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.
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