Overview

Why do we tell stories? Why are stories so indigenous to religion? Stories. Sacred stories. The three Western Scriptures express themselves most fully, and deeply, in stories. The original idea of ""story"" is ""inquiry,"" the ""result of research, information, knowledge,"" ""telling, exposition, account, history."" Its verb makes verbal these nouns: ""to seek to know oneself, inform oneself, do research, inquire,"" ""interrogate,"" ""examine, explore, observe."" All history is story. Most Scripture is story. Such stories, all stories, ask for--even demand--attentive listening, interpretation, and reinterpretation. Each of us, therefore, becomes an interpreter, speaking in tongues (so to speak), even if only for herself or himself. The poems here offer such explorations; they take scriptural stories and imagine--and reimagine--them in order to offer the reader different angles and perspectives, new experiences. Such experiences, such perspectives, can help us see the Scriptures, and ourselves, anew.

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9781725258679

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Reviews

These poems invite our presence by their personal reflection on the events of Scripture. Like the evangelists, Vivian writes narrative and confessional theology, urging us to join our presents with those of his speakers and to allow their recollections to give us new perspective. They are poems of memory as much as interpretation, embodying events lived by others from long ago with the help of their, and our, senses. Full of paradox and of erudition, they reveal the poet's search to understand the obscure and to share both the struggle and the tentative understanding he has tentatively reached. Vivian does not feed his hearers with easily accessible piety but offers us blood and bread. --Marsha L. Dutton, Executive Editor, Cistercian Publications Tim Vivian collects stories from Scripture, mostly from the Gospels, but also from Jewish and Muslim Scriptures, and extends them into the realm of personal and collective imagination. Using the framework of Ignatian contemplation, the poems adopt many voices: the woman taken in adultery, Pilate's wife, and so become universal. But the themes of the poems, though rooted in Scripture, are very much from our own times and speak to our anxieties, sorrows, and joys. --Lawrence Morey, OCSO, Catholic priest

"""These poems invite our presence by their personal reflection on the events of Scripture. Like the evangelists, Vivian writes narrative and confessional theology, urging us to join our presents with those of his speakers and to allow their recollections to give us new perspective. They are poems of memory as much as interpretation, embodying events lived by others from long ago with the help of their, and our, senses. Full of paradox and of erudition, they reveal the poet's search to understand the obscure and to share both the struggle and the tentative understanding he has tentatively reached. Vivian does not feed his hearers with easily accessible piety but offers us blood and bread."" --Marsha L. Dutton, Executive Editor, Cistercian Publications ""Tim Vivian collects stories from Scripture, mostly from the Gospels, but also from Jewish and Muslim Scriptures, and extends them into the realm of personal and collective imagination. Using the framework of Ignatian contemplation, the poems adopt many voices: the woman taken in adultery, Pilate's wife, and so become universal. But the themes of the poems, though rooted in Scripture, are very much from our own times and speak to our anxieties, sorrows, and joys."" --Lawrence Morey, OCSO, Catholic priest"

Author Information

Tim Vivian is Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at California State University Bakersfield and a retired Episcopal priest. He received three degrees in literature before an interdisciplinary PhD from UC Santa Barbara and an MDiv from Church Divinity School of the Pacific (Episcopal), and was a post-doctoral fellow at Yale Divinity School. In 2018 he received an honorary DD degree from Church Divinity School of the Pacific. He has published numerous books, articles, and book reviews on early Christian monasticism.

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