Maps

The other night a friend asked my wife and me for help working on a grad school project: creating a "map" illustrating the connection/distinction between God and man. It's intended to be a creative exploration and made me think how much creativity - especially literature - has shaped my own theological map. Without T.S. Eliot, Dostoevsky, G.M. Hopkins, John Donne, Flannery O'Connor, I don't know how much of an inner spiritual life I would have.


We talked about community and Communion and how finding God generally doesn't happen in a vacuum. Growing up I usually felt like a lone ranger trying to work out my singular salvation with sin and trembling; I'm realizing I had companions on the journey. I came to know them mostly through their writings, much like all someone can know of Hosea or Paul is the writings they left.


Words seem to be how I come to work through these things. Reading, writing, music are the tools to make it happen. I think by talking and it seems I have to pray by creating. So the problems of art and the problems of prayer make for some crazy mixed-up geography.

Parables

Matt Quarterman

My prayers are poems.
My prayers are songs.
And each one is another chance to get the prayer wrong.


I puzzle over phrasing,
I wrestle with the grammar
and worry that my tongue can never overcome its stammer.


The magic in the spell,
the command that’s in the speech
are locked away from anyone who dares to over-reach.


A power in the name,
a door that’s left ajar
can either drive a devil out or bring in seven more.


God’s mercy often sickens,
it moves in terrible speed -
a flame that’s lit but won’t obey to burn away my need.


The wine is brackish, bitter;
it stings to take a drink.
Remember God is merciful, more merciful than you think.




And even more maps: