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 »

in case you’ve missed the buzz, here’s just a few things being said about “making manifest: on faith, creativity, and the kingdom at hand”…

posts by bloggers…

teddy ray

glynn young’s ‘faith, fiction, and friends’

addie zierman’s ‘how to talk evangelical’

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interviews with harrity…

sojourn arts + culture

rock & sling

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posts by harrity…

five rules for believing writers at forma

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 »

A few years ago I was traveling home from Montana to Illinois when I decided to detour three hundred miles to Kathleen Norris’s town of Lemmon, North Dakota.  I didn’t tell her I was coming.  I just stopped in.  Not that I saw her, and I doubt that she even knew I was there.

Norris is the author of such books as Dakota, Cloister Walk, and Amazing Grace, and moved to North Dakota after living in the bright, shining din of New York City. I wanted to see where she writes of isolation and spirituality in a place she describes as “the high plains desert, full of sage and tumbleweed and hardy shortgrass.”

Half an hour from her town, I drove into a thunderstorm and the world went dramatic — dark and moody with hard driving rain.  
As I came around … Read More »

I’m a young writer in my first year of college at Asbury University. As with most college level courses, the classes I’m taking are very writing intensive. Between my regular classes, my creative writing fiction class, writing for antler, and occasionally writing for my college newspaper, I’m writing a story, sketch, article, or essay of 500 words or more pretty much every other day.

I love to write—I’m absolutely passionate about it. But because I have so many prescribed and predetermined pieces, I often forget the real reason that I should write: to glorify God.

Usually I write with the following goals in mind: to get the assignment completed as quickly as possible, to earn a good grade, or to intrigue or help others. These are not necessarily ignoble ambitions—they have their time and place. However, this should not be the outcome … Read More »

{in this post, blogger jeremy statton reflects on how writing has changed his life.}

The last time I was given a writing assignment was my freshman year in college for a history class. And that moment almost became the last time I expressed myself through the written word.

I was headed to medical school, a life dedicated to science. My goal was to solve the world’s problems through surgeries and medicines. To me writing was a nuisance. An undesired chore.

Fourteen years later, however, I finally put pen to paper again, and it changed my life.

The Plan

As a senior in high school I decided to become an orthopedic surgeon. The course of my life was set. College. Medical school. Marriage crammed into the empty space somewhere. Maybe kids. Then Residency.

My plan was like the life of science I pursued. Precise. Without error.

For the … Read More »

“Be still and know that I am God.” – Psalm 46:10 (NIV)

Multi-tasker. If I had to pick one catch phrase for the average 21st century citizen, that would be it. I read an article online that described how world-renowned concert violinist Joshua Bell went incognito and gave an impromptu concert in a Washington, D.C. metro station. He was dressed as a man down on his luck, and he had his violin case opened and set on the floor in front of him. (Ironically, tickets to his concerts apparently average $100!) The sad part of the social experiment was that people hardly took note of him, due to the environment. The metro station was simply a place they were passing through, so the thought of focusing long enough to hear a single song was not on the commuters’ … Read More »