A dear friend’s illness, a new
book I’ve been reading about Jesus, the weather … for some reason I’ve been on
my knees more often of late.
The book: Jesus:
The Human Face of God is by author/poet/Middlebury College professor Jay Parini, and I picked up a (signed!) copy at the Vermont Book Shop (Robert Frost’s
favorite bookstore, in case you didn’t know) mostly because Jay was one of my
creative writing teachers 30+ years ago.
I can’t put it down: if you
are at all interested in the historical Jesus as well as a textual
analysis/literary approach to Christ’s teachings, this is for you.
Meanwhile, Robert Chute of
Poland Spring has written this wonderful poem about faith. Given where my head and heart have been
at, it spoke to me.
Faith
By Robert Chute
I’ve never found an arrowhead,
one flinty chip of history.
Young Thoreau, they said, if he
walked by
some farmer’s fresh plowed
field, could just
stoop down and pick one up. As
if
the spirit that had shaped them
drew them
up to his attention. Stoney
bread crumbs
no birds will eat, these points
and flakes
led him from the town into the
saving woods and wilderness,
marked
the path to a wildness which
might
save us all. His faith led him
on
to find what he believed. We
find,
he said, what we are prepared to
see.
No comments:
Post a Comment