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The Spirituality of Writing Poetry

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Written for a church series on the spirituality found in otherwise secular practices. Why do I write poetry? For the purity and possibility in a blank sheet of paper, For the close to endless presence of words to conjure, For the creative act that taps into the divinest of works… Why do I write poetry? To feel okay feeling deeply (though to everyone else aloof and quiet). To get lost in words when thinking too much leaves nowhere to go. To memorialize a moment and know belonging despite unwelcoming worlds. Why do I write poetry? There’s a poem I wrote some years ago, written early when I had much to learn. The poem’s theme was the art form itself, the gift it’s been and continues to be. ...Unpathened white snow. an unclaimed plain. I express, yet hide, and work until it’s let go. Why do I write poetry? The internal life so important to me is content staying hidden, most of the time at least. When the hidden must be expressed, I turn to paper and pen, to Word’s empt...
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"Peace, Be Still"

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On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.”  And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him.  A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped.  But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion, and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”  And waking up, he rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm.  He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”  And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” - Mark 4:35-41 My mother loved to tell us Bible stories. She particularly loved the one from Mark 4. In particular, she loved the phrase, the mantra, that Jesus uses to calm the storm. “Peace, be still!” I am one o...
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Hungry Heart

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Mark 6:32  And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves.  33  Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them.  34 As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he began to teach them many things.  35 When it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now very late;  36  send them away so that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy something for themselves to eat.”  37  But he answered them, “You give them something to eat.” They said to him, “Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat?”  38 And he said to them, “How many loaves have you? Go and see.” When they had found out, they said, “Five, and two fish.”  39  Then he ordered them to get all the p...
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Kenosis: Divinely Found, Lost, & Losing

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A Homily Poem by Don Erickson “I once was lost but now, I’m found” The woods near my home lost me. I went searching for some solace there, For some peace then amiss amid teenage angst and anguish, For comfort from the pine floor softening my steps and heart. Maybe I found the solace, comfort, and peace I sought. But the woods, like the Lord, some say, gave and then took these gifts away, Losing me, hiding a path to find home, Taking solace, peace, comfort, leaving their antonyms. Not solace, but fear, Not peace, but anxiety, Not comfort, but close to tears, For the dark was not far off. The low sun no longer streamed down through trees, my unrestrained shouts for help unheard. Lost. Have you ever been lost? Really lost? I once was. Then found the way back home somehow, before twilight faded out. But the distress of the sun going down with me alone in that cavern of trees, that memory remains. The woods hiding me, my yells, the scents and sounds of panic, that stays and is easi...
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That's What Christmas is All About

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Growing up, every year my family and I would gather around the TV this time of year to watch the Peanuts Christmas special, Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown. It was an annual event in our household to watch that classic animated TV special. In the climax of that film, an exasperated Charlie Brown, responsible for directing the Christmas pageant but not having a clear vision about what it all means, desperately cries out, “Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?” Charlie Brown’s best friend Linus is ready with an answer. He takes center stage, says “lights please,” and recites Luke 2:8-14 which you’ll later hear again: And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For ...
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The Poor & Poor in Spirit

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  I'd like to share with you this morning what brought me to this call and what I've learned along the way as a pastor. At 23 in 1994, I walked away from the Christianity handed to me. You could call me a deconstructionist OG. A crucial reason why I left was that I felt the Christianity given to me was too silent on issues like racism and poverty. In fact, when it wasn’t quiet on these matters, it came down on the side of the wealthy and the powerful. I didn’t see Jesus. And how I wanted to see Jesus!.   Dr. Martin Luther King’s work and words were my first glimmer of a more liberative approach to the Jesus way.  And then as a 27 year-old undergraduate – yes, I was on the 10-year college plan – I took an upper-level class simply called “Christian Theology.” Dr. Mary Cunningham introduced us to Dr. James Cone and liberation theology. Some two years later, I’d be in Dr. Cone’s Systematic Theology class at Union Seminary! Liberation theology spoke loudly, and I heard it...
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"Every Grain of Sand" (Bob Dylan): A Meditation

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  I’ve recently read Bob Dylan: A Spiritual Life by Scott M. Marshall. As the title suggests, it tells the story of Dylan’s spiritual life. What a terrific read! Folks know about Dylan’s music and his rags to riches story. Born in Minnesota, his pilgrimage to New York City to meet Woody Guthrie, his involvement in the burgeoning Folk music scene in Greenwich Village, and his eventual Columbia Records deal, and the stardom that followed.  Many of his early songs were seen as protest songs. “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Times They Are-a-Changin’”, and “Masters of War” are a few examples. But Dylan didn’t accept the mantle of protest singer. In April 1962, just hours after he wrote it, a 21 years-old Dylan introduced his new song “Blowin’ in the Wind” by saying, “This here ain’t no protest song or anything like that, ’cause I don’t write no protest songs.”  Dylan refused the title of a protest songwriter, instead favoring the simpler mantle, poet with a guitar. Despite his resist...
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