Description: Dust and Prayers offers an evocation of love, human and divine, and of the struggles of believers and unbelievers. It depicts something of the human condition apart from God and, through praise and lament, with humor and pathos it speaks of the divine remedy. It speaks of creation, too, and of the Creator, and of humanity (created in God's image), as dust and spirit. Its voice at times is free of the constraints of rigorous poetic forms. At other times its voice is set free by adherence to them. Its cry is biblical: Lord, "I believe; help my unbelief" (Mark 9:24) It references...

The poems of Cries of Earth and Altar speak of human laughter, mystery, work, play, sorrow--and even rage--as an oblation set upon heaven's high altar, which, as Calvin noted, is Christ himself. Upon that altar, the cries of earth are made a cry of glory, ""Abba, Father"" (Mark 14:36; Rom 8:15) With the exception of those poems labeled ""out of season,"" each poetic text is given a place in the Christian liturgical calendar: Advent-Epiphany, Transfiguration Sunday, Lent-Pentecost, and Ordinary Time. In the concluding essay, poetry and preaching are spoken of as fragile indicatives that...