Old Books with Grace

Today's episode features a conversation on the shaping moral power of literature with Joshua Hren, novelist and author of the recent More than a Matter of Taste: The Moral Imagination and the Spirit of Literature.

Joshua Hren is founder and editor of Wiseblood Books, and co-founder of the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at the University of St. Thomas, Houston. Joshua's writing has appeared in such journals as The Los Angeles Review of Books and First Things, America and Public Discourse, The Hedgehog Review and Portico. Joshua is the author of ten books, including the novels Infinite Regress and Blue Walls Falling Down as well as Faith in the Furnace of Doubt: Dana Gioia's Visionary Poetics and More than a Matter of Taste: The Moral Imagination and the Spirit of Literature.

Find Grace on Instagram @oldbookswithgrace, Substack at gracehamman.substack.com, or reach out via email [email protected] for requests for endings for this podcast!

Welcome to the final (for now) season of Old Books with Grace. Today's guest, here to speak on her new book on the ancient practice of making a Rule of Life, drawing from sources like St. Augustine of Hippo and St. Benedict of Nursia, is Jen Pollock Michel. Check out her new "A Rule for the Rest of Us" wherever you get your books.

Jen Pollock Michel is the award-winning author of six books: A Rule for the Rest of Us, Teach Us to Want (Christianity Today's Book of the Year), Keeping Place, Surprised by Paradox (Christianity Today's Book of the Year Award of Merit—Beautiful Orthodoxy), A Habit Called Faith, and In Good Time (Canada's Word Guild Book of the Year Award). Jen is a sought-after contributor to publications like Christianity Today, The Christian Century, The Gospel Coalition, Mockingbird, and The Dispatch, among others. She is also a first-year mentor in Whitworth University's MFA in Creative Writing program, and she travels to speak at churches, conferences, and retreats. Over the past several years, she has been teaching rule-of-life workshops to hundreds of people across various life stages. The mother of five children, she is married to Ryan, and they live in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Support Old Books with Grace. Find Grace online at gracehamman.substack.com, and check out her award-winning book, Ask of Old Paths: Medieval Virtues & Vices for a Whole & Holy Life. 

Today, the poet and professor Mischa Willett joins Grace to discuss the Romantic era of literature and one of its greatest writers in particular: Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

For Philip James Bailey's Festus: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-philip-james-bailey-festus.html

Mischa Willett is the author of several poetry books, including the forthcoming This Gift Card Has Already Been Redeemed. He is Director of the Whitworth Writers’ Workshop, a low-residency MFA program in creative writing at Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington. His poems, essays, translations, and academic articles appear in a wide range of venues. More information can be found at www.mischawillett.com.

Today is the last installment of this year's Lent series. Grace welcomes Dr. Abram Van Engen to discuss all things George Herbert, much to her delight (a bit of fangirling over Herbert is always in order). They focus on the beautiful, dense, multilayered poem "The Altar."

Abram Van Engen is Stanley Elkin Professor in the Humanities, Chair of the English Department, and Professor of Religion and Politics (by courtesy) at Washington University in St. Louis.

Van Engen has published widely on religion and literature, focusing especially on seventeenth-century Puritans and the way they have been remembered and remade in American culture. His book, Word Made Fresh, introduces reading poetry as a spiritual practice. He hosts the podcast Poetry for All.

Here is the text, but be forewarned that the shape of it might be altered (get it?) in the podcast notes, so do look it up to see the poem's proper shape.

In the latest installment of the Lent series, Grace welcomes Amy Baik Lee to discuss the poignant Sonnet 19 by the great John Milton.

Amy Baik Lee is the author of This Homeward Ache: How Our Yearning for the Life to Come Spurs on Our Life Today. Her cross-cultural childhood gave her a love for a wide variety of musical and storytelling forms; she grew up to study English literature at the University of Virginia and develop a deep interest in the intersection where faith, the imagination, eucatastrophe, and daily life meet. Her work has been featured by the Rabbit Room, the Anselm Society, Cultivating Magazine, the C.S. Lewis Foundation, the Marion E. Wade Center, the Buechner Review, the One Thousand Words podcast, and others. Away from the writing desk, she enjoys baking and watching birds in the garden with her family in Colorado.

Find out more about Grace's new book, Ask of Old Paths.

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Today, Grace welcomes professor and author David Taylor in this installment of the Lenten poetry series. They talk about the great nineteenth-century poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and in particular, his masterpiece “The Wreck of the Deutschland.” 

W. David O. Taylor is Associate Professor of Theology & Culture at Fuller Theological Seminary and the author of ten books, including Open and Unafraid, Glimpses of the New Creation, Naming the Spirit, and the forthcoming, To Set the World Aflame. An Anglican priest, he has written for The Washington Post, Christian Scholars Review, Image Journal, and Christianity Today, among others, while also contributing scholarly essays to The T&T Clark Companion to Theology and the Arts and Theology, Modernity and the Visual Arts. He lives on 21 acres east of Austin with his artist wife and children.

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Grace is delighted to kick off this year’s Lent series. Every other week during Lent Grace will have a guest who has chosen a Lenten-themed poem to share. Today, though, is just a little meditative beginning with three Middle English poems, text below, translations by Grace Hamman. 

Westminster Abbey MS 27 (175 in Carleton Brown's XVth Century Lyrics)

Wise men bene but scorned,

& wedows eke foryerned,

Grete men arn bot glosid,

& smale men arn borne doun & myslosed,

Lordis wex euer blynd,

Ffrendis ben vnkynde,

Dethe is oute of mynde,

Treuth may no man fynde.

Wise men are only mocked,

and widows are forgotten,

Great men are flattered,

& the little ones are downtrodden and blamed,

The powerful grow ever more blind,

Friends become unkind,

Death has left the mind,

Truth itself no man can find.

Advocates Lib. 18.7.21 (66 in Brown's XIVth Century Lyrics)

Loue me brouthte,

& loue me wrouthte,

Man, to be thi fere.

Loue me fedde,

& loue me ledde,

& loue me lettet here.

Loue me slou,

& loue me drou,

& loue me leyde on bere.

Loue is my pes,

For loue I ches,

Man to by3en dere.

Ne dred the nouth

I haue the south,

Bothen day & nith,

to hauen the,

Wel is me,

I haue the wonnen in fith.

Love brought me,

Love wrought me,

Man, to be your advocate.

Love fed me,

Love led me,

And love stopped me here.

Love slew me,

Love drew me,

Love laid me on bier.

Love is my peace,

For love I chose

Man to buy so dear [at a high cost].

Dread thee nought,

For I have thee sought,

Both day and night.

In having thee

Well is me.

I have won thee in the fight.

Advocates MS 19. I. II, (111 in Brown's XVth Century Lyrics)

I Haue laborede sore and suffered deyth,

and now I Rest and draw my breyght,

but I schall come and call Ryght sone

heuene and erght and hell to dome;

and thane schall know both devyll and mane,

What I was and what I ame.

I have labored sore and suffered death,

and now I rest and draw my breath,

but I shall come and call very soon

heaven and earth and hell to doom [judgment];

And then shall know, both devil and man,

What I was and who I am.

Today, Grace chats with the poet Paul Pastor on another poet, the revolutionary thinker and artist William Blake. 

Paul J. Pastor is Executive Editor of Nelson Books at HarperCollins, an essayist, critic, and poet, writer of The Rose Fire on Substack, and author of several books, most recently The Locust Years: Poems, from Wiseblood Books. He lives in Oregon. 

Grace is going to take a sabbatical from Old Books with Grace for a few months as she and her family are in the middle of several big projects and changes. You can keep up with her at gracehamman.substack.com while she's taking a break from the podcast, though!

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Today Grace welcomes Elizabeth Oldfield to recast these ancient ideas of vices and virtues into contemporary language. Why should we care about these ancient and sometimes worn-thin concepts? How can they speak to our world today--even if that world does not believe the same things as the church believes?

Elizabeth Oldfield is the author of Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times. She is a speaker, coach, and consultant, and the host of The Sacred podcast. Elizabeth has a masters in Theology and the Arts and lives in an intentional Christian community in South London with her family.

Today, Grace welcomes author Lisa Colón DeLay to discuss the fascinating ancient Christians that we now call the Desert Fathers and Mothers. People like Evagrius, Amma Theodora, St. Moses the Black, St. Anthony the Great, and many others offer deep wisdom in their own time and to us today.

Lisa Colón DeLay is the author of The Wild Land Within and has an MA in spiritual formation. She writes, teaches, and creates products and resources related to spiritual formation. Since 2015, she has hosted Spark My Muse, a top-rated religion and spirituality podcast. DeLay grew up in Pittsburgh, having left her native country of Puerto Rico, and now resides near the Appalachian Trail in a small town in Pennsylvania. Discover more, including more links and more information on her new book and the desert fathers and mothers, at lisadelay.com.

Learn more about Grace's new book, Ask of Old Paths: Medieval Virtues & Vices for a Whole & Holy Life.