Divine exploration and invitation.

Divine exploration and invitation. In a recent essay, (1) Eric McLuhan reiterates the argument thathis late father, Marshall McLuhan, oft-termed a media theorist, workedwithout the use of theories. He supports this claim by suggesting thatwhile his father did use theories, he did not use them in a consistentway. Rather than attempting to develop a culminating thesis, the elderMcLuhan was more interested in the work of aphorism and art thanexplication and exegesis: he was most content when probing andobserving, asking questions and exploring. This elusive and playfulspirit of inquiry and expression has been the inspiration for much of myown work and is at the heart of the essay you now read. I write to sharewith you some ideas I have discovered in my own journey and will notconsider it a failure should this piece raise more questions than itanswers. Those looking for a more exhaustive and traditional treatmentof theopoetics are encouraged to see my recent piece in Christianity& Literature (2) or the website I maintain, http://theopoetics.net. It is a matter of how you begin: if you begin with theory, then one way or another your research winds up geared to making the case for or against the truth of the theory. Begin with theory, you begin with the answer; begin with observation, you begin with questions. A theory always turns into a scientist's point of view and a way of seeing the job at hand. Begin with observation and your task is to look at things and to look at what happens. To see. --Eric McLuhan (3) The explorer is totally inconsistent. He never knows at what moment he will make some startling discovery. And consistency is a meaningless term to apply to an explorer. If he wanted to be consistent he would stay home. --Marshall McLuhan (4) Observation I recently found myself alone in a motel, staring at a jacuzzi in ahot room that smelled of stale cigarettes. It was nearly two in themorning, and the bathroom had no walls. I presume this design elementwas included so that one's bathing experience might also includeease of access to the bedroom, which, I might add, contained a genuineMagic Fingers[R] bed. The event of this encounter served as yet anotheropportunity to test my belief that it serves every person of faith totry to find God however they might in the place and time of theirsituation. As it grew nearer to 3 am and my place remained a less thandesirable hotel, I struggled to make meaning of it all. I have been a school teacher by training and occupation, and it wasa job interview that had landed me in my aforementioned surroundings. Ihad missed a connection to Rochester, New York in the labryntine gloryof the John Fitzgerald Kennedy International Airport, and was told thatthe next flight would not be until the following morning. Thirteen phonecalls later, I had discovered that (1) late-night airport hotel findingis not for the easily discouraged, (2) that the kindness of strangerssometimes is real, and (3) that "the great cash only special"is neither great nor special in any standard use of those words. Having been delayed for hours aboard my New York bound flight, andhaving had to attempt communications to my potential employers via cellphone at midnight, I was more than ready to accept the advice of a localwho "knew a place." One handwritten address, a pleasant urbancab ride, and a snarky glance from our cabbie later, another strandedtraveler and I ended up at our destination. After some confusionregarding the fact that we would not be sharing a room, the night shiftemployee pointed me toward my accommodations and I was allowed to standin slack-jawed awe of the my jacuzzi-appointed furnishings. I toldmyself I had some work to do to figure out what the larger point of thisfiasco was. Six hours later, on board a flight I was never"supposed" to be on, I discovered it. Influence By and large, I believe that the people of the United States ofAmerica have mostly forgotten the experience of God: we remember thename, but not the face. We have begun to confuse the menu for the mealand grow ever more hungry, fighting each other over how to properlyorder, while back in the kitchen tables groan under the weight of thefood prepared for the feast of feasts. Folks aren't even ordering,let alone eating! I feel that a significant part of the unfed spiritualhunger that many experience has to do with menu confusion. We spend somuch time squabbling over quibbles with the text that we never getaround to experiencing the nourishment to which the menu refers. Putanother way, I think that the language we use to describe God greatlyinfluences our perspective and experience means of access to the Divine.When we fight pettily among ourselves, our religion can come to feelpetty. We end up not liking the restaurant because of the horrific fightwe had with one another before even getting to taste the meal. It isthrough this lens that I have come to the field of theopoetics. I understand theopoetics to be the theory and practice of makingGod known in the world. I have arrived at this definition, at leastpartially, by means of the word's etomology. Theos, the Greek forGod, most of us are familiar with. Poetics, though, has a lesswell-known origin. The word poiein in Greek is a verb meaning "tomake or shape." At a root level then, theopoetics is how we makeGod, how God comes to be known by us, and academically, the study of theways in which God is made known through texts. What I have discovered,less by etymology and more by experience, is that words we encounterthat articulate ways of being for the Divine and the Divinely inspiredare with us far beyond their life on the page. That is to say, whiletheopoetics may be construed as a primarily monograph-based disciplineand a child of the Literary Theory movement, I think there is more lifein understanding it as a means to grapple broadly with how we speak ofGod, the ways in which we articulate the numinious, and the shades ofGod-claims to which we are continually exposed throughout religiousdialogue and supposedly secular forms of media. As the religious content of sermon and church conversation isusually self-evident, it behooves us to be aware of the messages werecieve from other sources as well. A theopoet isn't just writinggod-talk in verse, she is articulating the depths of reality with suchexpressive precision that the omnipresent nature of the Divine is seen,by those with eyes to see, in the text. There is a universality to thistype of writing which I hesitate to categorize as solely religious. AsT.S. Eliot wrote, there are "great religious poets, but they are,by comparison with Dante, specialists. That is all they can do. AndDante, because he could do everything else, is for that reason thegreatest "religious" poet, though to call him a"religious poet" would be to abate his universality. (5)"In the same expansive spirit that claims Dante as a universal"religious poet," I am interested in cultivating the capacityof universal "religious poetry readers," so skilled in theircraft that they are capable of experiencing the Presence in a reading ofthe world that continues daily and unabated. From the shoulder-riding devil and angel of Warner Brotherscartoons, to the continued proclamaition of a just, God-supported war,media-consuming North Americans are continuously exposed to myriadmessages on the nature of Divinity and how it appears in the world. I amcaptivated by the notion that we can make explicit the nature of thesemedia, and the ways by which we subsequently come to think about theDivine and express our experience of the Sacred. Through the developmentof a critical awareness, we begin to become awake to the ubiquity oftheological thinking, even in places where we would not expect it.Moreover, beyond the mere awareness of "theological thinking,"we also grow in our capacity to sense that of God in the world: Ibelieve that the language we use to describe God greatly affects ourperspective and perception of the Divine. I feel met in theseconvictions by the field of theopoetics, which takes seriously thepossibility that the messages we receive about God can alter ourexperience of God. This is not to suggest that the Divine itself isdirectly altered by a Bugs Bunny animation arguing with apitchfork-wielding devil, but rather that as creatures of media, words,images, and stories continue to influence us long after we hear Porkyproclaim "Th-Th-Th-That's all, folks." Fuchsia During the course of my travels, I discovered the reason I had hadmy flight diverted several times, the reason I had had the pleasure ofbeing exposed to my very own Magic Fingers bed, and the reason why myinterview had to be rescheduled three times. Finally, en route toRochester, I had a vivid dream in which I saw that I would minister to awoman who would be waiting for me at the Rochester airport. Waiting thatmorning at exactly the time I arrived, not the day before. I woke with aclear image of this woman's face. She was in her late fifties andhad an olive complexion and graying brunette curls worn close to hershoulder so that they brushed the top of a once-bright fucsia scarf. Shewas having a panic attack and calling repeatedly for a priest, and whenno priest was to be found, I stepped forward. There I was able to praywith her and bring her some measure of comfort as she readied to fly tothe funeral of her son. Sometimes things happen that we cannot predict. That was the dream at least. When I arrived in reality, having deplaned certain of thiswoman's presence, I exited only to be met by the thundering roar ofthe everyday. No fucsia scarf, no son's funeral, not even a woman.The early morning airport was nearly empty, and I was able to walk frommy gate to the nearest coffee vendor without running into a singleperson. I was shocked. I had been so sure that she would be there. Revelation Even the stories we create for ourselves are powerful. In many ways, I understand theopoetics, a la McLuhan, to be a typeof theology-less theological expression. Another way to approach this isto consider the degree to which the formal work of theology is carriedout by means of postulation and abstraction. The presentation oftheopoetics, while covering the same ground, tends to travel that groundin a different way. By emphasizing communication and expression,theopoetics encourages the drawing forth of actual experiences of God inthe world and an attempt to articulate how it is that the Divine hasmanifested. While Scripture certainly contains myriad instances of Godin the world, often people want to know how it is that god is now, inthese days, and how we can speak of the Divine and god's work. In the book The Power of Myth, (6) a remarkable series ofconversations are captured between journalist Bill Moyers andmythologist Joseph Campbell. During the course of one of thoseconversations, Campbell remarks that clergy are not concerned enoughwith the connotations of symbols and are instead overly focused onpragmatic ethicism. Asked by Moyers why this might be the case, hereplies as follows: The difference between a priest and a shaman is that the priest is a functionary and the shaman is someone who has had an experience. In our tradition [Catholicism] it is the monk who seeks the experience, while the priest is the one who has studied to serve the community. I had a friend who attended an international meeting of the Roman Catholic meditative orders, which was held in Bangkok. He told me that the Catholic monks had no problems understanding the Buddhist monks, but that it was the clergy of the two religions who were unable to understand each other. The person who has had a mystical experience knows that all the symbolic expressions of it are faulty. The symbols don't render the experience, they suggest it. If you haven't had the experience, how can you know what it is? Try to explain the joy of skiing to somebody living in the tropics who has never even seen snow. There has to be an experience to catch the message, some clue--otherwise you're not hearing what is being said (73) In his response, Moyers remarks that "the person who has theexperience has to project it in the best way he/she can with images,[and] it seems to me that we have lost the art in our society ofthinking images (73)." Amos Wilder, one of the early proponents oftheopoetics, would have agreed with this completely. In the openingpassages of his book Theopoetic, (7) he offers that his "plea for atheopoetic means doing more justice to the symbolic and the pre-rationalin the way we deal with experience. We should recognize that humannature and human societies are more deeply motivated by images andfabulations than by ideas" (2). Theopoetics places an emphasis on the descriptive and minimizes theprescriptive. It is a means of linguistically re-engaging andre-envisioning the world and the ways in which we percieve God to beagentive within it. When a text is acting theopoetically, it functionsin opposing directions, simultaneously pulling the reader further intothe text's poetic narrative and pushing the reader into areconsideration of, and reconnection with, life in the world beyond thetext. (8) The theopoet is less concerned with correctly arguing thenature of reality and more with expressing how the Divine is sometimesrevealed through it. Vineyard In 1812, the American ornithologist John James Audubon painted thefirst image of a bird flying. It was a whippoorwill. The occasion ofthis painting is notable because in it Audubon broke with standards ofperiod ornithological illustration. To more "properly" depictthe nature and action of the bird in flight in three-dimensional space,he used artistic techniques of foreshortening; the nearest parts of thebird were enlarged so that the rest of the form appeared to have depthand go back into the space of the painting. Because of thisforeshortening, accurate measurements could not be taken from theillustration. Audubon painted things "incorrectly" to capturetheir movement and aid in their identification. As a result, some hisimages lost their merit as scientific tools. (9) I have come to believe that the issue is not so much that speakingof the Divine is impossible, but rather that it is impossible to speakabout with objective certainty. At best, theology becomes less relevantthe more the theologian employs solely the language of logic. At worst,it can become an exercise of tilting-at-windmills, attempting toenumerate the single-way things are and always will be. And this problemexists outside of the academic walls of seminary and divinity school aswell. If a young child is taught her creative painting is wrong, or notperformed properly, it is likely that she will eventually withdraw frompainting, regardless of how nonsensical the teachings may be. Those inpositions of power contribute a significant amount to what it is wethink is acceptable and what is off limits. It seems to me that thecurrent situation of popular theology is not that dissimilar. At somelevel, people appear to be afraid of trying to talk about God andgetting it wrong. (10) Many people, both within my tradition and elsewhere, struggle tofind language to articulate their sense of the Divine. There are avariety of reasons why this can be the case; however, the end product isthat there are a number of people in the contemporary culture who arenot fully comfortable with the formal dogmatic positions of their owndenomination of origin and do not feel as if the proposed theology ofthe tradition matches their experience of God in the world.Unfortunately, people also often feel equally uncomfortable questioningthese positions from within the institution. Questioning is oftendiscouraged, and literalism and/or adherence to tradition becomes theorder of the day. A regrettable consequence of this dynamic is that somechoose to remain within their tradition, their own voice silenced, andothers choose to leave, only voicing their concerns from without. Inboth situations, an opportunity for dialogue is missed, and in somissing, another possibility to enrich the conversation of the Churchhas been lost. The danger of valuing experience so highly is that people mightcome to believe that their own experience trumps all else. Oftenconservative critics of theopoetic and expressive thinking claim that itis bound to end up in some kind of relativistic, solipsistic hedonism.Who cares about tradition? Let's do what feels good, what Iexperience as good for me is good! While this position is extreme, itrepresents a misunderstanding of what I believe the theopoeticinvitation to be. I do not see theopoetics as a destructive disciplinereplacing theology. Theopoetics is a way of perceiving and expressingexperience so as to more directly articulate how the Divine manifests inthe world. It presumes that there is some life-giving Source tocreativity and creation, and that at times it is more noticed thanothers. I am not interested in attempting to disprove theologicaltenets; in fact, it seems to me that theopoetics is related to theologymuch the way that a vineyard is related to a horticultural museum. Bothare of service, and of interest, to different populations at differenttimes, and not in conflict with each other. Audubon did not seek the destruction of images from whichmeasurements could be taken, and he knew that he could offer somethingmore. Ground After talking with me about theopoetics, people are often left withthe impression that language occupies a space in my life that borders onthe obsessive. I don't reject this out of hand, but it does bringto mind an interview with Stanley Kunitz I once read. In it, he evokes William Blake in asserting that he succeeds as apoet only as much as he is capable of evincing the "minuteparticulars" of a situation. The specificity of corporealexperience is essential to Kunitz. He comments that "it is anadvantage for the poet not always to be immersed in poetry, not tobecome incestuous with his own art ... [Too] much poetry is airy. It isspun only out of the need to write the poem and is not nailed into thefoundations of the life itself." (11) The retreat of his garden wasa place wherein he could come to literal grips with that life. He fendedoff obsession with poetry by immersing himself in the "minuteparticulars" of his flower beds. So it's not that I don'tlove language--I do--it's that language is my garden. It is in its tended rows that I find enough expression of theeveryday to hedge against a type of airy theorizing and abstracttheology that I hope to avoid. It is precisely because of my love of theDivine that I find myself drawn to text with a passion. It refreshes meand returns me to my own ground. Consequently, I try to tend to it asbest I can, aware of its limitations and all the more careful because ofthem given how much I ask it to produce. I do not want to overtax thesoil. I do not view language deterministically. While it is powerful, itis neither omnipotent nor a frill substitute for the experiences oflife. It surely influences our human sense of things, and I firmlybelieve that it works in concert with our cultural context to evoke allmanner of emotional and intimate responses, yet I balk at claiming thatwords can inherently exert control over anything. While poetries areindeed enchanting they are not magic. The power of song and prose ispart and parcel of the creative impulse of Spirit, not its precursor. By exploring within the relatively fixed media of language, weattune our sensibilities to more readily interpret reality through thelens of our faith rather than that of the dominant culture. The more wepractice seeing God, the easier the task becomes. Will we ever be ableto see the whole of Divinity continuously? If Moses' experience onMount Sinai was any indication, no. This doesn't mean, though, thatthe task isn't worth attempting in part. I see the inward work ofreligion as continuous rather than discrete. I understand thecultivation of a Spirit-led life to be a process, not an instant ofconversion. While Grace is received, and many Sauls have been turned enroute to Damascus, I am more interested in the path on which Saul placedhis feet after conversion than the place where he fell to the earth. I believe that part of the rise of theopoetic perspectives will bea parallel call to dialogue and communal connection. Engaging in thetheopoetic process means coming to terms with the Gracious Presence thatunites all things, even in this broken world. It means learning toperceive Spirit at work in the mundane and transcending modernalienation with a call to unite and serve. Just as Kunitz gainedrecognition through his poetry though it was his garden that fed him, sotoo do we come to know one another through words and actions although itis that deeper, quiet place of God that unites us. So as not to becomeengaged in infinite navel-gazing and/or personal obliteration in theface of constant direct divinity, we can choose to create language thatcaptures shades of that experience in such a way that others recognizeit and are affected by it. In some cases, affection is the effect, andthose affected are "lavishly flung forth" (12) into the worldwhere they encounter others and inspire other work. At best, theopoeticsis a means of engaging language, and perception in such a way that oneenters into a radical relation with the Divine, the Other, and theCreation in which all occurs. Dance Scott Holland has written that theopoetics "is a kind ofwriting that invites more writing. Its narratives lead to othernarratives, its metaphors encourage new metaphors, its confessionsinvoke more confessions, and its conversations invite moreconversations,"(13) and while I agree with this statement, I findit akin to defining love by saying that "it is a kind ofemotion." It is true, and yet it does not capture the fullness.Theopoetics is a type of writing, and I would like to offer that it is away of perceiving as well. The theopoet as wordsmith can so craftbecause she sees theopoetically, because she is looking for all the waysher experiences are variations on a Divine theme. Her poems then, orprose, or songs, are new iterations and utterances of that eternal Wordwhich was in the beginning. Is she crafting new scripture? No, not assuch, but she has served to manifest another means by which we may morefully come to know the movement of the Spirit. Is her service needed? Strictly speaking, probably not. Everymoment is, in and of itself, inherently a possible gateway into adeepening life of faith; Grace is available and abundant regardless ofwhat we do. This, of course, begs the question: What is the point of itthen? Why bother writing? To proceed down this path asks us to considerthe possibility that any human-initiated act is superfluous. Given thesaturation of Divinity throughout our experience, there is no need foradditional contributions. God's got it covered. If some choose the above path, I will not begrudge them, but I forone find the argument a bloodless and abstracted one that leaves littleroom for the reality of human proclivity and failing. Do I want toencourage human frailty? Not at all, but I do want to be honest inacknowledging that often we don't percieve the Divine, that we areenfleshed, that we sometimes do need to be jolted out of variousstupors, and that there is joy in song and dance and play. Theseacknowledgments are core to my understanding of the field: a theopoeticperspective is one that admits an element of playfulness, joy, and gritinto a project interested in putting words to the numinous. It is acorrective to abstraction that has no experiential grounding and, likeart, is bound intimately within the context of our community. While theartist can declare his work as peerless, ultimately it is community andtime that determine the profundity of a piece. I am not asking that we accept every voice as truth. I am askingthat we make room for every voice to be heard, with an understandingthat everyone has something to offer. To paraphrase Holland, theopoeticsis an invitation and its response: narratives, metaphors, confessions,and conversations all spiraling around and through that which is true.It is a dance and a blossoming, a longing and a love affair. Field In a footnote to his essay "U.S. Hispanic Popular Catholicismas Theopoetics," Roberto Goizueta makes a gripping claim thatpertains directly to theopoetics. The existence of its "unity and rootedness in praxis preclude the possibility of a theopoetics immune to theological and ethical critique. There can be no apolitical or a-theological affect any more than there can be an apolitical or affectless theology; the most sterile logic cannot be completely devoid of affect any more than a mind can exist without a body. A theopoetics that sets itself over against theology and ethics distorts human praxis and, thus, expresses a distorted view of the God revealed in that praxis." (14) In this text, I see an articulation of theopoetics as a resonatingprocess set to oscillation by simultaneous forces of esthetics, ethics,experience, and reason. I find great hope in this admission oftheopoetics as a field of inquiry somewhat apart from the specializeddisciplines of formal academia. It is related by means of abstractedcritical study, poetics, and artistic vision and yet is also grounded inan engagement with the political and social world. It suggests that justas humans are complex creatures with many facets and means ofparticipating in humanity, perhaps there is a way of communicating andpartaking in spiritual experience in such a way that is more inclusiveof multiple modalities. Goizueta's articulation is appealing to me because it takesinto consideration various facets of the human experience and sets themin motion around the centrality of God, allowing for diversity ofexpression. I think about it like a gyroscope, whose massive movingcenter is the means by which the object as whole can be kept upright.Our tendency, where God is concerned, is to overemphasize a particularquality of divinity at the exclusion of other aspects in what Iunderstand as a misguided attempt to name and claim God. The result isan off-balanced worldview in every sense of the German Weltanschauung.When certain modalities, such as rational scientific prose, rise tocultural dominance, even in fields better suited to other means ofconnection, such as religion, the result is that any engagement with thematerial in question is irrevocably altered by the means used to engageit. While it may well bear equal part insolence and audacity, itstrikes me that the point in question here might best be illustrated byamending the contents of one of Rumi's most quoted poems. I tamperwith his verse in the hope that my short poetic intrusion will servebetter than a page of prose, and, in the event of offense, that it canbe forgiven once carried out. Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, beauty and disgust, I, you, and them, and fantasy and fact, there is a field. I will meet you there. when the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about using the cutting words we have learned in school. Ideas, language, even the phrase "each other" doesn't make any sense. So let us not speak but sing and in the singing share that which cannot be spoken. Call At the end of the day, I hope that by working with language in anintegrative and expansive way, we find another tool to open ourselves upto experiences that are themselves ever expanding and integrating. Ifeel that the liberating quality of Art is a learned experience, andonce we have developed the means to perceive it as such, we can moreregularly enter into moments of freedom in all areas of our life. Oncewe have developed a taste for a certain type of fruit or poem, we cometo appreciate its nuances and sweetness all the more. This, it seems tome, traces the same path as discipleship. Mere association with Jesus was not sufficient for the disciples tounderstand the gospel that he brought. As we read in Mark 9:32,"They understood not his sayings and were afraid to ask him."Although ignorant at times, they could serve and feel some great measureof comfort without being alienated or ridiculed by Jesus. The same isavailable to us: we can proceed in service, afraid to ask questions andyet still be of Divine use. And yet, is not some measure ofconnectedness lost when we remain confused? I am not suggesting it isnecessary or possible to understand the full power and process of God. Ido feel, though, that a fuller sense of the Great Work is available. In John 15:15, Jesus reminds the disciples that they are to becalled friends because friends can know the Lord's reasoning, whileservants merely serve. Perhaps, the presence of the Gospel is enoughalone, but in my foolishness and exuberance, I want not just to hear itbut to experience it as Spirit breaks anew into my life and brings somemeasure of creative refreshment. I want to find ways to express how itis that I am inspired and I want to hear how it is that othersexperience the Divine. In that conversation, I cannot help but feel thatI find an easier path into fellowship and a greater sense ofunderstanding: the power of the Gospel is not just in text on the page,but in that text as it is given breath in the lives and actions of thehuman communities committed to each other and to the work of theKingdom. To better understand this text, and each other, I think we cancontinue to develop ways of speaking to one another that help to clarifyour experience of God in the world and guide us toward the truth of whatwe are called to as a people. And while we might never discern the whole of that truth, we mightas well seek some measure of it. In so doing perhaps we will find newways that the Gospel can speak to us and through us. To this point,Peter Rollins has performed an amazing job of articulating this sense ofcommunal truth-seeking. He writes that religious truth shouldn't beconsidered fact in the way we scientifically use the word. He asks us toconsider religious truth not as a means of defining reality, but as wayof transforming reality. When we do this, he suggests that "insteadof truth being an epistemological description, it is rediscovered as asoteriological event (an event that brings healing and salvation). Thisis no more a form of relativism than it is a form of absolutism; rather,it is an understanding of truth as that which transforms us into moreChrist-like individuals." (15) My sense is that liberating discipleship is a process best exploredin expressive community. Within the context of that body, we can testour personal experience against that of others, developing skills ofdiscernment and articulation in the journey toward an understanding ofwhat it is we are called to in this world. And while I have no clear,direct sense of an ultimate reality, I find that I can concur with thepoet Louise Gluck. "Whatever the truth is, to speak it is a greatadventure. (16) Discovery And so while I didn't meet my mystery woman there in theRochester airport, I did meet God. There in the empty, expectant space,the potential for anything to happen was opened up. I was prepared to beyolked into service and was willing to be transformed in the experience.The specifics of my dreams were not seen, but for following them I foundreward. In the early quiet of that western New York morning I came to begrateful again for having stories that I can believe, and for living alife in which I have the chance to believe them. The in-breaking ofSpirit is profound and the pregnancy which marks those moments ofrevelation is Divine indeed. My God is the god in the next room, cooking unseen feasts and humming; the ache of the moment before the rain when you're sure the whole June cloud is ready to burst through though you haven't felt single drop; the photographer's ironic smile after her darkroom discovery that in the background of a misfire she has captured two lovers gazing longingly at each other's meals; the dandelion blade that insists adamantly that it must reside directly in the middle of your neighbor's suburban blacktopped driveway; the sight of the shadow of a bird flitting by the sill near the bed of an aging Grace, who can no longer move but counts herself lucky because at least she can still see. This is my God: expectant and grinning, wild and near. (17) Notes (1.) McLuhan, Eric. "Marshall McLuhan's theory ofcommunication: The Yegg." Global Media Journal-Canadian Edition,1.1 (2008): 25-43. (2.) Keefe-Perry, L. B. C. "Theopoetics: Process andPerspective." Christianity and Literature. 58.4 (2009). (3.) McLuhan, Eric. "Marshall McLuhan's theory ofcommunication: The Yegg." Global Media Journal-Canadian Edition,1.1 (2008): 26. (4.) McLuhan, Marshall. "Casting My Perils Before Swains"McLuhan: Hot & Cool. Ed. Gerald Emanuel Stearn. New York: SignetBooks, 1969. xii. (5.) Eliot, Thomas S. To Criticize the Critic and Other Writings.New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1965, 134. Also cited in EricMcLuhan's piece. (6.) Campbell, Joseph, and Bill Moyers. The Power of Myth. NewYork: Anchor Printing, 1991, 73. (7.) Wilder, Amos N. Theopoetic: Theology and the ReligiousImagination. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976, 2. (8.) Keefe-Perry, L. B. C. "Theopoetics: Process andPerspective." Christianity and Literature. 58.4 (2009): 592. (9.) Bierregaard, Richard O. "John James Audubon--ABird's-eye View." The Department of Biology University ofNorth Carolina at Charlotte. Accessed August 24, 2009 at:http://www.bioweb.uncc.edu/bierregaard/audubon.htm. (10.) I do not intend to include here those that compose what isoften referred to as the "New Atheists." I do not believe theyare afraid. They are worth considering briefly, though, so as to holdthem in relief to those uncomfortable with voicing their personal sense.I often find that atheistic arguments against God articulate a host ofqualities which I too challenge. As it pertains to this piece, therelevant item is that all atheistic arguments I have come across have asfixed an idea of God as do literal, fundamentalist theologians. Whilethey might take separate sides in the debate, both believe they arearguing from firm and fixed ground. So whether it be atheism or"protheism," those who encounter mystery and do not presume toforce it to conform are surrounded on all sides by people telling themthat God is indeed one certain way. (11.) Luphor, David. "Language Surprised." Interviews andEncounters with Stanley Kunitz. Ed. Stanley Moss. Riverdale-on-Hudson,NY: Sheep Meadow, 1993, 6. (12.) Rilke, Rainer M. "Poem II, 26." Rilke's Bookof Hours: Love Poems to God, Trans. Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy.Riverhead Trade, 2005, 122. (13.) Holland, Scott. "Theology Is a Kind of Writing: TheEmergence of Theopoetics." Cross Currents 47.3 (1997): 317-331. (14.) Goizueta, Roberto S. "U.S. Hispanic Popular Catholicismas Theopoetics." Hispanic/Latino Theology: Challenge and Promise.Eds. Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz and Fernando F. Segovia. Minneapolis:Fortress, 1996, 264. (15.) Rollins, Peter. "Christian A/Theism." Movement:Termly Magazine of the Student Christian Movement. 122 (2006): 15. (16.) Gluck, Louise, "To My Teacher." Interviews andEncounters with Stanley Kunitz. Ed. Stanley Moss. Riverdale-on-Hudson,NY: Sheep Meadow, 1993. 140. (17.) Keefe-Perry, L. B. C. "Bird Shadows," SpiritRising. Ed. Angelina Conti, et al. Quakers Uniting in Publications(QUIP), forthcoming.