There’s an old saying that claims each preacher has only seven sermons.
Yes, I know – you’re doing the math!
I’ve begun to wonder recently if the same is true for poets and bloggers and writers of other sorts.
This is a day that brings up one of my personal seven.
All Saints’ Day.
Also known as the day after Halloween.
Humor me, please, if you’ve heard me tell this story before. It winds up in a new place this time!
Somewhere close to 20 years ago, I was sitting in the chapel at Columbia Theological Seminary on All Saints’ Day. Walter Brueggemann stood up to preach.
The assembled congregation got anxious. “Saints,” at least in the traditional Catholic sense, are not a notably Reformed concept.
Walter made things clearer, as he often does.
The saints of the church, he explained, are all those who believe for us on days when we can’t quite believe for ourselves.
(I’ve discovered that the same concept also applies to people and situations that don’t appear to be inherently church-y.)
Today, I’m celebrating a new batch of saints. A whole new group of people who’ve been busy believing on days some of us couldn’t quite believe for ourselves.
The kind of folks it takes to make a book.
To be specific, a book called Breathing Words.
Breathing Words is an anthology project I’ve been involved with for about a year and a half. Lots of writers. Many, new. Poets. Even a songwriter or two. Editors. Formatters. Organizers. Graphic designers. More organizers. We’d be honored if you’d check out our work, which launched as a bestseller in Epic Poetry. (Just click the pretty colored title!)
People with a dream.
People hanging on to that dream with enough determination to make it come true.
More than twenty writers. Five pieces each. A quilt, in a sense, of consonants and vowels. Perspectives and fears. A quilt of diverse voices raised to celebrate our differences where the only rule was love and kindness.
It wasn’t always easy. Love and kindness rarely are.
Neither, if we come right down to it, is truth. Claiming our experience. Sharing our perceptions. Asking our questions.
Think, for a moment, about the biggest thing you’ve ever had to say.
And then think about all those people, each saying their own biggest things between the covers of one book.
And, every day, enough of us believing even when some of the rest could not in that particular moment.
New reality born of language and persistence, of doubt and faith alike.
Come visit us at www.facebook.com/BreathingWordsAlive !
I suspect you’ll make some new friends. One of them just might be the voice inside whispering to you to speak up. Pick up a pen. Or a camera. Or a microphone. Claim your truth. Tell your story.
When enough of us both speak and listen, the world gets different. And the saints–the real ones, at least–rejoice!
