Having a faith conversation with old and new friends is as easy as setting the table.
FAITH FEEDS GUIDE POETRY
CONTENTS
• Introduction to FAITH FEEDS 3
• FAQ 4
• Ready to Get Started 5
• Conversation Starters 6
• “As Kingfishers Catch Fire” by Gerard Manley Hopkins 7
• “Thirst” by Mary Oliver 8 Conversation Starters 9
• “To be of use” by Margaret Piercy 10
• “Every Earthly Blessing” by Esther der Waal 11
• “The Stone Not Cut by Hand” by Paul Mariani 12
Conversation Starters 13
• Gathering Prayer 14
The FAITH FEEDS program is designed for individuals who are hungry for opportunities to talk about their faith with others who share it. Participants gather over coffee or a potluck lunch or dinner, and a host facilitates conversation using the C21 Center’s biannual magazine, C21 Resources.
The FAITH FEEDS GUIDE offers easy, step-by-step instructions for planning, as well as materials to guide the conversation. It’s as simple as deciding to host the gathering wherever your community is found and spreading the word.
All selected articles have been taken from the Spring 2016 issue of C21 Resources. The cover of today’s Faith Feeds is the painting The Last Judgment by St. Fra Angelico, the patron of artists. The marginal photo to the left is Three Muses and a Gesturing Putto by Giorgio Ghisi (1560s). The marginal photo throughout the Guide comes courtesy of Janko Ferlic at Unsplash.
The C21 Center Presents
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Who should host a FAITH FEEDS?
Anyone who has a heart for facilitating conversations about faith is perfect to host a FAITH FEEDS.
Where do I host a FAITH FEEDS?
You can host a FAITH FEEDS in-person or virtually through video conference software. FAITH FEEDS conversations are meant for small groups of 10-12 people.
What is the host’s commitment?
The host is responsible for coordinating meeting times, sending out materials and video conference links, and facilitating conversation during the FAITH FEEDS.
What is the guest’s commitment?
Guests are asked to read the articles that will be discussed and be open to faith-filled conversation.
Still have more questions?
No problem! Email karen.kiefer@bc.edu and we’ll help you get set up.
READY TO GET STARTED?
STEP ONE
Decide to host a FAITH FEEDS. Coordinate a date, time, location, and guest list. An hour is enough time to allocate for the virtual or in-person gathering.
STEP TWO
Interested participants are asked to RSVP directly to you, the host. Once you have your list of attendees, confirm with everyone via email. That would be the appropriate time to ask in-person guests to commit to bringing a potluck dish or drink to the gathering. For virtual FAITH FEEDS, send out your video conference link.
STEP THREE
Review the selected articles from your FAITH FEEDS Guide and the questions that will serve as a starter for your FAITH FEEDS discussion. Hosts should send their guests a link to the guide, which can be found on bc.edu/FAITHFEEDS.
STEP FOUR
Send out a confirmation email a week before the FAITH FEEDS gathering. Hosts should arrive early for in-person or virtual set up. Begin with the Gathering Prayer found on the last page of this guide. Hosts can open the discussion by using the suggested questions. The conversation should grow organically from there. Enjoy this gathering of new friends, knowing the Lord is with YOU!
STEP FIVE
Make plans for another FAITH FEEDS. We would love to hear about your FAITH FEEDS experience. You can find contact information on the last page of this guide.
CONVERSATION STARTERS
Here are five poems to guide your FAITH FEEDS conversation. We suggest that you select two that will work best for your group, and if time permits, add in a third. In addition to the original poem, you will find a relevant quotation, summary, and suggested questions for discussion. We offer these as tools for your use, but feel free to go wherever the Holy Ghost leads. Conversations should respect and ensure confidentiality between participants.
This guide’s theme is: Poetry
AS KINGFISHERS CATCH FIRE
by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1985)
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame; As tumbled over rim in roundy wells Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name; Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: Deals out that being indoors each one dwells; Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells, Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.
I say móre: the just man justices; Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces; Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is — Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places, Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.
Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ, was a convert from Anglicanism. His poetic fame was posthumous, and his work influenced the likes of T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, and W.H. Auden.
From “Gerard Manley Hopkins: Poems and Prose,” Penguin Classics (1985). See also “C21 Resources: Exploring the Catholic Intellectual Tradition” (January 2013).
THIRST
by Mary Oliver (2006)
Another morning and I wake with thirst for the goodness I do not have. I walk out to the pond and all the way God has given us such beautiful lessons. Oh Lord, I was never a quick scholar but sulked and hunched over my books past the hour and the bell; grant me, in your mercy, a little more time. Love for the earth and love for you are having such a long conversation in my heart.
Who knows what will finally happen or where I will be sent, yet already I have given a great many things away, expecting to be told to pack nothing, except the prayers which, with this thirst, I am slowly learning.
Mary Oliver was born in a small town in Ohio. She published her first book of poetry in 1963 at the age of 28. For more than forty years, Oliver and her partner made their home together, largely in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where they lived until Oliver’s partner’s death in 2005.
From “Thirst: Poems,” Beacon Press (2006). See also “C21 Resources: Living Catholicism” (Fall 2013).
OLIVER & HOPKINS
“Until the day breathes and the shadows flee, I will go away to the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense. You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you.” - Song of Solomon 4:6-7
Summary
Hopkins elicits imagery of the kingfisher, a parti-colored English bird, and the glowing wings of a dragonfly as light refracts off its wings. The two images are followed by the sounds of pebbles being thrown down wells, belfries ringing, and an instrument’s strings being plucked. In “Thirst,” Oliver wrestles with her delight in God’s creation and her yearning to be with the Lord.
Questions for Conversation
• How do the impressions of each poem change when they are read silently versus being read aloud?
• Fr. Hopkins is a Jesuit whose spirituality emphasizes finding God in all things. How is this spirituality on display in “As Kingfishers Catch Fire”?
• Why has Hopkins juxtaposed kingfishers, dragonflies, and other phenomena beside mortals and God?
• Just a year before publishing “Thirst,” Mary Oliver’s longtime companion passed away. How might this loss be expressing itself in the poem?
• What is the goodness Oliver does not have?
TO BE OF USE
by Marge PIercy
The people I love the best Jump into work head first Without dallying in the shallows And swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight. They seem to become natives of that element, The black sleek heads of seals Bouncing like half-submerged balls.
I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart, who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience, who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward, who do what has to be done, again and again.
I want to be with people who submerge in the task, who go into the fields to harvest and work in a row and pass the bags along, who are not parlor generals and field deserters but move in a common rhythm when the food must come in or the fire be put out.
The work of the world is common as mud. Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust. But the thing worth doing well done has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident. Greek amphoras for wine or oil, Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums but you know they were made to be used. The pitcher cries for water to carry and a person for work that is real. Marge Piercy, “To be of use” from Circles on the Water. Copyright © 1982 by Marge Piercy. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Source: Circles on the Water: Selected Poems of Marge Piercy (Alfred A. Knopf, 1982)
EVERY EARTHLY BLESSING
by Esther der Waal
The palmful of the God of Life
The palmful of the Christ of Love
The palmful of the Spirit of Peace
Triune Of grace.
I will kindle my fire this morning In the presence of the holy angels of heaven
God, kindle thou in my heart within A flame of love to my neighbor, To my foe, to my friend, to my kindred all, To the brave, to the knave, to the thrall,
O Son of the loveliest Mary, From the lowliest thing that liveth To the name that is highest of all.
The Sacred Three To save To shield To surround The hearth
The house
The household
This eve
This night
And every night
Each single night. Amen.
From “Every Earthly Blessing,” Morehouse Publishing (1999). See also “C21 Resources: Catholic Spirituality in Practice” (2009).
The Stone Not Cut by Hand
by Paul Mariani
Nebuchadnezzar stared while the prophet blazed.
A stone not cut, stormed Daniel, by any human hand, however self-assured or self-deluded. Understand: It is the Lord has quarried here. The king’s eyes glazed,
Because all he knew was earthly power: kings who razed entire cities—dogs, women, babies, mules, the very land. Kings whose subjects, high & low, did their each command.
A stone not quarried by any hand but God’s. Amazed,
The king fell back before the prophet’s words. A stone that would smash each self-important, self-made idol, whether built of gold or steel or any other thing their throne was made of. Yes, whatever insane, grand mal, suicidal impulse kings could conjure up. A stone shaped by God alone. Womb-warm, lamb-gentle, world-wielding, tidal.
From “America: The Jesuit Review” (January 2, 2006); See also “C21 Resources: Exploring the Catholic Intellectual Tradition” (January 2013).
PIERCY, MARIANI, & DER WAAL
“Beauty is gloriously useless; it has no purpose but itself.”
— David Bentley Hart
Summary
Marge Piercy relishes those people who immerse themselves in life, who “Jump into work head first / Without dallying in the shallows.” Esther der Waal celebrates Celtic spirituality — its embodied, communal, and ecological qualities. She says that for Celtic Christians, everything “is punctuated by prayer, becomes prayer.” Paul Mariani imagines the prophet Daniel’s interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dreams. As Nebuchadnezzar looks out over his kingdom, he asks, “Is this not magnificent Babylon, which I have built as a royal capital by my mighty power and for my glorious majesty?” (Dan 4:30). God’s revelations decimate Nebuchadnezzar’s lofty self-understanding, and, humiliated and unhinged, the King flees into the wildness.
Questions for Conversation
• Why does Piercy remind us that “The pitcher cries for water to carry and a person for work that is real”?
• What imagery is der Waal evoking?
• How does she relate a simple fire to the Triune God?
• How does repetition affect the mood of Mariani’s poem?
• Nebuchadnezzar is distressed by the notion of a stone not quarried by human hands. Why? And does Mariani want you to be distressed?
GATHERING PRAYER
Ecclesiastes 3:11-14
God has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil — this is God’s gift to man. I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it.
