of the most mysterious things about Christian poets today is how little we talk about the poetry of the Bible. We have… It’s true we might sprinkle Bible-y stuff here or there in our poems, but we have yet to explore how the very structures and techniques of Hebrew poetry could inspire our work on a more fundamental, craft level.

I think there may be a few reasons for our timidity:

1) Some writers already feel conflicted about either their faith or their faith in their writing. It’s both a personal struggle and a cultural one. How do we speak authentically about our own faith experience (and what do we even mean by that?)—and in a way that is comprehensible (acceptable?) to the world at large? So we attempt to keep it light by using the Bible in ironic or literary … Read More »

I became a perfectionist sometime in middle school.  This was when I started to read the Bible on my own, and discovered the verse “Whatsoever you do, do it wholeheartedly unto The Lord.” Until then, I only tried when I felt like it; when the task seemed fun or interesting.  After reading this verse, however, I felt compelled to vacuum under every piece of furniture, be sure every dish I washed was spotless, and never say anything mean to anyone.  I became a much better worker, but work also became weighty.  For one thing, vacuuming thoroughly took a lot more time and effort, and for another, it mattered.  If I didn’t do well, I was failing God.  I didn’t believe God would reject me if I didn’t do things perfectly, but I believed He’d be disappointed, which would be almost … Read More »

{an interview with writer, David Ebenbach}

when you picture someone reading your writing, how do you see them? what do they think about, wear, and do? or, maybe a better way to say it: who do you write for? and how do you see your writing nourishing others?

Well, when I’m in the midst of writing, I try not to picture anyone—except my characters, anyway. Otherwise it’s like I’m sitting at my computer while a roomful of people stares awkwardly at me. Once I’m done writing, however, I do think about readers. I somewhat sympathize with Mary Oliver, who wrote, “I write poems for a stranger who will be born in some distant country hundreds of years from now.” In other words, I like to think that my work touches enough of the universal that it can be meaningful to people in … Read More »

{Tania Runyan reflects on the problems of gossip}

Diane is a stay-at-home mom. Every afternoon, her toddler naps for two hours, during which time Diane texts the twenty-something server she met at Red Lobster:

How r u

Same old

Get em nice & steamy for me

U know i will

;)

One day, he stops by on break, just to say hello in person. She puts Chloe in her crib, turns on the white noise machine in the nursery, and unfastens the top two buttons on her blouse as she heads downstairs.

Did you feel your pulse quicken? What did you want to happen next? For Diane to come to her senses and kick the punk to the curb?

Sin is fun. We like to enter into its colorful mysteries, especially when someone else is doing it.

Thomas à Kempis writes in Book 1, Chapter 4, in The Imitation of … Read More »

Whenever I find myself in any kind of slump — whether it be in writing, exercising, or praying — I try to resist my first natural inclination toward giving up entirely.  One of the best remedies I’ve found to combat my defeatist tendencies has been to gain a new perspective, and I suppose that’s what I was searching for when I found myself signing up for meditation classes at the Passionist Earth and Spirit Center a couple months ago.   I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but I know I couldn’t have been the only one in my class who had scenes from Eat, Pray, Love flash to mind.  In search of a renewed perspective and needing to find balance amidst demands from work and school, I thought that this might bring a sense of serenity and calm to my … Read More »

{writer and archivist, D.S. Martin, reflects on his calling to poetry by “The Hound of Heaven.”}

Often, we hardly realize how much something is influencing us until much later, and even then we may not understand its impact. When I was in high school, I was not much of a student, and I certainly didn’t have any thought that I could, or should, or would become a poet. Looking back now, I think one of the first steps in the process of my calling was the reading of Francis Thompson’s 1893 poem “The Hound of Heaven”. When I first heard that poem, I read it over and over – despite its considerable length (182 lines!).

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;

I fled Him, down the arches of the years;

I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways

Of my own mind; … Read More »

I am a dreamer.  I believe that a person can will a dream into reality.  It takes time.  It takes effort.  It takes persistence.  It requires that the dreamer eliminate “can’t” from his or her vocabulary.  Certain names come to mind as I write this: St Francis of Assisi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi.  After finishing Nonviolent Soldier of Islam not long ago, I add Badshah Khan to the list.

I believe that some dreams must exist in the minds of many before they can be willed into being.  
Peace. Justice.  Freedom.  The Reign of God.  Small shifts bringing us closer to the Reign have happened over many generations, through the commitment of a relatively few dedicated souls.

 We have yet to reach that ultimate dream, but I believe that someday we will, even as I doubt … Read More »