to honor the text by wondering about it

this collection grew out of a tentative project that soon became a spiritual lifeline, a way hold onto a faith in god that needed to change as I changed alongside it – after a lifetime in church, and christianity in general, feeling like I was sitting just outside a locked door that wouldn’t budge.

the project was simple. each day I would read the passages assigned to the day in the daily office lectionary then write some sort of poem about something I read.

sometimes the poems linked multiple of the appointed passages, and sometimes they focused in on one story, or even one line. I made few rules for myself, except that I keep doing it, keep showing up. and I did, nearly every day, for a year. I took a big break in november, feeling the mental fatigue of having written so many poems and reading so much of the Bible, feeling the dread of all that was happening in the world. that month, I wrote poems at church instead, scribbling in my pew. some days, the poems were truly terrible. some days, I’d write three or four versions until I worked out what I was really trying to get at. some days, the poems rang like a bell, clear and bright, as if someone else had written them. those were the best days.

I hope you’ll read these poems. I hope they’ll mean something to you. I hope the text will start to feel like a door that is able to be opened, rather than one that is closed to you. that’s how I’m beginning to feel, by knocking with poems, by turning the knob.