I know I regularly read things---like newspapers, magazines, etc.---not knowing what I might find, but fully confident that I will find something both interesting and useful. Such was the case recently when I read a review of Christian Wiman’s new book, He Held Radical Light: The Art of Faith, The Faith of Art, published in 2018. I had not even heard about the book. But I do know something about Wiman. I have read his earlier, most challenging and rewarding book, My Bright Abbyss; Meditation of a Modern Believer, published in 2013.
Wiman currently teaches literature and religion at Yale. In My Bright Abyss Wiman shows himself to be an incredibly insightful, but careful, thinker. To read the book was like sitting with a painter who was going to take quite a long time to paint an exquisite picture. This is radically contrasted with the artists I have seen at parties and county fairs who could sketch out a portrait in about thirty seconds! To read Wiman was like being present in the creative process itself. It almost did not matter the content.
And so I was happy to see reference to another one of his books. I certainly will get it and read it. But first I was delighted to see this review by Paul Lakeland. I enjoyed the title of Lakeland’s review: “Book explores how poetry scratches at the door of transcendence.” When I saw the title, I could not wait to get to the place in the text where Lakeland probably would use this kind of language. I was not disappointed.
Lakeland describes the new book as “a work in which the author is sufficiently present that it can be classified as memoirish, but sufficiently concerned with Wiman's encounters with a whole series of interesting individuals as not to qualify as simple autobiography.” Specifically, Lakeland tells us the heart of the book is “an exploration of the possible relationships between poetry and faith.”
I suspect in a good review, it becomes difficult to separate the reviewer from the author. To that end it does not matter whether Lakeland or Wiman’s genius is behind such a statement as the following. “Poetry and faith, each in its own way, is shaped as an open-ended and never fully satisfactory embrace of truth…” I think I know more about faith than I do poetry, but this statement seems true for both. And the statement is a wonderful way to describe the very nature of the faith process.
Faith is shaped. I never thought about how the faith process unfolds. I like the image of “shaping.” To shape faith is an act of creation. As Wiman doubtlessly would suggest, faith is doubly created---by us and by the Spirit. I can imagine all sorts of ways to articulate this creative shaping. Gift and receiver would be one that I find attractive. Of course, all images and metaphors have their limitations. The idea of shaping faith runs the risk of suggesting the process can be finished.
This is where Wiman takes care of the limitation of shaping when he says that faith (and poetry) are shaped as open-ended. That appeals to me very much. It reminds me of why I so much value the idea of faith as a verb instead of a noun. To make faith a noun finishes the faith project. When faith becomes a noun, you get a set of beliefs. These usually solidify into doctrines and sometimes calcify in dogma. Keep faith as a very---get it open-ended. This allows the mystery of God’s creative Spirit to keep working its unfolding evolutionary journey with us.
Wiman also notes the shaping of faith is not only open-ended. It is also never a fully satisfactory embrace of truth. This appeals to me because he cautions against the arrogant optimism that somehow we can be “sure” of God and ourselves. For one thing, we can’t be sure because we are still in process. Who I am and will become is still a work of art. The picture is not finished.
And then I hit that sentence I expected to find. At the end of the review Lakeland observes, “Like faith, poetry scratches at the door of transcendence.” I love that imagery. I love the image of the door---the door between me and the God who is beyond and more than me. The good news is that God is not impossibly separated. There is a door. And faith is my scratching at the door. That is a wonderful way to understand the devotional and theological works to be read. They are the scratching of women and men who quest to know this transcendent God as that God also is immanent.
And then I smile when I read the next line. “But while poetry tries to pick the lock, faith waits patiently for the door to be opened.” Again I don’t know about poetry, but I like it described as a lock picker! The person of faith, on the other hand, has scratched the door of transcendence. And now patiently, that person waits for the door to open. That fits with my theology.
We finally will need God’s grace---God’s gift of opening---to be on the faith journey. I am actually relieved. It is not all upon me. My door scratching today might be nothing more than a simple prayer that God opens to me when I need a wholesome spiritual life.
Wiman currently teaches literature and religion at Yale. In My Bright Abyss Wiman shows himself to be an incredibly insightful, but careful, thinker. To read the book was like sitting with a painter who was going to take quite a long time to paint an exquisite picture. This is radically contrasted with the artists I have seen at parties and county fairs who could sketch out a portrait in about thirty seconds! To read Wiman was like being present in the creative process itself. It almost did not matter the content.
And so I was happy to see reference to another one of his books. I certainly will get it and read it. But first I was delighted to see this review by Paul Lakeland. I enjoyed the title of Lakeland’s review: “Book explores how poetry scratches at the door of transcendence.” When I saw the title, I could not wait to get to the place in the text where Lakeland probably would use this kind of language. I was not disappointed.
Lakeland describes the new book as “a work in which the author is sufficiently present that it can be classified as memoirish, but sufficiently concerned with Wiman's encounters with a whole series of interesting individuals as not to qualify as simple autobiography.” Specifically, Lakeland tells us the heart of the book is “an exploration of the possible relationships between poetry and faith.”
I suspect in a good review, it becomes difficult to separate the reviewer from the author. To that end it does not matter whether Lakeland or Wiman’s genius is behind such a statement as the following. “Poetry and faith, each in its own way, is shaped as an open-ended and never fully satisfactory embrace of truth…” I think I know more about faith than I do poetry, but this statement seems true for both. And the statement is a wonderful way to describe the very nature of the faith process.
Faith is shaped. I never thought about how the faith process unfolds. I like the image of “shaping.” To shape faith is an act of creation. As Wiman doubtlessly would suggest, faith is doubly created---by us and by the Spirit. I can imagine all sorts of ways to articulate this creative shaping. Gift and receiver would be one that I find attractive. Of course, all images and metaphors have their limitations. The idea of shaping faith runs the risk of suggesting the process can be finished.
This is where Wiman takes care of the limitation of shaping when he says that faith (and poetry) are shaped as open-ended. That appeals to me very much. It reminds me of why I so much value the idea of faith as a verb instead of a noun. To make faith a noun finishes the faith project. When faith becomes a noun, you get a set of beliefs. These usually solidify into doctrines and sometimes calcify in dogma. Keep faith as a very---get it open-ended. This allows the mystery of God’s creative Spirit to keep working its unfolding evolutionary journey with us.
Wiman also notes the shaping of faith is not only open-ended. It is also never a fully satisfactory embrace of truth. This appeals to me because he cautions against the arrogant optimism that somehow we can be “sure” of God and ourselves. For one thing, we can’t be sure because we are still in process. Who I am and will become is still a work of art. The picture is not finished.
And then I hit that sentence I expected to find. At the end of the review Lakeland observes, “Like faith, poetry scratches at the door of transcendence.” I love that imagery. I love the image of the door---the door between me and the God who is beyond and more than me. The good news is that God is not impossibly separated. There is a door. And faith is my scratching at the door. That is a wonderful way to understand the devotional and theological works to be read. They are the scratching of women and men who quest to know this transcendent God as that God also is immanent.
And then I smile when I read the next line. “But while poetry tries to pick the lock, faith waits patiently for the door to be opened.” Again I don’t know about poetry, but I like it described as a lock picker! The person of faith, on the other hand, has scratched the door of transcendence. And now patiently, that person waits for the door to open. That fits with my theology.
We finally will need God’s grace---God’s gift of opening---to be on the faith journey. I am actually relieved. It is not all upon me. My door scratching today might be nothing more than a simple prayer that God opens to me when I need a wholesome spiritual life.
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