July 31, 2024

Image attribution: “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light” Genesis 1:3 From the “Genesis: The Creation” book project. Copyright retained by J. Kirk Richards, Let there Be Light 1, Oil on Panel

Continuing the Reflections

We continue to make our way to the Nicene Creed series. As we wait, we offer a poem and a reflection. The following poem and reflection are taken from Pádraig Ó Tuama’s book: Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World

Book of Genesis

by Kei Miller I Suppose there was a book full only of the word, let – from whose clipped sound all things began: fir and firmament, feather, the first whale – and suppose   we could scroll through its pages every day to find and pronounce a Let meant only for us – we would stumble through the streets with open books,   eyes crossed from too much reading; we would speak in auto-rhyme, the world would echo itself – and still we’d continue in rounds, saying let and let and let   until even silent dreams had been allowed.

Pádraig Ó Tuama’s Reflection on the Poem

Years ago, Kei Miller came to give a reading in Belfast, and I couldn’t make it. A friend went and raved about it, and I knew I’d missed something memorable. This poem is from the collection titled There Is an Anger that Moves, and more specifically from a sequence of poems that share titles with biblical books. The biblical book of Genesis opens with a magnificent poem of creation, the one most people are familiar with, starting in most translations with something like In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The creation narrative then goes on to imagine God saying: Let there be Light! and the response comes: And there was Light! Then, heavens and earth, animals and birds, fish and stars, plants and people. Each of these, in the English translations, is brought into being with a Let there be . . . followed by and there was . . . creeping things that creep upon the earth, swimming things that swim in the sea, speaking things that speak amongst each other. The average English translation of Genesis has almost forty thousand words. However, in his poem ‘Book of Genesis’ Kei Miller opens a door into this first book of the Bible with just one word: Let. Let, Let, Let. When you read the original biblical poem of creation – or hear it, because it was written mostly for audiences who couldn’t read, but who had a sophisticated engagement with spoken literatures – what stands out is that the writers esteemed language so highly they rendered it as the very tool God used to create the everything. In his poem, Kei Miller makes the logic of that ‘Let’ echo into contemporary settings: streets and books and scrolling. ‘Suppose’, he begins, and then imagines a book, a book full of one generous, world-creating word: let, let, let, let, let. It’s a one-syllable word, a ‘clipped’ word, Miller calls it. And he echoes the biblical text, saying that ‘fir / and firmament, feather, the first whale’ might have come from that word. The alliteration is gorgeous, and the imagery too: a tree, the stars, the thing that keeps a bird warm and helps it fly, a magnificent sea mammal. We see the simple and the splendid gathered together in his lines. But in the poem, the word let is not just for worldmaking, it’s for discovery too. If there existed such a book – or a scroll, he says, invoking both smartphones and ancient texts – full of the word let, then a person might search through that book every day looking for a let that would give them permission to be. If Let there be light made the light, then Let there be you might make a person feel alive.

FIRST Watermelon Wednesday of the season TONIGHT, 6pm-8pm! The watermelon will be cold and the grill will be hot! Bring somehting for the grill and a side to share. Bring friends for this fun summer activity.

If it rains, it will be canceled and a message will be posted on FB and sent out.

Come Saturday at 9am – Lake Anne Coffee House – at Lake Anne. Coffee & Conversation is offered one LAST TIME this summer! Visit with Rev. Dina and whomever comes along for a relaxing visit.

Bring School Supplies and Shoes (“Soles for Souls!”) for blessing scheduled for Sunday 8/4.