A few nights ago I was talking with some writer friends about our respective works in progress, and I mentioned that one of the sections in my hope manuscript draws on Walter Brueggemann’s writing in his books The Poetic Imagination and Reality, Grief, Hope. One of the friends told me that she had recently listened to Brueggemann being interviewed on the radio program “On Being” and sent me the link (“Walter Brueggemann: The Prophetic Imagination”). I listened to it while taking a walk a couple mornings later and again just this afternoon. Although recorded in 2011, and re-aired last December, the content is just as relevant today. I encourage you to listen as there is much wonderful wisdom here on hope, the use of metaphor and poetry in understanding God, and the mercy of God.

Here’s a small section:

The other text I’ll read is Isaiah 43. It’s a very much-used passage. “Do not remember the former things nor consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” And apparently, what he’s telling his people is just forget about the Exodus, forget about all the ancient miracles, and pay attention to the new miracles of rebirth and new creation that God is enacting before your very eyes. I often wonder when I read that, what was it like the day the poet got those words? What did it feel like, and how did he share that? Of course, we don’t know any of that, so it just keeps ringing in our ears.

I first read Brueggemann when I was at St. John’s Abbey Guest House in Collegeville, Minnesota (6 years ago?). I was in the library writing when a book on the shelf, The Prophetic Imagination, caught my eye. I took it down and read it nearly nonstop over the next day or so. I hope you’ll take a listen.

[Photo: taken on the Detroit River Walk in Detroit, where we were for a wedding several weeks ago.]