{"id":27649,"date":"2014-12-16T17:26:09","date_gmt":"2014-12-16T22:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/?p=27649"},"modified":"2014-12-16T17:26:09","modified_gmt":"2014-12-16T22:26:09","slug":"muted-hosannas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/12\/muted-hosannas.html","title":{"rendered":"Muted Hosannas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>\"\"Readers of my blog, and people who follow me on Twitter or are connected with me on Facebook, will be familiar with Jeff Carter, whose blog That Jeff Carter Was Here<\/a> features things like Bible-inspired limericks. But his blog has also regularly featured photography and poetry, and those posts were in some instances precursors to his new book, Muted Hosannas<\/a>\"\"<\/i>. I asked Jeff if I could interview him about the book, and he kindly accepted.<\/p>\n

I will put my questions in bold, and then Jeff\u2019s answers following those.<\/p>\n

_________________<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve read your blog, and appreciated your photos and poems (and of course your limericks) for some time. At what point did you realize that you had the making of a book on your hand? Did it start as just blogging and then become something more, or did you think \u201cthis could be a book\u201d from the outset?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Major Kevin Jackson (of The Salvation Army\u2019s Frontier Press in California) is a friend of mine.\u00a0 He\u2019d read my work at my blog and contacted me last summer about the possibility of putting a book together.\u00a0 He saw the potential there of combining my writings and my photography.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Do you have a favorite poem and\/or photo from the book? (I realize it may be \u201cMuted Hosannas\u201d which would explain the title of the book, but if so, this is your chance to say that!)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"JeffA favorite?\u00a0 Perhaps a favorite from each of the 3 sections?\u00a0 It\u2019s too difficult to say I like \u2013 this one- best.\u00a0 The reason I like them varies from moment to moment, day to day.<\/p>\n

from the Israel section \u201cEating an Orange on Mount Carmel on Ash Wednesday\u201d \u2013 it really happened that way.\u00a0 I snagged an orange from our hotel\u2019s breakfast buffet and pocketed it as a snack.\u00a0 I ate it while we were at Carmel. Our guide was to one side of us, telling us about the history of the place, on the other side were two men from another tour group getting very excited about the eschatological significance of the place, \u201cThis is where it\u2019s all going to go down, man!\u201d\u00a0 And I just wanted to share some sort of communion, so I broke apart the segments of my orange (which I\u2019ve just discovered, are referred to as \u201csupremes\u201d<\/a>)\u00a0and shared them with my tour mates.<\/p>\n

From the lectionary middle section my favorite is \u201cHow Shall I Rise in Brightness?\u201d as I\u2019m thinking about the horrible juxtaposition of the senate Torture report and this Christmas \/ Advent season.<\/p>\n

From the 3rd<\/sup> Haiku section \u2013 I would choose the haiku based on John 10:22-24 (page 66) fitting for the weather we\u2019ve had, and the wonder and ambiguity (and even doubt) I have sometimes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How did the pairings of poems and photographs come about? Did you write the poems and then seek photos to accompany them? Or was it the reverse? Or did it vary?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"JeffAs Major Jackson was very keen to have the Israel poems represented, and others on his staff very much wanted to see the Haikus.\u00a0 We slowly narrowed the list down to these.\u00a0 The pairing of my photos to the poems was left to my discretion up to me.\u00a0 I chose those that I thought would 1) fit well with the poems (even if they weren\u2019t explicitly linked) matching the mood, if not the content \u2013 and 2) would reproduce well in print.\u00a0 We had to change out one photograph towards the end of the process because the printer was concerned that it wouldn\u2019t come out as well as we would have hoped.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The part of the book that particularly made an impression is the section on the Holy Land. I could relate to the sense of ambiguity as a visitor \u2013 indeed, I\u2019ve been caught not just between pilgrim and tourist but also between those two and educator, as well as several other possible identities I can think of. And the land itself seems pulled and divided in similarly conflicting ways. I know that I saw things on my visits which I didn\u2019t manage to capture in a photo. If there is one image or word-picture that sums up the Holy Land \u2013 what it is, or what you hope it can be \u2013 what would that be?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Millennia of conflict and division and expectation and longing, and you want me to condense it down to one single word?\u00a0 Impossible.<\/p>\n

But there it is, a place where impossible things are believed to have happened, and where we still believe (or hope) that impossible things can continue to happen.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oh goodness, I didn\u2019t mean to suggest a single word \u2013\u00a0I meant a single image, whether an actual picture or its expression in (multiple) words!<\/p>\n

But that makes a nice place to conclude \u2013\u00a0one doesn\u2019t have to visit the Holy Land to experience life\u2019s ambiguity \u2013 it is enough for me to ask a poorly-worded question! Jeff\u2019s book\u00a0offers a wonderful avenue to explore those ambiguous aspects of life, at the intersection of speaking and silence, praise and sorrow, hope and despair.\u00a0He connects them via\u00a0(1) a focus on geographic locales that are connected\u00a0in the minds of many with both war and peace, destruction and salvation, (2) poems and Scripture verses that touch on many topics, but which converge (as he put it so nicely in his answer to the last question above) on the possibility of hoping for the impossible in the midst of challenging circumstances, and (3) photos, many of which\u00a0illustrate how one can come to view the familiar in new ways which open new vistas of beauty.<\/p>\n

The book will make an excellent Christmas gift, and I hope that it will soon be available in bookstores. But in the meantime, you can get a copy via via Amazon.com<\/a>\"\".<\/p>\n

I am grateful to Jeff for taking the time to share some of\u00a0the \u201cbehind the scenes\u201d stories related to how the book came about. The one thing I forgot to ask is whether his next book will be one of limericks\u2026<\/p>\n

\"Muted<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Readers of my blog, and people who follow me on Twitter or are connected with me on Facebook, will be familiar with Jeff Carter, whose blog That Jeff Carter Was Here features things like Bible-inspired limericks. But his blog has also regularly featured photography and poetry, and those posts were in some instances precursors to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":27650,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,9,150],"tags":[4710,4782,5617,7822,9099,9279],"class_list":["post-27649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","category-book-review","category-israel-travel","tag-holy-land","tag-hosannas","tag-jeff-carter","tag-muted","tag-photography","tag-poetry"],"yoast_head":"\nMuted Hosannas<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Readers of my blog, and people who follow me on Twitter or are connected with me on Facebook, will be familiar with Jeff Carter, whose blog That Jeff\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/12\/muted-hosannas.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Muted Hosannas\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Readers of my blog, and people who follow me on Twitter or are connected with me on Facebook, will be familiar with Jeff Carter, whose blog That Jeff\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/12\/muted-hosannas.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. McGrath\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/religionprof\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-12-16T22:26:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"James F. McGrath\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ReligionProf\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"James F. McGrath\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/12\/muted-hosannas.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/12\/muted-hosannas.html\",\"name\":\"Muted Hosannas\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-12-16T22:26:09+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-12-16T22:26:09+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/78342576667b872e3d259c153ce4c5bf\"},\"description\":\"Readers of my blog, and people who follow me on Twitter or are connected with me on Facebook, will be familiar with Jeff Carter, whose blog That Jeff\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/12\/muted-hosannas.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/12\/muted-hosannas.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/12\/muted-hosannas.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Muted Hosannas\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/\",\"name\":\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. McGrath\",\"description\":\"The Blog of Dr. James F. McGrath, Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University, Indianapolis\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/78342576667b872e3d259c153ce4c5bf\",\"name\":\"James F. McGrath\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/88ca096942acd474313f7ef4227a49da?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/88ca096942acd474313f7ef4227a49da?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"James F. McGrath\"},\"description\":\"Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. BD University of London, PhD Durham University. Author of John's Apologetic Christology, The Only True God, Theology and Science Fiction, and The Burial of Jesus, as well as (with Charles Haberl of Rutgers University) the two-volume Mandaean Book of John critical edition, translation, and commentary. Also author of numerous articles (and a few science fiction short stories) and the editor or co-editor of several volumes.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3Ge8ul5\",\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/religionprof\/\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/jamesfmcgrath\/\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/jfmcgrat\/\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ReligionProf\",\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/religionprof\",\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/religionprof\",\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/James_F._McGrath\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/author\/james-f-mcgrath\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Muted Hosannas","description":"Readers of my blog, and people who follow me on Twitter or are connected with me on Facebook, will be familiar with Jeff Carter, whose blog That Jeff","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/12\/muted-hosannas.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Muted Hosannas","og_description":"Readers of my blog, and people who follow me on Twitter or are connected with me on Facebook, will be familiar with Jeff Carter, whose blog That Jeff","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/12\/muted-hosannas.html","og_site_name":"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. McGrath","article_author":"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/religionprof\/","article_published_time":"2014-12-16T22:26:09+00:00","author":"James F. McGrath","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@ReligionProf","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"James F. McGrath","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/12\/muted-hosannas.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/12\/muted-hosannas.html","name":"Muted Hosannas","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-12-16T22:26:09+00:00","dateModified":"2014-12-16T22:26:09+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/78342576667b872e3d259c153ce4c5bf"},"description":"Readers of my blog, and people who follow me on Twitter or are connected with me on Facebook, will be familiar with Jeff Carter, whose blog That Jeff","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/12\/muted-hosannas.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/12\/muted-hosannas.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/12\/muted-hosannas.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Muted Hosannas"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/","name":"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. McGrath","description":"The Blog of Dr. James F. McGrath, Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University, Indianapolis","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/78342576667b872e3d259c153ce4c5bf","name":"James F. McGrath","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/88ca096942acd474313f7ef4227a49da?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/88ca096942acd474313f7ef4227a49da?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","caption":"James F. McGrath"},"description":"Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. BD University of London, PhD Durham University. Author of John's Apologetic Christology, The Only True God, Theology and Science Fiction, and The Burial of Jesus, as well as (with Charles Haberl of Rutgers University) the two-volume Mandaean Book of John critical edition, translation, and commentary. Also author of numerous articles (and a few science fiction short stories) and the editor or co-editor of several volumes.","sameAs":["https:\/\/amzn.to\/3Ge8ul5","http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/religionprof\/","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/jamesfmcgrath\/","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/jfmcgrat\/","https:\/\/twitter.com\/ReligionProf","http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/religionprof","https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/religionprof","https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/James_F._McGrath"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/author\/james-f-mcgrath"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/136"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}