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I still remember the opening session of the 2002 Festival of Faith & Writing. It featured the poet Stephen Dunn, who just the year before had won the Pulitzer Prize.
That long ago April noontime came to mind again when I learned that Dunn died last week of Parkinson’s disease.
Rita Dove, a one-time U.S. poet laureate, observed that Dunn was someone who “achieves that most difficult magic of the ordinary.” And that’s what I remember about him: he was unassuming and wry, charming and deeply thoughtful. That, and the poem that he shaped his talk around, which I share below. It’s a poem that in its utter ordinariness of topic navigates profoundly complicated territory indeed, including the twist of that wonderful final line. See if it doesn’t make you think about your own silently sung songs, your own reckoning with “what’s comic, what’s serious,” your own sense of the stories that have pull in your life. It’s a great poem, I think, one that has stayed with me over twenty years. So I share it, with gratitude, with you today.
At the Smithville Methodist Church It was supposed to be Arts & Crafts for a week, but when she came home with the "Jesus Saves" button, we knew what art was up, what ancient craft. She liked her little friends. She liked the songs they sang when they weren't twisting and folding paper into dolls. What could be so bad? Jesus had been a good man, and putting faith in good men was what we had to do to stay this side of cynicism, that other sadness. OK, we said, One week. But when she came home singing "Jesus loves me, the Bible tells me so," it was time to talk. Could we say Jesus doesn't love you? Could I tell her the Bible is a great book certain people use to make you feel bad? We sent her back without a word. It had been so long since we believed, so long since we needed Jesus as our nemesis and friend, that we thought he was sufficiently dead, that our children would think of him like Lincoln or Thomas Jefferson. Soon it became clear to us: you can't teach disbelief to a child, only wonderful stories, and we hadn't a story nearly as good. On parents' night there were the Arts & Crafts all spread out like appetizers. Then we took our seats in the church and the children sang a song about the Ark, and Hallelujah and one in which they had to jump up and down for Jesus. I can't remember ever feeling so uncertain about what's comic, what's serious. Evolution is magical but devoid of heroes. You can't say to your child "Evolution loves you." The story stinks of extinction and nothing exciting happens for centuries. I didn't have a wonderful story for my child and she was beaming. All the way home in the car she sang the songs, occasionally standing up for Jesus. There was nothing to do but drive, ride it out, sing along in silence.
Thank you for reminding us of this remarkable poem. A great gift for the morning.
Had an email from Stephen a bit ago. He wrote only “I have three more weeks.” Thank you for this loving tribute that has more of his biography than his biography.
My wife Julie is a Navy brat. She understands.
So honest and so beautiful. Thank you for this today.
That is a wonderful poem. Thanks for sharing it.
Jennifer, I’m reminded of G. K. Chesterton, who, (in the words of Jon Meacham) described himself as an “ordinary” man when it came to religion. . .”The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic. He has permitted the twilight. He has always had one foot in earth and the other in fairyland. He has always left himself free to doubt his gods; but (unlike the agnostic of today) free also to believe in them. He has always cared more for truth than for consistency. If he saw two truths that seemed to contradict each other, he would take the two truths and the contradiction along with them” (Meacham, AMERICAN GOSPEL, pps 242, 243).
Even the deist Thomas Jefferson, couldn’t get “Nature’s God” out of his psyche.
What a sheepish concession by Mr. Dunn to “the exciting [that] happens for centuries.”
Does anyone know what the world and life view now is of his daughter? Jesus has a way of insinuating Himself to people in 10,000 ways. Jesus. Say the Name. There is no shame.
Ah, the everlasting work of story and song. Thank you for sharing this precious poem.
I, too, was at the Festival presentation of this poem read and discussed by Dunn. It left a real impact on me for many reasons. I used it for several years as a teaching tool to my senior English students. Sad to hear he struggled with Parkinson’s and has now passed.
I was baptized at six weeks in the RCA church my 94 year old mother still attends. I grew up with songs about Jesus with lots of motions. I sang, “For God so loved the world, he gave his only Son, who died on ‘Calvary Street’ . . . and, other songs with words I heard differently. For me, it was a magical time. I loved singing LOUDLY for Sunday School programs and waving at my parents and grandparents. All that music as a child led me to being a church musician in my Presbyterian Church for 50 years. I would love to find out whatever happened to Dunn’s little girl. Is she still singing? 🎵
So rich – it’s one that stays with us when we read and reread it slowly; so evocative.
Thanks, Jennifer!