Monday, December 21, 2020
Each week, at the bottom of this email, I include a poem or poem excerpt. Poetry is one of the genres we find again and again in Scripture, and I’m convinced that poetry is vitally important.
Audre Lorde insisted that “poetry is not a luxury.” Sigmund Freud noted in his own work, that wherever he went in psychology, he always found “that a poet has been there before me.” Mary Oliver suggested that poetry requires us to pay attention: “This is our endless and proper work.”
Richard Chess, writing about Jeffrey Johnson’s collection, This Will Be a Sign, claimed that poetry “can be experienced as a kind of prayer.” Johnson’s book is one of the sixteen titles published by Fernwood Press, an imprint of Barclay Press, over the last three years, and it stands alongside collections from mystics, ministers, activists, and spiritual directors like Jo Boswell, Carol Bialock, Peg Edera, Bethany Lee, juniper klatt, and Emmett Wheatfall.
Think on the words below from Bruce Steffensen, as well as the excerpt from Illuminate. And sit with the poem below, from Jim Teeters. Try to experience it as a kind of prayer. —Eric Muhr
“The overarching mystery of Christmas is that of God becoming just like us. But another magnificent Christmas mystery is how God personally shows up in the lives of individuals, and the rest of us don’t always get to see it, know it, or understand it. Sometimes we need a story to remind us of that.” —Bruce Steffensen, excerpted from Fruit of the Vine
“The need to deal honestly with all others and with oneself has long been a foundational belief among Friends, summarized by the old injunction: ‘Let your yea be yea and your nay be nay.’ For Friends, having integrity means being authentic and having consistency between one’s values and one’s actions. Lack of integrity separates us from our own soul, from the Light within, and from our community.
Quakers try to live according to the deepest truth they know, which they believe comes from God. This means speaking the truth to all, including people in positions of power.” —American Friends Service Committee, “Integrity” in An Introduction to Quaker Testimonies, 2020, excerpted from the Illuminate study of 1 Samuel 3:1, 10–20; 4:1, 4, 11–19, 22.
44
When you seek
external approval
or garner riches,
you fail to
find fulfillment.
Just be who you are.
Seeking prestige
or wealth
will leave you wanting.
Be grateful;
be satisfied.
All creation
will bless you
—Jim Teeters, Because of This
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Eric Muhr
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