Influences

The following are some of the works of art and writing that influence my perspective on grace and the human condition. Hyperlinks to images, recordings or additional information are included for your convenience.

Poetry and Prose

“I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly” John 10:10.

“I came to you in weakness and fear and much trembling, and my message and my proclamation were not with persuasive (words of) wisdom, but with a demonstration of spirit and power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God” 1 Corinthians 2: 3-5.

The Avowal, Denise Levertov

As swimmers dare

to lie face to the sky

and water bears them,

as hawks rest upon air

and air sustains them,

so would I learn to attain

freefall, and float

into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,

knowing no effort earns

that all-surrounding grace.

Learn to Love the Questions – Rainer Maria Rilke in Letters to a Young Poet #4

 “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

Music

Adagio for Strings, Samuel Barber

Fanfare for the Common Man, Aaron Copeland

How Can I Keep from Singing, Robert Wadsworth Lowry

God, Beyond All Names, Bernadette Farrell

Books

Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation, Parker Palmer, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1999.

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking, Susan Cain, New York : Crown Publishers, 2012.

Turning to One Another:Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future, Margaret Wheatley, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2002.

New Seeds of Contemplation, Thomas Merton: New Directions, 1962

Works of Art

The Saint John’s Bible for example
Like Clay In The Hand Of The Potter (Sirach 33:13), Artist: Donald Jackson
To The Ends of the Earth (Acts of the Apostles 1:8), Artists: Donald Jackson, Sally Mae Joseph and Andrew Jamieson

Annunciation, Artist: He Qi

Reclining Mother and Child, Artist: Henry Moore

Girl at the Mirror, Artist: Norman Rockwell

Black Iris, Artist: Georgia O’Keefe