Banished to hide in personal journals and closed workshops, God’s ‘wonderful danger’ may not be so dangerous.

 

CS Lewis’s ‘Footnote to all prayers’ could simply be invoked (to deal with what Meister Eckhart would agree was our inevitable blasphemy) and all would be well.

 

But beyond the private, out into the world, matters of Spirit and Truth are double-edged swords, dividing even bone from marrow. Whatever resonates will have unending ripples of consequence. For those who have ears to hear, the same poetic intuitions that enrich the poor, comfort those who mourn, and liberate the captives, will be felt by the worldly rich and comfortable, to trespass, expose - to know and say too much! Ruthless as a stand-up comedian at the Golden Globes, theopoetics can cause trouble, even when poesis flows in innocence.

 

Nearly six, clicking a spiky spiral from a jumble of Lego bricks, I truly thought I’d invented a flower that God missed! But suddenly, she (my mother) looked so horrified, I crumbled the new-born form immediately back into brick dust.

 

That’s the trouble. Free-flow play can lead to swastikas even if you don’t know what one is. Another day, I lingered, as in pink ink His Hallowed, Holy Name bled, felt-tip flesh into virgin sketch-pad snow. Wastefully safe, I thought, but trying to show willing.

 

This time, she whisper-roared,

 

“We never EVER do that! Making fun of Jesus! Bubble-writing blasphemy!”

 

No wonder, when I started writing worship songs and blogs, it was in secret. Cat out of the bag though, one elderly pastor took me aside. Said I was a game-changer in his view. Predicted I’d be the one to reawaken the wildness in church. Gave me a book on songwriting for church called, ‘Now, let’s move into a time of nonsense.’

 

Another said,

 

“To be honest, behind the scenes they’re calling your insights, ‘Armageddon’ – but, please, never pretty it up on my account!”

 

An actual veteran fighter pilot beamed like a proud father.

 

“You’re a prophetic poetic 007. Licensed to kill,” he said.

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Priests in the Old Testament knew all too well about God’s danger. Their job was to hold the holy space and be personally implicated. Where are those priests? Who safeguards the integrity of the page, the canvas, the stage? In my view, theopoetics offers renewed permission to an exiled theopoet, taking their vision seriously, while ushering them as potential prophet, back to their own crucible and cross for yet another humble draft.

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Entrusting myself to that poetic gaze, I continued to wander. And, in a vintage bookshop in Redruth, Cornwall, I stumbled over The Empty Space by the English director, Peter Brook, who died earlier that year, aged 97. Its subtitle: A Book About the Theatre: Deadly, Holy, Rough, Immediate.

 

His closing paragraph says this:

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