![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/162\/2014\/04\/gleneast.jpg\" "\\"gleneast\\"")
<\/a><\/em>te <\/em>Image\u2019s twenty-fifth anniversary we are posting a series of essays by people who have encountered our programs\u00a0over the years.\u00a0Read the earlier installments,\u00a0Stumbling into the Waterfall<\/a>,\u00a0Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out<\/a>, and The Notecards of Paradise<\/a>.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\nI\u2019m at lunch in a college cafeteria. At my table, the conversation goes like this:<\/p>\n
\u201cHave you heard John Tavener\u2019s Protecting Veil<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, it\u2019s like icon painting in music.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIcon writing<\/em>, you mean.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I listen to Tavener, I feel I could be immersed in George Wingate\u2019s ethereal canvases\u2014maybe his Earthhead<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMmm, I saw his work in an issue of Image<\/em>. I remember especially his Tree<\/em>\u2014it seemed to be breaking into the beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFor me it would be James Turrell\u2019s amazing sky-spaces: the way he almost sculpts light. They give me the same feeling as Tavener\u2019s music: of the divine mysteriously penetrating our world.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI wonder if there\u2019s a novel that does that\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell, this isn\u2019t a novel, but Annie Dillard\u2019s For the Time Being<\/em> would be my call.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019m riveted by the creative energy of the conversation. But this isn\u2019t at my college. It\u2019s at one of the Glen Workshops I\u2019ve attended over the years.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I get up to refill my teacup at the hot drinks counter and find myself talking about poetry with a man I\u2019d scarcely met. \u201cI\u2019ve been reading Richard Wilbur,\u201d he says. \u201cHow much do you think he lets his Christianity show through?\u201d And there we are: balancing hot drinks and Wilbur\u2019s subtle spirituality.<\/p>\n A few minutes later I\u2019m sitting over tea and dessert with Mark Jarman, or maybe Jeanne Murray Walker, or Scott Cairns, or Ginger Geyer. Really, where else could you do this?<\/p>\n I can\u2019t recall when I went to my first Glen Workshop. Maybe it was in the early 2000s. What I do definitely remember is the energizing delight of a totally new experience: some two hundred creative people together for a week of intense fellowship and fun.<\/p>\n Though mealtime conversations were an unexpected treat, every part of each day was positively zingy: Class in the morning, lectures or readings by faculty and guests in the afternoon, worship in the evening.<\/p>\n While I don\u2019t remember what year I discovered the Glen (was it the year that Greg Wolfe announced a prize for the best answer to \u201cSo who is<\/em> this \u2018Glen\u2019 person?\u201d), I know I was there in 2006 and 2007. I\u2019d been invited to coordinate Evening Worship for those weeks.<\/p>\n Each year the Glen has a theme; in 2006 it was \u201cLove and Affliction: The Paradox of Suffering.\u201d My task as worship coordinator was to work with the musicians and chaplain (in 2006 it was Eugene Peterson, who will be chaplain at this summer\u2019s Glen East) to prepare worship services that developed the week\u2019s theme.<\/p>\n Because this is worship by and for artists of all genres, I was supposed to include a poem for each evening. I loved choosing poems that fit the week\u2019s theme, then choosing readers to proclaim them. We wanted congregational participation, so I set the poems responsively, with one person reading a stanza from the podium, then everyone responding with a line I\u2019d picked out from the poem.<\/p>\n Here, for instance, is how we read Luci Shaw\u2019s \u201cIn Reverse\u201d (from her just-published book What the Light Was Like<\/em>) in Thursday evening\u2019s worship where Luci herself agreed to be the reader:<\/p>\n Reader<\/em>: All:<\/em> Turn it all backwards. Turn time.<\/p>\n Reader<\/em>: All:<\/em> I want my life over. \/ To have again chances I didn\u2019t take, \/ and take them.<\/p>\n Reader<\/em>: All:<\/em> Make me innocent. Sluice me of \/ infractions.<\/p>\n The Glen\u2019s final night of Evening Worship, Saturday, traditionally included an Anointing Rite of Sending Forth, during which everyone came forward for an individual blessing. To accompany the rite that year, I asked Richard Osler to read a poem by Jorge de Lima called \u201cChristian\u2019s Poem,\u201d after which Richard\u2019s daughter Libby read Psalm 90.<\/p>\n I can still hear their meditative voices, reading as only people immersed in the art of faith\u2014and the faith of art\u2014could do.<\/p>\n I have no idea how the Glen Workshop really got its name (though I recall the audience laughing as Greg Wolfe read the award-winning invented origins). For me the simple dictionary meaning of a glen works well: a secluded valley. Not the valley of the shadow of death, though. Rather, a valley of the fullness of life, of camaraderie in the verdant pastures of the creative heart.<\/p>\n Note: Glen Workshop West has filled this year, but there are still spaces at Glen East. Learn more by clicking here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Peggy Rosenthal<\/strong><\/a> is director of Poetry Retreats<\/a>\u00a0and writes widely on poetry as a spiritual resource. Her books include\u00a0Praying through Poetry: Hope for Violent Times<\/em> (Franciscan Media), and The Poets\u2019 Jesus <\/em>(Oxford). See Amazon<\/a>\u00a0for full list. She also teaches an online course<\/a>, \u201cPoetry as a Spiritual Practice,\u201d through Image<\/em>\u2019s Glen Online program.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" To celebrate Image\u2019s twenty-fifth anniversary we are posting a series of essays by people who have encountered our programs\u00a0over the years.\u00a0Read the earlier installments,\u00a0Stumbling into the Waterfall,\u00a0Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out, and The Notecards of Paradise. I\u2019m at lunch in a college cafeteria. At my table, the conversation goes like this: \u201cHave you heard John Tavener\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1050,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,15],"tags":[877,881,466,124,472,122],"class_list":["post-5804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith-topical-categories","category-peggy-rosenthal","tag-25-years","tag-art-of-faith","tag-glen-workshop","tag-image-journal","tag-luci-shaw","tag-poetry"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nTurn it all backwards. Turn time.
\nUnravel the half-knit sweater in
\nthe knitting bag. Remove the spilled
\nwine from the rug, return the color of dark cream
\nto its fibers and take them back and back
\nto the sheep\u2019s back before shearing.<\/p>\n
\nI want my life over. To do it
\nthe way that would give me who I want to be
\nnow. To have again chances I didn\u2019t take,
\nand take them.<\/p>\n
\nMaker me innocent. Sluice me of
\ninfractions. Give me soft
\npink skin and a soul so fresh that
\nI may love my mother again.<\/p>\n