"Grace Is Where I Live" by John Leax

From 1968 to 2009, John Leax (1943-2024) was an English professor and poet-in-residence at Houghton College in New York. He was a poet, an essayist, and the author of one novel, Nightwatch. Leax’s poetry collections include “Reaching into Silence,” “The Task of Adam,” “Sonnets and Songs,” and “Country Labors.” His non-fiction writing and essay collections include “Grace Is Where I Live,” “In Season and Out,” “Standing Ground: A Personal Story of Faith and Environmentalism,” “120 Significant Things Men Should Know…but Never Ask About,” and “Out Walking: Reflections on Our Place in the Natural World.”

I’ve read Nightwatch, which is aimed at young adult audiences. It’s a coming-of-age story, focused on a boy named Mark Baker from his young childhood to his ten years. It’s a good story with an “edge” I haven’t usually seen in young adult books. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Some Monday Readings

New ones – artwork by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

Labour’s war on the countryside: Farmers are being driven off the land – James Rebanks at UnHerd.

Restoring American Culture – Roger Kimball at Imprimis / Hillsdale College.

King Osiwu and a Touch of Murder – Annie Whitehead at Casting Light Upon the Shadow.

Paupers to princes

After I Peter 2:9-12

We are paupers, mired

in our poverty, 

in our emptiness,

in our lack of purpose,

floundering in darkness.

And yet we are paupers

chosen, called to something

higher, far higher, called

to royalty, to holiness,

called to leave the darkness

and embrace the light, 

the marvelous light. And 

the emphasis is on “we;”

we are not alone, called

together with the others

chosen for the priesthood,

priests who have received

mercy.

 

Photograph by Annie Spratt via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

Christmas Poem – e.e. cummings at Kingdom Poets (D.S. Martin)

 

“The Burning Babe,” poem by Robert Southwell – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

The Thief’s Good Works – Jackson Gravitt at The Gospel Coalition.

 

The process of calling

After I Peter 1:13-21 

The call is a process,

active and not passive,

an ongoing process.

First, prepare your minds,

specifically for action.

Second, be of sober mind;

the business at hand

is serious.

Third, be obedient; you are

a child made to obey.

Fourth, resist old passions;

do not conform to what’s

been cast aside.

Fifth, call on him, the father

who judges without favor.

Sixth, conduct yourselves

in fear; this is the time

of your exile.

Seventh, know you are

ransomed, an eternal

ransom fully paid.

Eighth, hold your faith

and all your hope

in the One who’s 

ransomed you.

 

Photograph by Pablo Lancaster Jones via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

“The Good Riddle” by G.K. Chesterton – Malcolm Guite.

 

Psalm 24 – poem by Megan Willome.

 

The Sleep Whisperer – poem by Kelly Belmonte at Kelly’s Scribbles.

Lead the life

After I Corinthians 7:17-24 

Lead the life I assigned

you, doing the work

I called you to. You

are designed to do

this work, called

to fulfill the task

you’re appointed to.

Your calling is not

to make money,

prosper, gain fame,

be honored by all.

No, your calling is

to serve, remaining

in God, using the skills,

abilities, and talents

I gave you. This

calling is for life.

 

Photograph by Artur Voznenko via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

My God, Send Another – poem by Andy Patton at Rabbit Room Poetry.

 

The Loss of Intellectual Curiosity – and Why It’s Dividing the Church – Michael Kruger at Canon Fodder.

 

Courage for a New School Year – Andy Young at Ligonier. 

 

Why we haven’t turned off our live steam – Stephen Kneale at Building Jerusalem.

 

Unpredictable Futures: Bonheoffer and Bots – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

The calling, at the end

After I Corinthians 7:17-24 

Inventory time:

Did you honor me

  with the skills and

   talents I gave you?

Did you honor the parents,

   the teachers, the pastors,

   the authorities I placed

   into your life?

Did you use the skills

   and talents I gave you

   to provide for your family?

Did you use the skills

   and talents I gave you

   to promote the public good?

Were my people’s legitimate

   prayers answered

   through you?

 

Photograph by Charles Deluvio via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

Lamplight – poem by Andrew Lansdown at Kingdom Poets (D.S. Martin).

 

The Maker – poem by Seth Lewis.

 

The Biggest Evangelical Divide Is No Longer Between Wesleyans and Calvinists – Nicholas McDonald at The Bard Owl.

 

Igniting Hope: MLK’s Powerful Washington March Address – Jason Clark ad This is the Day.

 

A call to a new land

After Genesis 12:1-3 

A call to a new land,

a command to leave,

to turn away from the unknown,

the familiar, and turn

toward the unknown,

the unfamiliar, the different.

Leave your family, and

go. And my promise is this:

all the families of the earth

will be blessed. Those who

bless you will be blessed;

those who curse you

will be cursed. But

through you will come

the blessing for all.

 

The call to a new land

is not unlike the call

that happens generations

later, the call to leave

the fishing nets,

the tax table,

the tentmaking, and

embrace the unknown,

the strange, the unfamiliar,

and through those called

will come a blessing 

for all, a blessing called

salvation.

 

Photograph by Kameron Kincade via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

The Leper – poem by Brian Yapko at Society of Classical Poets.

 

Can a Story Change a Soul? – Annie Beth Donahue at Story Warren.

 

Sing, My Tongue, the Saviour’s Glory – poem by Venantius Fortunatus at Kingsom Poets (D.S. Martin).

 

Grief Can Be So Lonely – Tim Challies. 

 

True Story: The Surprise Ending is Joy – Andrew Klavan at The New Jerusalem. 

"The Storied Life" by Jared Wilson

I’ve had many conversations with Christian writers about the idea of “calling,” that writing is a calling from God. Most will agree; some even will identify a specific time when they experienced the calling.  

I can’t. Writing has been a part of my life since I can remember. I was raised in a culturally Christian home, but I had been writing for almost 12 years by the time I became a Christian. I wrote my first story when I was 10; I don’t remember much about it except it was a mystery, involved a group of kids, and featured a grandfather clock that opened to a secret passage and a cave. 

Jared Wilson has had a far different experience. In The Storied Life: Christian Writing as Art and Worship, he develops the idea of writing as a specific calling (a kind of ministry, for those unfamiliar with “calling”) and goes so far as the suggest a theology of writing. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Gollum is getting his own spinoff. But is it really necessary? – Brittany Allen at Literary Hub.

 

‘All Nature Has a Feeling,’ poem by John Clare – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Blessing (For One Who Has Blessed) – poem by David Whyte.

 

Intolerance Unmasked: The Persecution of Harrison Butker – John Horvat at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Dandelions – poem by Cynthia Erlandson at Society of Classical Poets.

Small and deep

After Mark 3:13-19, Luke 8:1-3 

No megachurch, no TV

audience, no millions

of followers and likes.

Instead, he chose 12,

12 men from different

walks, different families,

different backgrounds.

And then he poured

himself into them,

a fine wine into

broken bottles, 

befriending, discipling,

teaching, training,

praying for, encouraging,

correcting, reproving,

helping them to know

him, and, in the process,

each other. It was 

a disparate group,

to be sure, from zealots 

to tax collectors to

fishermen. Each was

called, each was

trained, each was

loved.

 

Photograph by Isaac Sloman via Unsplash, Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings 

 

Lifetimes in Landscapes – Brianna Lambert at Looking to the Harvest. 

 

The Tragedy of Despair – Nathaniel Urban at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Homeschooling and Red Herrings – Nadya Williams at Front Porch Republic.

 

They were never ignoring me – James Hunt at Stories About Autism.

 

Poet Laura: For the Birds – A Poetry Reading…for Chickens – Dheepa Maturi at Tweetspeak Poetry.

The broad view of work

After Matthew 25:14-30

A blessing

or a curse,

a chariot

or a hearse,

a bane

or a boon,

all of these

simultaneously

are this thing

we call work.

Fundamentally human

ordinately divine,

it carries the burden

of dignity, of gravitas,

no matter how high

or low (he looked

at work and saw

it was good) (he didn’t

say it was easy). It is

all sacred, because

of its ordinance. It’s all

blessed, because

of its meaning. To hand

a bag of burgers

and fries through 

a drive-thru window 

is a holy act,

a holy calling.

Photograph by Jeremy Bishop via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Not only a call

After 2 Timothy 1:9

It wasn’t only a call,

a sounding in the night

or day, a voice speaking

into a heart, hearts.

It wasn’t because of works,

acts, deals, accomplishments

that we had done, it was

never about us, ultimately.

It was a call,

a call to a holy calling,

what we were given

from before the time

of the first page,

a call to a purpose,

not ours, but called

by grace.

Not ours.

Never ours.

Photograph by Rose Lamond via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Dancing King Stories: Writing as an Act of Faith

We writers would all love to be Stephen King, James Patterson, J.K. Rowlings, and other successful people who turn everything to gold simply by their touch. For most of us, writing is difficult, frustrating, depressing, discouraging, and lacking any kind of return even remotely like the effort we put into our work. We pour ourselves into what we write, often for a very long time, and once it sees the light of day, the world yawns and moves on to books that are badly written, semi- (or totally) pornographic, or so lacking in anything of value that we wonder why we continue to do what we do.

Writing can be a slog. For most of us, writing is a slog.

A scene inDancing King unintentionally speaks to writers, what we write, our platforms (or lack thereof), and the whole question of “why do we write.” I wasn’t thinking of writers when I wrote it, but I believe it applies to what we writers try to do.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Photograph: Southwark Cathedral in London, with the office building known as "The Shard" in the background.

Are You Called to Write?

I follow quite a few writers on Facebook and Twitter, and I read their blog posts and articles. If a consistent theme exists in all of what writers, and especially Christian writers, say about themselves, it’s that they’re called to write. Christians writers say they’re called by God; others might refer to a muse, an urge, a belief, a feeling.

That theme of calling leaves writers like me in something of a quandary, much like the Christians who accepted faith as a child and can’t remember the exact day, time, and circumstance. I remember the exact time and place of my acceptance of faith – Jan. 26, 1973, about 8:30 p.m. in the basement of a lecture hall building at LSU. But to identify when I became a writer, or why, is not possible for me – it’s buried so far back in the mists of childhood as to be unknowable.

I read early and read often. The first book I remember buying on my own was Trixie Belden and the Secret of the Mansion, spending 59 cents at the local dime store. I was 7. My reading habit was reinforced by the Scholastic Book Club at school and indulged by parents who encouraged reading. One of the earliest memories of my mother was her reading Grimm’s Fairy Tales to me when I as two or three; I still have the book.

But many children and adults enjoy reading without becoming writers. Reading alone can’t explain it.

To continue reading, please see my post at Christian Poets & Writers.

Top photograph by Ben White via Unsplash. Used with permission.