This month I had the joy of facilitating a creative writing workshop for some of our CSU students. We delved together into a safe, creative space and banished our inner critics to engage more deeply with the theme of Embodied Faith. This is a theme close to my heart, around which much of my own poetry revolves, and it was wonderful to hear others’ reflections on it. Our blog for July is an accumulation of learnings from this workshop.

This Body

Jay Hulme

 

This body is a cathedral holier than those

made by human hands. This body is a

cathedral holier than those made by

human hands. This body is undergoing

a personal reformation. This body is

enduring a modern iconoclasm.

This body is being remade in a new

shade of beauty. This body is altering

its archways. This body is reverting

old changes. This body is fixing the

damage. This body is filled with prayer.

This body holds relics of saints. This body

turns sunlight into statuary. This body is

built out of bondage. This body is still

a cathedral. This body is still holy.

This body is filled with worship.

We cense these shattered bones.

Find more of Jay’s work here: https://jayhulme.com/

The following poem was my response to a prompt where we each imagined the resurrected Jesus bearing our own scars.

by his wounds we are healed

Gabi Cadenhead

 

the gardener says my name,

draws aside grave clothes

to reveal a belly pierced

by five keyhole incisions,

stitched carefully closed.

 

it is like staring in a mirror,

though my surgical scars

are but a warped refraction

of the violence

he has suffered.

 

bereft of a gallbladder,

I am filled with new life,

announced by nausea

and shrouded

in a hospital gown.

 

in the baring of skin

I glimpse his divinity

and he mine,

bodies broken like bread,

healing wounds made holy.

 

with thanks to the support of Christian Students Uniting

The following poem was written by workshop participant and University of Sydney PhD candidate in English literature Hannah Roux.

There is no need to be afraid

Hannah Roux

 

Your first place of sanctuary

was your body. Your second

the large bay window with its quadrilateral

ledge just large enough

for a child to sit on. Your third

the mind (which is its own place)

the images that letters left there, and the sound

of your voice, reedy and singing, like the whine

of an untuned violin.

 

Remember: bodies grow older

and we love them less, but they remain

the same. Be still, then, and know

this window-seat is wide enough for you.

There is no need to be afraid

of the sound of your own voice.