Craft & Play Vol. 21

encounter God through poetry

Hello friends,

This month began with All Saints’ Day, with God on our minds. The grass is still green outside my yard and the leaves are not yet raked. Sometimes I (Emily) imagine every leaf to be a dead relative from my mysterious lineage. Maybe one of my relatives from a hundred years ago is a poet. I see her sweeping the temple floor in China, praying to an unknown God.

November is usually a time of reflection. With the coming winter months, the falling leaves make a great backdrop for meditating on scripture. I (Julia) always find this time of year to be so fruitful as I navigate shorter days and more time for quiet prayer and poetry practices. My children sleep better at this part of the sun’s rotation. I do too. And the world in its preparation for sleep thrills my creative inner self.

November is also Poem-a-Day month. For a while now, being as faithful as I could, I (Emily) would follow the Book of Common Prayer and read through the Psalms every month. Of course, every day is slightly different. Some days I read without writing, but when I learn to block out distractions by shutting off my phone, my computer, I read each line deeply and pick one to write a poem out of. From the reading plan, one can write a poem every day out of the year. Sometimes weird lines come out, like “I can’t walk far anymore without the sun assaulting me.” That line spawned from “For thine arrows stick fast in me and thy hand presseth me sore.”

Pairing poetry with scripture can help us wrestle with our faith on the page. It can be a form of worship, lament, or simply allow you a different perspective on familiar passages. Some poets paraphrase the Psalms. That is a great way to write a poem or make a psalm your own. Today’s craft and play is slightly different, as we are taking a line out of the Book of Common Prayer and making it the title of the poem. We enjoy seeing what kind of images emerge when face to face with the word of God. Grocery store apples? Spilled ketchup on a random aisle? Maybe an arrow sticking fast in the side of your car. Maybe God is the sycamore behind your house.

Wherever you encounter God through this poetry exercise, we hope you enjoy the practice. The steps are simple:

1. Select a line from a Psalm or from the Book of Common Prayer to use as your title.

2. From that title, allow the poem to flow. We find that couplets or triplets can add structure as you write.

3. Let it sit, and then go back to make edits/revisions.

Here is the poem we wrote with this prompt:

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[Shall the dust give thanks unto thee]

Dust of last year’s rain and leaves.
Dust of spider webs and husks.

You turned your back upon my pleas,
dark clouds now gather above me

like dust. My ceiling, O Lord, is all I see. 
Dust collected in a heap, my soul heavy, 

I become mud, and yet I long to be even dust,
for your footsteps to disturb my peace,

so that I float in the air around your robe,
and settle there. O Lord, let me be dust,

like earth wrung dry of sorrow, and when 
I rise like dust, let it be praise that fills the air. 

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May you be filled with peace this week.