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Today, the poet and professor Mischa Willett joins Grace to discuss the Romantic era of literature and one of its greatest writers in particular: Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

For Philip James Bailey's Festus: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-philip-james-bailey-festus.html

Mischa Willett is the author of several poetry books, including the forthcoming This Gift Card Has Already Been Redeemed. He is Director of the Whitworth Writers’ Workshop, a low-residency MFA program in creative writing at Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington. His poems, essays, translations, and academic articles appear in a wide range of venues. More information can be found at www.mischawillett.com.

 

Today is the last installment of this year's Lent series. Grace welcomes Dr. Abram Van Engen to discuss all things George Herbert, much to her delight (a bit of fangirling over Herbert is always in order). They focus on the beautiful, dense, multilayered poem "The Altar."

Abram Van Engen is Stanley Elkin Professor in the Humanities, Chair of the English Department, and Professor of Religion and Politics (by courtesy) at Washington University in St. Louis.

Van Engen has published widely on religion and literature, focusing especially on seventeenth-century Puritans and the way they have been remembered and remade in American culture. His book, Word Made Fresh, introduces reading poetry as a spiritual practice. He hosts the podcast Poetry for All.

Here is the text, but be forewarned that the shape of it might be altered (get it?) in the podcast notes, so do look it up to see the poem's proper shape.

 A broken ALTAR, Lord, thy servant rears,  Made of a heart and cemented with tears:   Whose parts are as thy hand did frame; No workman's tool hath touch'd the same.                    A HEART alone                    Is such a stone,                   As nothing but                   Thy pow'r doth cut.                   Wherefore each part                   Of my hard heart                   Meets in this frame,                   To praise thy name:        That if I chance to hold my peace,  These stones to praise thee may not cease.    Oh, let thy blessed SACRIFICE be mine,      And sanctify this ALTAR to be thine.

In the latest installment of the Lent series, Grace welcomes Amy Baik Lee to discuss the poignant Sonnet 19 by the great John Milton.

When I consider how my light is spent,    Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,    And that one Talent which is death to hide    Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present    My true account, lest he returning chide;    “Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”    I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need    Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best    Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed    And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest:    They also serve who only stand and wait.”  

Amy Baik Lee is the author of This Homeward Ache: How Our Yearning for the Life to Come Spurs on Our Life Today. Her cross-cultural childhood gave her a love for a wide variety of musical and storytelling forms; she grew up to study English literature at the University of Virginia and develop a deep interest in the intersection where faith, the imagination, eucatastrophe, and daily life meet. Her work has been featured by the Rabbit Room, the Anselm Society, Cultivating Magazine, the C.S. Lewis Foundation, the Marion E. Wade Center, the Buechner Review, the One Thousand Words podcast, and others. Away from the writing desk, she enjoys baking and watching birds in the garden with her family in Colorado.

Find out more about Grace's new book, Ask of Old Paths.

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Today, Grace welcomes professor and author David Taylor in this installment of the Lenten poetry series. They talk about the great nineteenth-century poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and in particular, his masterpiece “The Wreck of the Deutschland.” 

W. David O. Taylor is Associate Professor of Theology & Culture at Fuller Theological Seminary and the author of ten books, including Open and Unafraid, Glimpses of the New Creation, Naming the Spirit, and the forthcoming, To Set the World Aflame. An Anglican priest, he has written for The Washington Post, Christian Scholars Review, Image Journal, and Christianity Today, among others, while also contributing scholarly essays to The T&T Clark Companion to Theology and the Arts and Theology, Modernity and the Visual Arts. He lives on 21 acres east of Austin with his artist wife and children.

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Grace is delighted to kick off this year’s Lent series. Every other week during Lent Grace will have a guest who has chosen a Lenten-themed poem to share. Today, though, is just a little meditative beginning with three Middle English poems, text below, translations by Grace Hamman. 

Westminster Abbey MS 27 (175 in Carleton Brown's XVth Century Lyrics)

Wise men bene but scorned,

& wedows eke foryerned,

Grete men arn bot glosid,

& smale men arn borne doun & myslosed,

Lordis wex euer blynd,

Ffrendis ben vnkynde,

Dethe is oute of mynde,

Treuth may no man fynde.

 

Wise men are only mocked,

and widows are forgotten,

Great men are flattered,

& the little ones are downtrodden and blamed,

The powerful grow ever more blind,

Friends become unkind,

Death has left the mind,

Truth itself no man can find.

 

Advocates Lib. 18.7.21 (66 in Brown's XIVth Century Lyrics)

Loue me brouthte,

& loue me wrouthte,

Man, to be thi fere.

Loue me fedde,

& loue me ledde,

& loue me lettet here.

 

Loue me slou,

& loue me drou,

& loue me leyde on bere.

Loue is my pes,

For loue I ches,

Man to by3en dere.

 

Ne dred the nouth

I haue the south,

Bothen day & nith,

to hauen the,

Wel is me,

I haue the wonnen in fith.

 

Love brought me,

Love wrought me,

Man, to be your advocate.

Love fed me,

Love led me,

And love stopped me here.

 

Love slew me,

Love drew me,

Love laid me on bier.

Love is my peace,

For love I chose

Man to buy so dear [at a high cost].

 

Dread thee nought,

For I have thee sought,

Both day and night.

In having thee

Well is me.

I have won thee in the fight.

 

Advocates MS 19. I. II, (111 in Brown's XVth Century Lyrics)

 

I Haue laborede sore and suffered deyth,

and now I Rest and draw my breyght,

but I schall come and call Ryght sone

heuene and erght and hell to dome;

and thane schall know both devyll and mane,

What I was and what I ame.

 

I have labored sore and suffered death,

and now I rest and draw my breath,

but I shall come and call very soon

heaven and earth and hell to doom [judgment];

And then shall know, both devil and man,

What I was and who I am.

Today, Grace chats with the poet Paul Pastor on another poet, the revolutionary thinker and artist William Blake. 

Paul J. Pastor is Executive Editor of Nelson Books at HarperCollins, an essayist, critic, and poet, writer of The Rose Fire on Substack, and author of several books, most recently The Locust Years: Poems, from Wiseblood Books. He lives in Oregon. 

Grace is going to take a sabbatical from Old Books with Grace for a few months as she and her family are in the middle of several big projects and changes. You can keep up with her at gracehamman.substack.com while she's taking a break from the podcast, though!

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Today Grace welcomes Elizabeth Oldfield to recast these ancient ideas of vices and virtues into contemporary language. Why should we care about these ancient and sometimes worn-thin concepts? How can they speak to our world today--even if that world does not believe the same things as the church believes?

Elizabeth Oldfield is the author of Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times. She is a speaker, coach, and consultant, and the host of The Sacred podcast. Elizabeth has a masters in Theology and the Arts and lives in an intentional Christian community in South London with her family.

Today, Grace welcomes author Lisa Colón DeLay to discuss the fascinating ancient Christians that we now call the Desert Fathers and Mothers. People like Evagrius, Amma Theodora, St. Moses the Black, St. Anthony the Great, and many others offer deep wisdom in their own time and to us today.

Lisa Colón DeLay is the author of The Wild Land Within and has an MA in spiritual formation. She writes, teaches, and creates products and resources related to spiritual formation. Since 2015, she has hosted Spark My Muse, a top-rated religion and spirituality podcast. DeLay grew up in Pittsburgh, having left her native country of Puerto Rico, and now resides near the Appalachian Trail in a small town in Pennsylvania. Discover more, including more links and more information on her new book and the desert fathers and mothers, at lisadelay.com.

Learn more about Grace's new book, Ask of Old Paths: Medieval Virtues & Vices for a Whole & Holy Life.

This week, Grace welcomes her dear friend from graduate school, fellow medievalist Dr. Jessica D. Ward, to discuss one of their favorites: Geoffrey Chaucer, author of the great Canterbury Tales! Come for Middle English, discussions of why Chaucer deserves his reputation, and continuing discussion of the backgrounds in Grace's new book, Ask of Old Paths, as Grace and Jessica discuss their mutual interests in the Parson's Tale and penitential literature.

Dr. Jessica D. Ward is an early English literature scholar. She has taught undergraduate and graduate courses on medieval and early modern literature, culture, and language and has written for various academic journals and collections on these topics.  She has served as a dramaturg for professional Shakespeare productions in New York as well as in Texas, where she now lives with her husband, toddler son, and their spunky little lion dog, Oscar, the shih tzu. She enjoys delighting in Middle English and its muses and legacies on Substack in her newsletter Middle English Delights. 

Buy Grace's new book, Ask of Old Paths: Medieval Virtues & Vices for a Whole & Holy Life. 

Grace invites on one of her heroes (!), Professor Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung, professor of medieval philosophy and author of Glittering Vices. They talk Aquinas, vices, Jane Austen, and more in this delightful conversation. 

Rebecca DeYoung (Ph.D. University of Notre Dame) has enjoyed teaching ethics and the history of ancient and medieval philosophy at Calvin College for over 20 years.  Her research focuses on the seven deadly sins, and virtue ethics, as well as Thomas Aquinas’s work on the virtues. Her books include Glittering Vices, Vainglory, and a co-authored volume entitled Aquinas’s Ethics.  Awards for her work include the Book and Essay Prize from the Character Project and the C.S. Lewis prize for Glittering Vices. She speaks widely, including opportunities to teach in prison. She and her husband Scot live in Grand Rapids, near the beautiful Lake Michigan shoreline. They have four adult children.

Check out Grace's new book, Ask of Old Paths: Medieval Virtues & Vices for a Whole & Holy Life

Welcome to season six of Old Books with Grace! Today, the tables are turned. Grace welcomes her very own husband, the wonderfully handsome, talented, and clever structural engineer, Scott Hamman, to interview her on her new book, Ask of Old Paths: Medieval Virtues & Vices for a Whole & Holy Life. This episode kicks off a lovely series on virtues and vices this fall featuring many wonderful thinkers.

Get Ask of Old Paths on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Thriftbooks, Target, Bookshop.org, or best of all, contact your local bookstore, or ask your library to purchase a copy!

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In today's episode, Grace welcomes Dr. Daniel McInerney to think about some big questions: what is the relationship between beauty and art? Art and imitation? This conversation ranges from Aristotle to Austen in its exploration of literary, visual, and dramatic art.

Daniel McInerny is associate professor and chair of the philosophy department at Christendom College in Front Royal, Virginia. Daniel is the author of Beauty & Imitation: A Philosophical Reflection on the Arts. He is also a novelist and dramatist and writes the Substack newsletter, The Comic Muse, a review of culture and the arts. Daniel and his wife Amy have three grown children and two adorable grandchildren and live in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.

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Welcome to Old Books with Grace! Today marks the final episode in the Old Books with Grace Lent Series, on T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets.

Today we read Little Gidding as poet and editor Lisa Ampleman joins Grace for a thoughtful conversation.

Lisa Ampleman is the author of a chapbook and three full-length books of poetry, most recently Mom in Space (2024) and Romances (2020), both with LSU Press. Her work has appeared recently on Poetry Daily and Verse Daily and in journals including 32 Poems, Colorado Review, Cortland Review, Ecotone, Georgia Review, The Rumpus, Shenandoah, and Southern Review. She lives in Cincinnati and is the managing editor of The Cincinnati Review and poetry series editor at Acre Books.

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Welcome to Old Books with Grace! Today marks the third episode in the Old Books with Grace Lent Series, on T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets.

Today we read The Dry Salvages as poet and editor Andy Patton joins Grace for a lively discussion.

Andy Patton is the creator of the Darkling Psalter, a collection of creative renditions of the Psalms. He holds an M.A. in theology from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He is the Director of Content for the Rabbit Room and is a former staff member at L'Abri Fellowship in England.

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Lent is a time of repentance, reflection, and reconciliation. These are actions that happen in time, facilitated by memory and love. So even though we, as followers of Christ, repent, reflect, and reconcile year-round, one hopes, we set aside a time to especially do so, to be as intentional as we can, to pay special attention to our blessed limitations as creatures of God. It is easy to let these things go.

This is what Lent is for. It so happens that these themes—love, memory, time, attention, repentance, creatureliness—are also themes extensively explored in T.S. Eliot’s masterpiece set of poems, the Four Quartets. Each episode in this Lent series, Grace will be discussing one of the quartets with a guest. Today Grace welcomes Professor O. Alan Noble for a thoughtful conversation on East Coker, the second poem.

Dr. O. Alan Noble is Associate Professor of English at Oklahoma Baptist University, a fellow at the Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics, and author of three books: On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden and Gift of Living, You Are Not Your Own: Belonging to God in an Inhuman World, and Disruptive Witness: Speaking Truth in a Distracted Age. Dr. Noble has published articles at The Atlantic, The Gospel Coalition, First Things, and Christianity Today. He lives with his wife and three children. 

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Welcome to Old Books with Grace! Today is Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent 2025. And today begins the Old Books with Grace Lent Series, on T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets.

Lent is a time of repentance, reflection, and reconciliation. These are actions that happen in time, facilitated by memory and love. So even though we, as followers of Christ, repent, reflect, and reconcile year-round, one hopes, we set aside a time to especially do so, to be as intentional as we can, to pay special attention to our blessed limitations as creatures of God. It is easy to let these things go.

This is what Lent is for. It so happens that these themes—love, memory, time, attention, repentance, creatureliness—are also themes extensively explored in T.S. Eliot’s masterpiece set of poems, the Four Quartets. Each episode in this Lent series, Grace will be discussing one of the quartets with a guest. Today is the first, Burnt Norton, and poet and editor Paul Pastor joins Grace for a lively discussion.

Paul J. Pastor is Executive Editor of Nelson Books at HarperCollins, an essayist, critic, and poet, writer of The Rose Fire on Substack, and author of several books, most recently The Locust Years: Poems, from Wiseblood Books. He lives in Oregon. 

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Zwingli is one of those names that floats around the ether--but in comparison to his more famous reforming counterparts, like Luther or Calvin, he doesn't get brought up much. Grace welcomes author and professor Stephen Eccher to discuss this radical reformer and his sixteenth-century impact. 

Stephen Brett Eccher  is Associate Professor of Church History and Reformation Studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina, where he has taught since 2012. His academic work focuses primarily on Reformation history and theology, especially at the intersection of the sixteenth century Swiss Reformed and Swiss Anabaptist traditions.

He is the author of numerous journal articles and chapters on the Protestant Reformation and the book Zwingli the Pastor: A Life in Conflict (Bellingham: Lexham Press, 2023). Stephen and his wife Cara have four daughters and have been members at Open Door Baptist Church in Raleigh, North Carolina for twenty-three years where Stephen serves as an elder.

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In this episode Grace welcomes editor, writer, and reader Susannah Black Roberts to discuss one of their mutual favorites: the Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope. George Eliot loved him. Henry James hated him. What are we to think of this wordy man? 

Susannah Black Roberts is senior editor at Plough. She is a native Manhattanite. She and her husband, the theologian Alastair Roberts, split their time between Manhattan and the West Midlands of the UK.

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Welcome to this week's episode in the Advent 2024 series, each featuring a sermon from the past. Last week we longed for the Second Coming of Jesus with Sojourner Truth, this week we long for Jesus's mercy in our hearts right now, with the seventeenth-century Anglican cleric and metaphysical poet, John Donne, in portions of a sermon preached on Christmas Day, 1624.

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Welcome to this week’s episode in the Advent 2024 series, each featuring a sermon from the past. Last week we longed for the historical arrival of the Christ Child with Bernard of Clairvaux. Today, we long for Jesus’s Second Coming with the nineteenth-century preacher, activist, and prophet, Sojourner Truth. 

 

Read Sojourner Truth’s narrative of her life.

 

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Welcome to the first Advent episode of 2024 in Old Books with Grace! In this series, Grace introduces a thinker and a sermon of the past. Each week will focus on one of the advents, comings, arrivals of Jesus Christ: the first, historical coming in Bethlehem; the second coming in the Last Judgment; the present advent of His presence in our hearts. This week is St. Bernard of Clairvaux, on flowers and honey in Isaiah, on Christ the Bee.

 

Purchase Grace's book, Jesus through Medieval Eyes: Beholding Christ with the Artists, Mystics, and Theologians of the Middle Ages. 

Support the podcast at https://buymeacoffee.com/gracehamman.

Today Grace welcomes Dr. Erin Risch Zoutendam to talk about how medieval and early modern people were reading and encountering scripture. Highlights include Augustine, Bernard of Clairvaux, and Julian of Norwich!

Erin Risch Zoutendam received her PhD from Duke University. Her research examines how late medieval and early modern biblical hermeneutics shaped Christian conceptions of mystical contemplation. She currently teaches at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey.

In this episode, Grace welcomes historical fiction writer Amy Mantravadi to discuss the Reformers, just in time for Reformation Day! As a medievalist, Grace always has some complex feelings for Martin Luther and company, but Amy brings knowledge and enthusiasm to this conversation about these fascinating sixteenth-century folk, as well as the role of historical fiction in our learning, in our discussion of her new fiction of the Reformation, Broken Bonds.

Amy Mantravadi lives in Dayton, Ohio with her husband, Jai, and their son, Thomas. She holds a B.A. in biblical literature and political science from Taylor University and received her M.A. in international security from King's College London. In addition to writing essays on theological topics, she also writes historical fiction and has two novels about the Reformation forthcoming, including Broken Bonds.

In today’s episode, Grace welcomes her friend, Shannon K. Evans, to chat about that fascinating group of people that the church today often calls the mystics. They consider the spirituality of women like St. Teresa of Avila, Margery Kempe, St. Catherine of Siena, and more and what they offer the present-day lovers of God.

Shannon K. Evans is the author of The Mystics Would Like a Word, Feminist Prayers for My Daughter, and Rewilding Motherhood. She serves as the spirituality and culture editor at the National Catholic Reporter and makes her home in Iowa with her family and beloved chickens.

The Mystics Would Like a Word

Jesus through Medieval Eyes

 

Today, Grace chats with Dr. Thomas M. Ward about the challenging Scottish philosopher and theologian, Blessed John Duns Scotus. He is also the very unfair origin of the word “dunce”! This is ironic when thinking about one of the most complex, subtle scholastic theologians of the Middle Ages. 

Thomas M. Ward is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. He specializes in the history of philosophy and theology of the Middle Ages. Ward is the author of After Stoicism: Last Words of the Last Roman Philosopher, and has recently translated, with commentary, John Duns Scotus’s Treatise on the First Principle.

Read Ordered by Love: An Introduction to John Duns Scotus

Read Jesus through Medieval Eyes: Beholding Christ with the Artists, Mystics, and Theologians of the Middle Ages

Today, Grace chats with Dr. Lynn Cohick on that enigmatic, fascinating, challenging apostle: St. Paul. 

Lynn H. Cohick (Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania) is Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Director of the Houston Theological Seminary at Houston Christian University. She was Professor of New Testament at Wheaton College and taught at Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology in Nairobi, Kenya. She serves as President of the Institute for Biblical Research. Her books include The Letter to the Ephesians in NICNT (2020); Christian Women in the Patristic World: Their Influence, Authority, and Legacy in the Second through the Fifth Centuries (co-authored with Amy Brown Hughes (2017); Philippians in the Story of God Commentary (2013); Women in the World of the Earliest Christians(2009). 

Check out Lynn's work with the Center for Women in Leadership, the Visual Museum, and her podcast, the Alabaster Jar (you can find the episode with Grace!). 

Old Books with Grace is baaaaack for a fifth season! Grace welcomes Haley Stewart for the first episode of this season, on women novelists of the Catholic imagination--including Rumer Godden, Sigrid Undset, and Toni Morrison. If you're like Grace, get ready to dramatically expand your fiction TBR list.

Haley Stewart is the Editor of Word on Fire Votive and the host of The Votive Podcast. She is the award-winning author of The Grace of Enough, Jane Austen's Genius Guide to Life, and The Sister Seraphina Mysteries. She edited a collection of essays on Catholic women novelists titled Women of the Catholic Imagination. Haley lives in Florida with her four children and never has enough bookshelves.

Don't forget to acquire a copy of Grace's book, freshly out in paperback: Jesus through Medieval Eyes: Beholding Christ through the Artists, Mystics, and Theologians of the Middle Ages (Zondervan Reflective).

In this last episode of season four, Grace welcomes Dr. Lanta Davis to talk about spiritual formation in the beholding of the art of the past.

Lanta Davis is Professor of Humanities and Literature for the John Wesley Honors College at Indiana Wesleyan University. She’s written on literature, art, and history for Smithsonian Magazine, Christianity Today, Christian Century, Parabola, and Plough.  

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Today Grace welcomes Laura Fabrycky to discuss the fascinating, stirring, challenging life and context of theologian and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer, as well as Laura's own transformative experience as a guide at Bonhoeffer's Haus in Berlin. 

Laura M. Fabrycky is a writer, poet, and mother of three. She wrote Keys to Bonhoeffer’s Haus: Exploring the World and Wisdom of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Laura is also a PhD student in systematic theology at ETF Leuven. Her family’s diplomatic postings include Doha, Qatar; Amman, Jordan; Washington, DC; Berlin Germany, and Brussels, Belgium. They currently live in the Washington, DC, area.

As a forever English major, Grace loves figurative language. So she was delighted to welcome Dr. Joy Clarkson for this episode on the power of metaphor and her recent book, You are a Tree.

Joy Clarkson is the author of Aggressively Happy and host of popular podcast, Speaking with Joy. She is the books editor for Plough Quarterly and a research associate in theology and literature at King’s College London. Joy completed her PhD in theology at the University of St Andrews, where she researched how art can be a resource of hope and consolation. Joy loves daffodils, birdwatching, and a well brewed cup of Yorkshire Gold tea. Learn more at JoyClarkson.com.

This year on Old Books with Grace, I am offering a Lent series on penitential poetry from Early Modern poets. That is, on poems of the past that reflect on one’s sin, on the need for forgiveness, on lament, on making things right, on conversion and satisfaction.

In the spirit of Lent, this series will be stripped down to the essentials, which is something I’m trying to maintain in my own life this season. I will give you some background on the poet and poem, where you can find the poem, and translation information if need be. Then, I will read you the poem. I will offer five minutes of silence on the podcast. If you’d like to take this opportunity to meditate on the poem, here is space for you. Today's poem is The Agony by George Herbert.

Philosophers have measur’d mountains, Fathom'd the depths of seas, of states, and kings, Walk’d with a staffe to heav’n, and traced fountains: But there are two vast, spacious things, The which to measure it doth more behove: Yet few there are that sound them; Sinne and Love. Who would know Sinne, let him repair Unto Mount Olivet; there shall he see A man so wrung with pains, that all his hair, His skinne, his garments bloudie be. Sinne is that presse and vice, which forceth pain To hunt his cruell food through ev’ry vein. Who knows not Love, let him assay And taste that juice, which on the crosse a pike Did set again abroach; then let him say If ever he did taste the like. Love is that liquour sweet and most divine, Which my God feels as bloud; but I, as wine.

 

 

This year on Old Books with Grace, I am offering a Lent series on penitential poetry from Early Modern poets. That is, on poems of the past that reflect on one’s sin, on the need for forgiveness, on lament, on making things right, on conversion and satisfaction.

In the spirit of Lent, this series will be stripped down to the essentials, which is something I’m trying to maintain in my own life this season. I will give you some background on the poet and poem, where you can find the poem, and translation information if need be. Then, I will read you the poem. I will offer five minutes of silence on the podcast. If you’d like to take this opportunity to meditate on the poem, here is space for you. Today's poem is A Hymn to God the Father by John Donne.

Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun, 

         Which was my sin, though it were done before? 

Wilt thou forgive that sin, through which I run, 

         And do run still, though still I do deplore? 

                When thou hast done, thou hast not done, 

                        For I have more. 

 

Wilt thou forgive that sin which I have won 

         Others to sin, and made my sin their door? 

Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun 

         A year or two, but wallow'd in, a score? 

                When thou hast done, thou hast not done, 

                        For I have more. 

 

I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun 

         My last thread, I shall perish on the shore; 

But swear by thyself, that at my death thy Son 

         Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore; 

                And, having done that, thou hast done; 

                        I fear no more. 

This year on Old Books with Grace, I am offering a Lent series on penitential poetry from Early Modern poets. That is, on poems of the past that reflect on one’s sin, on the need for forgiveness, on lament, on making things right, on conversion and satisfaction.

In the spirit of Lent, this series will be stripped down to the essentials, which is something I’m trying to maintain in my own life this season. I will give you some background on the poet and poem, where you can find the poem, and translation information if need be. Then, I will read you the poem. Then, I will offer something a little different for Old Books with Grace. I will offer five minutes of silence on the podcast. If you’d like to take this opportunity to meditate on the poem, here is space for you. Today's poem is a metrical translation of Psalm 51 by Lady Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke.

O Lord, whose grace no limits comprehend;

         Sweet Lord, whose mercies stand from measure free;

To me that grace, to me that mercy send,

         And wipe, O Lord, my sins from sinful me.

         Oh, cleanse, oh, wash, my foul iniquity;

               Cleanse still my spots, still wash away my stainings,

               Till stains and spots in me leave no remainings.

 

For I, alas, acknowledging do know

         My filthy fault, my faulty filthiness

To my soul’s eye incessantly doth show,

         Which done to thee, to thee I do confess,

         Just judge, true witness, that for righteousness

               Thy doom may pass against my guilt awarded,

               Thy evidence for truth may be regarded.

 

My mother, lo, when I began to be,

         Conceiving me, with me did sin conceive:

And as with living heat she cherished me,

         Corruption did like cherishing receive.

         But, lo, thy love to purest good doth cleave,

               And inward truth: which, hardly else discerned,

               My truant soul in thy hid school hath learned.

 

Then as thyself to lepers hast assigned,

         With hyssop, Lord, thy hyssop, purge me so:

And that shall cleanse the lepry of my mind.

         Make over me thy mercy’s streams to flow,

         So shall my whiteness scorn the whitest snow.

               To ear and heart send sounds and thoughts of gladness,

               That bruised bones may dance away their sadness.

 

Thy ill-pleased eye from my misdeeds avert:

         Cancel the registers my sins contain:

Create in me a pure, clean, spotless heart;

         Inspire a sprite where love of right may reign

         Ah, cast me not from thee; take not again

               Thy breathing grace; again thy comfort send me,

               And let the guard of thy free sprite attend me.

 

So I to them a guiding hand will be,

         Whose faulty feet have wandered from thy way,

And turned from sin will make return to thee,

         Whom turned from thee sin erst had led astray.

         O God, God of my health, oh, do away

               My bloody crime: so shall my tongue be raised

               To praise thy truth, enough cannot be praised.

 

Unlock my lips, shut up with sinful shame:

         Then shall my mouth, O Lord, thy honor sing.

For bleeding fuel for thy altar’s flame,

         To gain thy grace what boots it me to bring?

         Burt-off’rings are to thee no pleasant thing.

               The sacrifice that God will hold respected,

               Is the heart-broken soul, the sprite dejected.

 

Lastly, O Lord, how so I stand or fall,

         Leave not thy loved Zion to embrace;

But with thy favor build up Salem’s wall,

         And still in peace, maintain that peaceful place.

         Then shalt thou turn a well-accepting face

               To sacred fires with offered gifts perfumed:

               Till ev’n whole calves on altars be consumed.

Welcome to this year's Old Books with Grace Lent Series.

This year's series is on penitential poetry. That is, on poems of the past that reflect on one’s sin, on need, on lament, on making things right, on conversion and satisfaction. Such poetry is part of an ancient tradition, dating back to the Psalms themselves. Today's poem is "Desire," by Thomas Traherne. You can read along below, or listen as I read:

For giving me Desire,

An Eager Thirst, a burning Ardent fire,

A virgin Infant Flame,

A Love with which into the World I came,

An Inward Hidden Heavenly Love,

Which in my Soul did Work and move,

And ever ever me Enflame,

With restlesse longing Heavenly Avarice,

That could never be satisfied,

That did incessantly a Paradice

Unknown suggest, and som thing undescried

Discern, and bear me to it; be

Thy Name for ever praisd by me.

 

My Parchd and Witherd Bones

Burnt up did seem: My Soul was full of Groans:

My Thoughts Extensions were:

Like Paces Reaches Steps they did appear:

They somwhat hotly did persue,

Knew that they had not all their due;

Nor ever quiet were:

But made my flesh like Hungry Thirsty Ground,

My Heart a deep profound Abyss,

And evry Joy and Pleasure but a Wound,

So long as I my Blessedness did miss.

O Happiness! A Famine burns,

And all my Life to Anguish turns!

 

Where are the Silent Streams,

The Living Waters, and the Glorious Beams,

The Sweet Reviving Bowers,

The Sadby Groves, the Sweet and Curious Flowers,

The Springs and Trees, the Heavenly Days,

The Flowry Meads, the Glorious Rayes,

The Gold and Silver Towers?

Alass, all these are poor and Empty Things,

Trees Waters Days and Shining Beams

Fruits, Flowers, Bowers, Shady Groves and Springs,

No Joy will yeeld, no more then Silent Streams.

These are but Dead Material Toys

And cannot make my Heavenly Joys.

 

O Love! ye Amities,

And Friendships, that appear abov the Skies!

Ye Feasts, and Living Pleasures!

Ye Senses, Honors, and Imperial Treasures!

Ye Bridal Joys! Ye High Delights;

That satisfy all Appetites!

Ye Sweet Affections, and

Ye High Respects! What ever Joys there be

In Triumphs, Whatsoever stand

In Amicable Sweet Societie

Whatever pleasures are at his right Hand

Ye must, before I am Divine,

In full Proprietie be mine.

 

This Soaring Sacred Thirst,

Ambassador of Bliss, approached first,

Making a Place in me,

That made me apt to Prize, and Taste, and See,

For not the Objects, but the sence

Of Things, doth Bliss to Souls dispence,

And make it Lord like Thee.

Sence, feeling, Taste, Complacency and Sight,

These are the true and real Joys,

The Living Flowing Inward Melting, Bright

And Heavenly Pleasures; all the rest are Toys:

All which are founded in Desire,

As Light in Flame, and Heat in fire.

Dr. Jessica Hooten Wilson joins Grace on this episode to discuss her new book, Why Do the Heathen Rage? A Behind-the-Scenes Look at a Work in Progress. How does O'Connor's last novel, left unfinished at her death, fit in with the rest of her work? How does one even begin to reconstruct a fragmented manuscript?

Jessica Hooten Wilson is the Fletcher Jones Endowed Chair of Great Books at Pepperdine University. She is the author of several books, most recently Reading for the Love of God. She is a Senior Fellow at The Trinity Forum.

 

Grace welcomes Nadya Williams, professor and author of Cultural Christians in the Early Church. What do the early Christians--and not just the martyrs and great leaders, but the ordinary folk--have to teach us today in their witness, writings, and historical record?

Nadya Williams (PhD, Classics and Program in the Ancient World, Princeton University) is a military historian of the Greco-Roman world and the co-editor of Civilians and Warfare in World History. She is Book Review Editor at Current, where she also edits The Arena blog. She is a regular contributor to the Anxious Bench, and has also written for Plough, Front Porch Republic, Church Life Journal, History Today Magazine, History News Network, and The Conversation.

This year’s Advent series is about the poetry of the Holy Family, the center of Advent and Christmas. Today, we arrive to worship at the manger, brother and sister to the ass and the ox looking lovingly and with great confusion into the unusual bundle resting in the hay. Welcome to the final episode of Advent 2023, on Baby Jesus and love, alongside Gerard Manley Hopkins and Richard Crashaw.

Welcome to the second episode in the 2023 Advent series of Old Books with Grace. Each Wednesday, this series will look at a member of the Holy Family--Mary, Joseph, and Jesus--and a theological virtue--hope, faith, and love. In this episode, Grace meditates upon Joseph, doubt, and faith alongside three greats: W.H. Auden, George MacDonald, and Madeleine L’Engle.

Welcome to the first episode in the Advent series for 2023. Each Wednesday, this series will look at a member of the Holy Family--Mary, Joseph, and Jesus--and a theological virtue--hope, faith, and love. Today, Grace Hamman meditates upon Mary and the stretching, longing virtue of hope alongside a fourteenth-century Middle English poem full of Marian imagery.

Poems from this episode:

Heyl, leuedy, se-steorre bryht

Marye, mayde mylde and fre

Grace's book: Jesus through Medieval Eyes: Beholding Christ with the Artists, Mystics, and Theologians of the Middle Ages

Today, Burl Horniachek chats with Grace about pre-nineteenth-century Christian poetry from other parts of the world that he collected in a lovely volume from Cascade Books called To Heaven’s Rim. From early Syrian poets like Romanos the Melodist to seventeenth-century Chinese artist Wu Li, the selection of Christian poetry is wide and fascinating!

Burl Horniachek is a Canadian high school teacher, poet, translator and editor. He was born in Saskatoon and grew up near Edmonton. He studied Ancient Near Eastern Studies (Hebrew/Ancient Israel) at the University of Toronto and creative writing at the University of Alberta with Nobel Prize winner Derek Walcott. He currently lives near Winnipeg with his wife and two kids.

 

Calling all Louisa May Alcott fans! In this episode, Grace chats with Americanist scholar LuElla D’Amico about children’s literature and the work of Louisa May Alcott in particular... including hard-hitting questions like "Should Laurie have ended up with Jo?!" (there is disagreement on the answer). 

Dr. LuElla D'Amico is an Associate Professor of English and Coordinator of the Women’s and Gender Studies program at the University of the Incarnate Word. Her primary research interests lie in girlhood, girl culture, and religion in early and nineteenth-century American literature, and she has published numerous articles in this vein for academic and popular venues. She also has edited a volume about the history of girls’ series books in the U.S. titled Girls’ Series Fiction and American Popular Culture and is co-editor of Reading Transatlantic Girlhood in the Long Nineteenth Century. Her current book project is titled, Wondrous Reading: Encountering the Catholic Faith in Children’s Literature. She lives on the outskirts of San Antonio, Texas with her husband, two children, and rambunctious chihuahua, Leroy.   

In this special episode about Grace's new book, Jesus through Medieval Eyes: Beholding Christ with the Artists, Mystics, and Theologians of the Middle Ages, Grace gets interviewed on medieval ideas about Jesus in art and literature by none other than the inestimable Scott Hamman, her wonderful non-medievalist structural engineering husband (or in his words, "Mr. Dr. Grace Hamman"). 

Preorder Jesus through Medieval Eyes on Amazon, B&N, or your local bookstore.

Grace welcomes Karen Swallow Prior to discuss her brand-new book, The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis (Brazos, 2023), and from that book, the power of imagination and our formation through literature and products of culture.

Karen Swallow Prior (Ph.D., State University of New York, Buffalo) is a reader, writer, and professor. She is the author of multiple books including The Evangelical Imagination, On Reading Well, and Fierce Convictions. She and her husband live on a 100-year old homestead in central Virginia with dogs, chickens, and lots of books. She writes on Substack at The Priory.

Grace chats with Marianne Wright on the novels and sermons of the great Victorian writer and Presbyterian minister, George MacDonald. Why did this somewhat obscure (for us today, at least) novelist inspired some of the most well-beloved writers of the twentieth century, like C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton? 

Marianne Wright, a member of the Bruderhof, lives in southeastern New York with her husband and five children. She has edited two books for Plough, Anni and The Gospel in George MacDonald. She writes at seasonsofcommunityliving.substack.com.

In this first episode of season four, Grace chats with Reverend Elizabeth Felicetti, author of Unexpected Abundance: The Fruitful Lives of Women Without Children, on the dignity and humanity of women without children and their gift to the church.

The Rev. Elizabeth Felicetti is the rector of St. David's Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia and the author of the new book Unexpected Abundance: The Fruitful Lives of Women Without Children. Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Christian Century and numerous other places. She holds a Master of Divinity from Virginia Theological Seminary and an MFA in Writing from Spalding University.

To join the launch team for Grace's new book, Jesus through Medieval Eyes, click here: https://mailchi.mp/80cb6173698f/jtmelaunchteam

In the last episode of season three, Grace talks with Dr. Michael Lamb on the great African bishop and theologian, St. Augustine of Hippo, and the virtue of hope. 

Michael Lamb is the F. M. Kirby Foundation Chair of Leadership and Character, Executive Director of the Program for Leadership and Character, and Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Humanities at Wake Forest University. He is also a Research Fellow with the Oxford Character Project. He holds a Ph.D. in politics from Princeton University, a B.A. in political science from Rhodes College, and a second B.A. in philosophy and theology from the University of Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. An award-winning teacher, his research and teaching focus on leadership, character, and the role of virtues in public life. He is the author of A Commonwealth of Hope: Augustine’s Political Thought (2022), which offers a bold new interpretation of Augustine’s virtue of hope and its relevance for politics. His work has been published in leading academic journals across numerous disciplines.

With the close of this season, if you'd like to support this podcast, please leave a review, share with a friend, or go to https://www.buymeacoffee.com/gracehamman to help keep OBWG ad-free and with a working microphone and website! Thank you for listening this season!

It's a magical confluence of Mother's Day week, Grace's actual birthday, and the 650th anniversary of Julian's experience with God, so Grace had to mark it in a special way herself. Yes, that's right, Grace is her own guest this week, and she even answers her own get-to-know you literary questions. The main star of the show, however, is the wondrous fourteenth-century contemplative writer, Julian of Norwich, and her beautiful vision of Christ as our Mother.

Preorder Jesus Through Medieval Eyes:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Thriftbooks

IndieBound

 

Normally, obviously, Grace talks about old books. But every now and then, OBWG presents an episode on old art. Because encountering old art is just as much about reading, interpretation, and attention as reading old books is! Today, Grace is delighted to welcome Dr. Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt as a guest.

Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt (Ph.D., Washington University in St. Louis) is an associate professor of art and art history at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia and author of Redeeming Vision: A Christian Guide to Looking at and Learning from Art. As a biracial Japanese-white woman, she has navigated the joys and tensions of a hybrid identity. Dr. Weichbrodt has published on topics ranging from contemporary Black photographers to the patronage of Hawaiian landscape paintings to documentary photographs of Japanese Americans during World War II. She also enjoys writing for general audiences on the intersection of art history, politics, and pop culture.

An artwork we discuss, Margaretha Haverman's A Vase of Flowers: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436634

 

In this episode, Grace chats with Dr. Scott Newstok on William Shakespeare (whose birthday is this week!) and the principles of a renaissance education. 

Scott Newstok is Professor of English and founding director of the Pearce Shakespeare Endowment at Rhodes College. A parent and an award-winning teacher, he is the author of How to Think Like Shakespeare, as well as Quoting Death in Early Modern England, and the editor of several other books, including a forthcoming edition of Michel de Montaigne’s educational writings. 

This year’s Old Books with Grace Lent series, called “A Book that Changed Me,” offers four different conversations with guests on a book of their choice that changed them, made them think deeply about transformation, brought them closer to truth. Books can be mirrors—they can help us to consider ourselves in new light. Books invite us into conversation and reflection we would not have known to participate in without their guidance. Each of the guests in this series has chosen a book that invited them into reflection, remembrance, and self-knowledge. Each conversation is quite different—some more personal, others less—and the books span from the Middle Ages to the 1960s. The last guest of the series is Claude Atcho, who has chosen to talk about the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray by the witty, wonderful Oscar Wilde. 

Claude Atcho resides in Charlottesville, VA where he lives with his family, serves as a pastor of Church of the Resurrection, and enjoys coaching his kids in basketball and soccer. In addition to his preaching and pastoral work, Claude speaks and writes about literature, film, music, and culture from a theological perspective. His writing has been featured at The Witness: A Black Christian Collective, Think Christian, and Christ and Pop Culture. His writing often lives at the intersection of theology, culture, and African American experience. He is the author of Reading Black Books: How African American Literature Can Make Our Faith More Whole and Just.