I love this poem by the Welsh poet Henry Vaughan (1621-95), for its marvelous depiction of the mystical life. His phrase “dazzling darkness” owes to John of the Cross, the 16th-century Spanish mystic whose Dark Night of the Soul sets out an apophatic spirituality, and Vaughan, too, urges the night, both literal and metaphorical, as the place to find God (or, rather, to be found in God).
Search Results for: sunday morning poem
Sunday Morning Poem: “Pied Beauty”
January 1, 2017 by
2016 was, well, a mixed bag, and 2017 promises to be no different. Perhaps this poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins can serve as an inaugural prayer that we might discern God’s grace in whatever comes.
Sunday Morning Poem: Richard Crashaw, “On the Wounds of Our Crucified Lord”
January 25, 2015 by
Bringing a little baroque sensibility to our series, I present this poem by Richard Crashaw (1613-1649):
O these wakeful wounds of thine!
Are they mouths? or are they eyes?
Be they mouths, or be they eyne,
Each bleeding part some one supplies.
Lo! a mouth, whose full-bloomed lips
At too dear a rate are roses.
Lo! a bloodshot eye! that weeps
And many a cruel tear discloses.
O thou that on this foot hast laid
Many a kiss and many a tear,
Now thou shalt have all repaid,
Whatsoe’er thy charges were.
This foot hath got a mouth and lips
To pay the sweet sum of thy kisses;
To pay thy tears, an eye that weeps
Instead of tears such gems as this is.
The difference only this appears
(Nor can the change offend),
The debt is paid in ruby-tears
Which thou in pearls didst lend.
Sunday Morning Poem: “Eucharist”
January 18, 2015 by
A broken boy
broke the bread
and then
with breaking voice
broke the prayer.
His broken prayer
found broken me,
Jesus there
much more than
when he got it right.
Sunday Morning Poem: “Credo”
October 26, 2014 by
I’ve been at work on this one for a while, and I’ll probably keep tinkering, but here it is anyway. [Read more…]
Sunday Morning Poem: “The Flower,” by George Herbert
October 19, 2014 by
This poem, along with “The Agonie,” played a central part in my conversion to Herbert some ten years ago. I can still feel the pleasure of spiritual surprise I experienced upon first encountering the line “Thy word is all, if we could spell.”
Sunday Morning Poem: “Hear Me,” by Czesław Miłosz
August 24, 2014 by
I’ve loved the poetry of Czesław Miłosz since a friend gave me a slim collection of his poems over a decade ago. Especially searing are the poems he composed amidst and about the Warsaw Uprising as a sympathetic Catholic outsider. Even after coming to the United States, Miłosz composed his verse primarily in Polish, often collaborating on the translations. This poem comes from his final collection, Second Space.
—
Hear me, Lord, for I am a sinner, which means I have nothing except prayer.
Protect me from the day of dryness and impotence.
When neither a swallow’s flight nor peonies, daffodils and irises in the flower market are a sign of Your glory.
When I will be surrounded by scoffers and unable, against their arguments, to remember any miracle of Yours.
When I will seem to myself an impostor and swindler because I take part in religious rites.
When I will accuse You of establishing the universal law of death.
When I am ready at last to bow down to nothingness and call life on earth a devil’s vaudeville.
Sunday Morning Poem: “There is a gold light in certain old paintings,” by Donald Justice
August 10, 2014 by
This late work appears as the final poem in Donald Justice’s Collected Poems (Knopf, 2006). It has been a favorite ever since I learned of it a few years ago. The third stanza strikes me as an especially clear expression of religious hope as tempered by thoroughgoing realism about the difficulty of life, represented by the almost Beckettian song at the end of the second stanza.
1 There is a gold light in certain old paintings That represents a diffusion of sunlight. It is like happiness, when we are happy. It comes from everywhere and from nowhere at once, this light, And the poor soldiers sprawled at the foot of the cross Share in its charity equally with the cross.
2 Orpheus hesitated beside the black river. With so much to look forward to he looked back. We think he sang then, but the song is lost. At least he had seen once more the beloved back. I say the song went this way: O prolong the suffering if that is all there is to prolong.
3 The world is very dusty, uncle. Let us work. One day the sickness shall pass from the earth for good. The orchard will bloom; someone will play the guitar. Our work will be seen as strong and clean and good. And all that we suffered through having existed Shall be forgotten as though it had never existed.
Note: regular BCC commenter melodynew contributes to a Poetry Sunday series over at The Exponent. Read her entry for today here. The more poetry, the better!
Sunday Morning Poem: Milton, “Adam and Eve’s Morning Hymn”
June 1, 2014 by
This excerpt from Book V of Paradise Lost frequently appeared under the title “Adam and Eve’s Morning Hymn” or “Milton’s Morning Hymn” in 18th-century anthologies. It was such a familiar set piece that Edmund Burke’s only son, Richard, came into the room where his parents were sitting and recited it just before he died.
These are thy glorious works, Parent of good,
Almightie, thine this universal Frame,
Thus wondrous fair; thy self how wondrous then!
Unspeakable, who sitst above these Heavens
To us invisible or dimly seen
In these thy lowest works, yet these declare
Thy goodness beyond thought, and Power Divine:
Speak yee who best can tell, ye Sons of light,
Angels, for yee behold him, and with songs
And choral symphonies, Day without Night,
Circle his Throne rejoycing, yee in Heav’n
On Earth joyn all ye Creatures to extoll
Him first, him last, him midst, and without end. [Read more…]
Sunday Morning Poem: “The Agonie,” by George Herbert
May 25, 2014 by
This series could not continue long without featuring George Herbert…
The Agonie
Philosophers have measur’d mountains,
Fathom’d the depths of seas, of states, and kings,
Walk’d with a staffe to heav’n, and traced fountains:
But there are two vast, spacious things,
The which to measure it doth more behove:
Yet few there are that sound them; Sinne and Love.Who would know Sinne, let him repair
Unto mount Olivet; there shall he see
A man so wrung with pains, that all his hair,
His skinne, his garments bloudie be.
Sinne is that presse and vice, which forceth pain
To hunt his cruell food through ev’ry vein.Who knows not Love, let him assay
And taste that juice, which on the crosse a pike
Did set again abroach; then let him say
If ever he did taste the like.
Love is that liquour sweet and most divine,
Which my God feels as bloud; but I, as wine.
Sunday Morning Poem: “Fault”
May 18, 2014 by
I find that poetry occupies a place very near the heart of my worship. Nobody in my High Priest’s Group is at all surprised anymore when I bring a poem into the discussion, and I’ve even been known to read them over the pulpit in testimony meeting. In that spirit, I’d like to inaugurate an occasional series in which I post a poem on Sunday morning, leaving the verse to speak for itself. (Discussion in the comments is, of course, both welcome and encouraged.) I’ll start things off by sharing an effort of my own, now six years old.
Fault—an interesting word:
culpability as chasm—
the building pressures
of an inner tectonics
resulting in rupture,
the riven self reveals
the illusion of identity.The first tremors throw
off the balance,
and the aftershocks
reiterate the wound,
the trembling gap between
the self I framed
and the charted graphs
of my seismic soul.
Lesson 41: Jeremiah and the Weight of Prophecy #BCCSundaySchool2018
October 31, 2018 by
Was he really a bullfrog? Hard to tell–we know so little about the private lives of Old Testament figures. But we can be sure that Jeremiah never sang “Joy to the Word”–or to anything else for that matter. Not to the boys and girls. Not to the fishes in the deep blue sea. Not to anyone. Joy, in Jeremiah’s life was not a thing.
But Jeremiah was both a great prophet and a great poet–and his life and ministry can help us understand a lot about how both prophecy and poetry work in the Old Testament. [Read more…]
Lesson 20: “All the City . . . Doth Know That Thou Art a Virtuous Woman” #BCCSundaySchool2018
May 24, 2018 by
Lesson Objective:To understand and encourage class members to emulate the righteous qualities of Ruth and Naomi.
Scriptures:The Book of Ruth[1]
Introduction: The story of Ruth and Naomi is about sisterhood, immigration, family, and a powerful female partnership. It is also involves Ruth as a foreign Other, Ruth being purchased as a commodity, and Ruth bearing a child as a handmaiden for another woman who could no longer bear children. It is as much TheHandmaid’s Taleas it is Gilmore Girls. This story does not take up much space in the Old Testament, but it has meant something considerable to me since I was very young, if only for that it is a woman-centric narrative peopled with female characters who have names and desires and actions not necessarily directly related to their relationships with men. [Read more…]
Sunday Poem: “Graces from My Life”
October 9, 2016 by
Mornings late abed, melancholy rain,
feathered-hope graffiti, love’s youthful churn,
Boston flanerie, torque of longing’s strain,
son in darkness, autumn, a sermon’s turn;
lungs’ gulp, bereaved embrace, vanilla pine,
brokenness reknit, hands-uplifted prayer,
midnight thoughts, intimations of design,
a chancel choir, friends’ laughs, the weight of care;
fire-purpled evening, remade love, a verse,
motets’ weave and rise, raveled-open soul,
released Anfechtung, church-tears, mem’ry’s nurse,
morning quiet, mountains, the hoped-for whole;
pilgrim’s aching, first Herbert poem’s heart’s-ease,
stubborn bones, a kindly thought, sacred peace.
The “imminent apocalypse” Sunday Morning session
April 6, 2014 by
Welcome to the Sunday morning session of General Conference. Lets take some notes!
In the meantime, check out some photos (bottom right) from the sessions yesterday or watch ‘Music and the Spoken Word’.
Poetry as Theology: Reading George Herbert’s “Prayer [I]”
July 16, 2016 by
Update: each phrase of the poem below now links to its corresponding post. All of the posts can still also be found here.
Readers of this blog (and people who know me) will be aware that devotional poetry is close to my heart. (See this post on George Herbert, in which it was all I could do not to include at least twenty poems, or this one on Gerard Manley Hopkins, or any of the Sunday Morning Poems I’ve posted.) It would be very hard for me to have a spiritual life without poetry—and why should I have to? Yet if all God-talk is theology, what are the implications of having that theology take poetic form? Some time ago I read a book arguing that poetry in the Early Modern period handled the realities of conversion more effectively and accurately than did prose theological treatises. At stake here is nothing less than Pilate’s famous question: “What is truth?” Is truth contained in rigorous arguments moving logically from proposition to proposition, or is there something more evasive about it, something toward which we can only hint through images and metaphors? Or, conversely, are images and metaphors a cheat, deceiving us into the belief that there’s an easy way around working carefully and patiently to reason out the truth? [Read more…]
Christmastime, Still (Sometimes) in the Dark
December 22, 2019 by
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res]
I woke up this morning early, the day following last night’s arrival of the Winter Solstice, of Midwinter, giving us the shortest and darkest day of the year (at least in the northern hemisphere). The only light in the house was from our tomten display–the nissen and gnomes who watch over our home, every Christmas season. Did someone forget to unplug the lights, as we are supposed to before everyone goes to sleep? Or did our watchful friends want to remind us of something? I wouldn’t doubt the latter at all. The whole house is silent, but that’s understandable; after all, as Astrid Lindgren taught us long ago, the tomten speak a “silent little language,” that presumably only our dog Stella could understand.
Exactly ten years ago, I wrote about the way some of our family’s holiday traditions revolve around the silence, and the dark. Well, children grow, and times change (as Lindgren wrote, “winters come, and winters go”). Some of our story-telling traditions have been retired, perhaps to return when our children return with their children. But midwinter still comes every year, and I remember (or am reminded, by our small, silent wintertime companions), of all that is happening out there in the darkness. So I am reposting it below. I’m the Sunday school president in our ward, but still, this is not a lesson that I would teach this Sabbath day, the final Sunday of Advent. More’s the pity, perhaps. Anyway, there will be family and friends at our home this evening all the same, as some traditions endure, even as they change. So this foggy, silent morning, I listen to the day’s most appropriate carol (whether you prefer the majestic version, or the humble one) and I am thankful for a God–and, perhaps, His little servants–who moves in the dark. [Read more…]
The Stranger and His Friend
June 23, 2019 by
A couple of months ago the sister in charge of our sacrament meeting music wanted to arrange for someone to sing “A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief” today, June 23, because it would be the Sunday before June 27. She asked one guy to do this, and he agreed at first, but it turned out he wasn’t really excited to do it, so I said I’d do it if I could turn it into a talk first and give an introduction to the song, which turned out to be fine. So I did it in sacrament meeting this morning, and it turned out pretty well. I didn’t write down the text of my remarks, so while they’re still fresh in my mind I’m going to write them down here for future reference: [Read more…]
Indiana Interfaith Vigil Against Hate
August 2, 2018 by
Indiana is my home. I grew up north of Indianapolis, in the suburbs of Hamilton County. This is what my part of Indiana looks like — abundant greenery, small country hills, midwestern sunsets, cornfields.
Hamilton County is one of the reddest counties in a red state. It’s filled with upper-middle class suburbs, booming megachurches, top-tier public school districts, and well-funded infrastructure and government. It’s an amazing place to raise a family. I learned love and community and hard work there.
[Read more…]
In Search of Vocation
September 4, 2017 by
Richelle Wilson is a PhD student in the Scandinavian Studies program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison with an emphasis in comparative literature. In addition to her abiding interest in contemporary novels, she has recently undertaken research and other projects focused on labor studies and public humanities. She is a Swedish instructor and a member of Dialogue’s editorial staff. Most revealingly, she loves moody jazz, watches a lot of films, and is intensely committed to the Oxford comma.
While Labor Day offers many of us a brief reprieve from our daily grind, it’s also an opportunity to consider the labor we and others perform. When you ask Americans about the work they do, you’ll almost always hear about what they are paid to do. But as I’ve researched labor studies over this past year, I’ve become increasingly interested in the work we do for free, or with minimal recognition: unwaged labor, be it emotional, intellectual, or manual.
In the Church, this uncompensated labor often takes the form of an ecclesiastical calling. And, it turns out, if you ask Mormons about their personal history with callings, they have a lot to say. [Read more…]
Announcing “Mother’s Milk” for Kindle―and So Much More
August 3, 2017 by
You asked for it, and we heard you. At BCC Press, it’s just what what we do. As of today, Mother’s Milk, the remarkable book of poems about Heavenly Mother written by Rachel Hunt Steenblik and illustrated by Ashley Mae Hoiland, is available for the Kindle. And for the next four days, you can get it for $3.95, which, let’s face it, is the new free.
If you haven’t seen what people are already saying about Mother’s Milk, check out the buzz: [Read more…]
Our Heavenly Family, Our Earthly Families: Interview with the Author
September 15, 2016 by
One morning as I drove my kids to their swim lessons I overheard Remy, who is five, tell Thea, who is three, “I know four people: Heavenly Father, the Holy Ghost, Jesus and Heavenly Mother.” I think they both must have nodded in agreement because I didn’t hear much else on the topic, but those few words Remy said so confidently have stayed with me. I didn’t speak the words Heavenly Mother aloud until I was in college, and even then it felt subversive and a little rebellious. I remember saying it in my testimony and I’m sure it didn’t sound entirely natural as I still stumbled and paused at the words. 
For me, much has changed since those college years, and I have so many brave people to attribute that to. Conversations, books, poems, lessons, artwork, encouragement all set me up to explore my own personal relationship with Her in my late 20’s and forward. I love that my children have no need to feel subversive in speaking about Heavenly Parents. They are being raised up by a community that is better becoming acquainted with Her. I love many things about the new book Our Heavenly Family, Our Earthly Families by McArthur Krishna and Bethany Brady Spaulding with artwork by Caitlin Connolly but the invaluable space they offer to children to think about a Heavenly Mother in conjunction with a Heavenly Father, along with the books inclusivity of different types of families, makes me so happy to have it on my bookshelf. [Read more…]
Bishop Caussé’s Invitation to Attention and the Question of Grace #LDSConf
April 5, 2015 by
Bishop Caussé opens his talk with a stunning acknowledgement about failing to pay attention: his family lived in Paris for 22 years without ever making time to visit the Eiffel Tower! Similarly, he suggests, we can all too easily miss occasions for spiritual wonder all around us. In a monitory tone, he says:
Our ability to marvel is fragile. Over the long term, such things as casual commandment-keeping, apathy, or even weariness may set in and make us insensitive to the most remarkable signs and miracles of the gospel.
Later, he quotes Marcel Proust by way of inviting us to undertake a wondrous spiritual journey made possible by the simple mechanism of paying attention: “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” This quote marvelously captures both the “renewing of [the] mind” that Paul makes a consequence of grace and the spiritual riches that await those with eyes to see and ears to hear.
[Read more…]
Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day
April 28, 2014 by
Two minutes can seem a very long time. I know because I was given the responsibility for keeping time during the two-minute standing silence that our UK ward observed every Remembrance Sunday. I was strict about it and timed exactly two minutes, but everyone, including my fellow bishopric members, began glancing around anxiously, the other counselor looking at me out of the corner of his eye. Perhaps in past years people had been casual about the two minutes, just estimating it. Based on my experience of a two-minute silence, a two-minute long siren wail would seem an eternity. [Read more…]
From the Archives: The Liturgy of Jello
March 17, 2014 by
It’s the tri-ante-dodransbicentennial (or something like that) of the Relief Society. Hurrah! Go read the minutes.
Here’s my talk from the celebration in my ward a few years ago (with apologies for not having come up with anything better in the last 4 years!): 
I have mixed feelings about our yearly celebration of the birthday of the Relief Society, starting with the nitpicky wish that we called it “founding” or “establishment” or even “anniversary” and not something as redolent of frosting and froufiness as “birthday.” The rest of the country has Women’s History Month (which still isn’t enough) but we only have Relief Society History day. Any excuse for a party will do, and I love our gatherings, but it pains me that it’s not enough time to discover a thousandth part of our heritage of faith as Mormon women. And sometimes even this single evening can feel like too much: I have finally come to accept the fact that some people, even smart, wonderful people whom I love, just don’t want to hear more stories about “pioneer women.” And, although this sentiment is profoundly alien to me, I can imagine how it might arise. [Read more…]
Music for Advent 1
December 2, 2013 by
I’ve asked my friend Jason to do some guest posts for Advent this year. I’ll probably chime in with Germanic and (Neo-)Romantic emendations to his Anglican purist selections from time to time. Enjoy!!
Advent I – Rorate caeli
I am both honored and humbled to have been asked to do some guest posts on some of my favorite advent music this year, considering I have nowhere near the breadth of knowledge of choral music that Kristine does, and I also lack her gift for writing. [Ed. Note: he’s lying.] A little background about me: I have a Ph.D. in molecular biology, and work studying the biology of aging. However, for the past 15 years, choral music has been my main non work-related artistic outlet. I think I have somewhat of an unusual choral background for a Mormon. [Read more…]
Cloistered Nuns
November 13, 2013 by
[cross-posted to Patheos]
Cloistered Nuns
As Robinlee and I were looking at the statues, a docent told us that there was an order of cloistered Poor Saint Clares in a nearby church. “We never see them,” she said, “but they sing during the 7:00 a.m. Mass. They sound like angels. Sometimes, we try to count the voices. We don’t know how many there are.”
We decided then to attend Mass the next morning. [Read more…]
Remembrance Talk
November 11, 2011 by
As cathedral bells toll remembrance in Worcester, I thought I’d repost these thoughts on war for 11/11/11.
For Christians, Remembrance Sunday can stir mixed emotions. Today we remember the fallen of war and regret that war seems to be the natural condition of man. We weep along with God who, when surveying the war and murder that polluted his earth said, “I gave them commandment that they should love one another, but they are without affection, and they hate their own blood. As a result misery shall be their doom; and the whole heavens shall weep over them . . . ; wherefore should not the heavens weep, seeing these shall suffer?” (Moses 7:37).
The observance of Armistice Day — the 11th Day of the 11th month — was originally intended to ensure that never again would the nation commit to the slaughter and evil that have become synonymous with words such as “Somme” and “Flanders Fields.”
[Read more…]
Gender, Authority and Strange Loops
April 8, 2010 by
I want to expand on thoughts expressed by commenters in the Sunday PM General Conference Open Thread, specifically, “…Or maybe, if we’re going to talk about how wise mothers are, and what good teachers, and read sentimental poems about grown men longing to hear their mothers’ voices, we could just, y’know, hear their voices….”
The immediate context of this comment was Brother Foster’s talk, “Mother Told Me,” but the point applies to the entire conference, and more broadly to women’s influence in the church. I’d like to delve deeper into an analysis of some details in Brother Foster’s talk. I want to emphasize that this should not be read as a condemnation of the whole talk. It is both much narrower (a quibble with just one particular example he selected), and much bigger (the whole situation of women in the church), than his talk. Also, on some level, this is just a golden opportunity for me to geek out on some of my favorite geeky topics: logic, paradox and feminism.
[Read more…]
The Liturgy of Jello
March 19, 2010 by
My talk from last night’s RS celebration in my ward: [Read more…]
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